Author: Anna

Winners of the 2014 Mochimochi Photo + Video Contest

Posted on December 16, 2014December 17, 2014 by Anna

The results are in! We are so excited to announce the winners of the 8th Annual Mochimochi Photo + Video Contest today! If you entered at all, of course, you’re a winner in the game of life, because you went out of your way to use your creativity to make something beautiful (or cute and silly) and share it with the world. As Mochimochi Land grows and changes, it’s the original ideas that you all put into it that are the single biggest source of inspiration to me. Thank you!

Big thanks are also in order for our sponsors, Knit Picks and Milk+Honey, for providing super prizes this year. And thank you to my lovely mother-in-law, Bonney, for opening up her stash for additional prizes!

Now for the winners of the photo category!

In third place is the adorable Snow Turtle! by ForeverWrens.

ForeverWrens wins a $10 gift certificate to Knit Picks, a gift bag from Milk+Honey, a $10 gift card to Mochimochi Land, plus a bag and Howdie Doody knitting kit from Bonney Teti’s World’s Biggest Yarn Stash in Wilmot, New Hampshire!

In second place is the incredible Beauty and the Beast by Knit Mermaid.

Knit Mermaid wins a $10 gift certificate to Knit Picks, a gift bag and an additional lotion bar from Milk+Honey, a $10 gift card to Mochimochi Land, plus vintage patterns and kits and more from Bonney!

And our top photo winner is… Fancy Seeing You Here by Molly.

Molly wins a Candy Rainbow Yarn Sampler from Knit Picks, a gift bag and two additional lotion bars from Milk+Honey, a $20 gift card to Mochimochi Land, and a whole slew of vintage patterns and kits and more from Bonney!

And finally, we have a video winner to announce. Let me tell you, we were so excited about the video entries we received (and I will be posting more of them here soon). But one video stood out as a clear winner for its story, its originality, and its execution. It’s By a Thread by juleenbean.

Amazing, right? juleenbean wins everyone’s adoration plus 10 tiny mochi kits!

Congratulations to these very clever knitters! And that wraps up the 2014 Mochimochi Photo + Video Contest—thank you again to all who participated!

Feeling inspired? It’s not too early to enter next year’s contest! All photos added to the Mochimochi Friends Flickr group will automatically be entered in the 2015 Mochimochi Photo Contest. And we’ll probably also bring back our springtime photo series contest, so keep an eye out for that in a few months.

Thank You for Voting!

Posted on December 15, 2014December 16, 2014 by Anna

Update: Congratulations to the winners!

Thank you to the 677 people who cast their votes on the Mochimochi Photo Contest finalists! While we’re tabulating the results, let’s have another look at the fantastic finalist photos.

The Dragon Awakes by Emma Heasman-Hunt

Gnome Nirvana by Suzy Gill-Boucher

Fraidysaurus by Patelyne

Chicken Dim Sum by Theresa Tan

Hello Kitty’s 40th Anniversary by Wooly Brain

Beauty and the Beast by Knit Mermaid

How Many Elephants Does It Take to Change a Lightbulb? by ella.millberg

Santa Snow Ride by photographs memories

Teeny Dancers by The Happy Cupcake

Fancy Seeing You Here by Paul Mozell

Snow Turtle! by ForeverWrens

Tiny Bird, Kale Next by Hannah Kaminsky

If Only They Made Them This Big!!! by huey Li

Mochimochi Nudist Gnome by lucytmarshall

Snowmen Just Wanted to Have Some Fun by Joan

Congrats to all of these knitters for making it to the finals! Check back soon for the top three winners and also our exciting video category winner!

Photo Contest ’14: The Big Vote!

Posted on December 11, 2014December 16, 2014 by Anna

Update: Congratulations to the winners!

It’s voting day in Mochimochi Land! After much deliberation, John and I have selected 15 finalists from the hundreds of photos entered in the 8th Annual Mochimochi Photo Contest.

Presenting your top 15 photos!

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Which of these, in your opinion, are the cutest, funniest, most original photos of Mochimochi toys? Cast your ballot below! To help make things fair, we’re asking that everyone please vote only one time, but PLEASE VOTE FOR AT LEAST TWO PHOTOS. You can vote for even more—as many as you like!

The poll will be open through this weekend, and we’ll announce the top three winners, along with the top video winner (selected by us), on Tuesday, December 16th. Be sure to return for the results!

[POLL CLOSED]

Happy Holidays from Nickelodeon + Mochimochi Land!

Posted on December 10, 2014 by Anna

In 2013 I got to work with Nickelodeon on animated holiday IDs using Mochimochi Land creatures and some mochi-fied Nick characters. I’m happy to say that the animations are back on this month, and there are new ones too! I’ll share more soon, but you can also tune in to Nickelodeon to catch them on air.

Photo Contest ’14: Honorable Mentions

Posted on December 8, 2014December 10, 2014 by Anna

Over the weekend John and I spent a good while looking at all the delightful photos and videos you submitted to the 8th Annual Mochimochi Photo Contest. It’s hard work, but we’re the lucky someones who must do it!

We’re going to do things slightly different than in previous years because of our new video category: today we’re revealing the Honorable Mentions in the photo portion of our contest, and later this week we’ll go straight into voting on the finalists. (No semifinalist round this year). We’ll announce the winning photos and winning video (which John and I will select ourselves) at the same time, then after the winners are announced, we’ll feature the rest of the video entries for everyone to see.

So without further ado, it’s our honor to present the Honorable Mentions! These photos didn’t quite make it into our finalist group, but we were tickled by them nonetheless and we’re exited to feature them here. See the full images close up after the jump!

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Continue reading “Photo Contest ’14: Honorable Mentions” →

Heather’s Tiny Nativity

Posted on December 5, 2014December 5, 2014 by Anna

The Christmas crafts continue today with this sweet tiny nativity made by Heather (Muppetfeet on Ravelry).

On the project page, Heather says that the characters were all based on the Tiny Nun pattern (from the Tiny People collection). That just goes to show how much of a difference an embroidered beard can make!

I also really like the effect of the I-cord hands holding beads as magi gifts. And the adorable tiny donkey (which appears to be the knitter’s design).

From Heather’s page:

Inspired by the lovely folks at First Church Somerville, including my model for the Wise Drag Queen, Miss Serenity Jones.

I knew this was a special project when I spotted it on Ravelry! Also inspiring: the rainbow baby Jesus.

Thank you to Heather for sharing with us!

And to those of you anxiously awaiting photo + video contest results, please check back Monday, when we’ll reveal the Honorable Mentions!

Miriam Felton’s Tiny Mochi Advent Calendar

Posted on December 4, 2014December 4, 2014 by Anna

Earlier this year I started noticing a whole lot of tiny mochis popping up in knitwear designer Miriam Felton’s Instagram feed…

It turns out that she was knitting them for a tiny mochi advent calendar for her sister’s family!

How perfect are those little numbered drawers, right? The only hard part might be picking what goes in each drawer. But Miriam had a plan, as she described in her Instagram caption:

My favorite parts: It starts with the Christmas Tree since they put their tree up on Dec. 1 (sister’s birthday), the cat follows the mouse, then Santa follows the reindeer and Santa is on the 24th.

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I bet someone is having a fun December so far with this! Of course, the mochis have loops attached to them for hanging on the tree.

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Thank you to Miriam for sharing this project and for taking such great photos! If you’re not familiar with Miriam’s beautiful design work, be sure to check her blog and patterns at her website. Also, I just saw that Miriam will be at Knit 1 in Chicago for a meet-and-greet on December 8th!

Thank You for the Entries!

Posted on December 2, 2014December 4, 2014 by Anna

Every year for the past eight years I announce our photo contest with much excitement, then immediately start worrying that people are over it (“it” being the completely impractical activity of knitting toys and posing them for photographs) and no one will enter. And every year, as we get to the final days in the entry period, you all come through with the most amazing entries and I am so excited and grateful and moved.

This year we added a video category, and I’m happy to say that we received 17 entries! I think that’s pretty great for the first year. I can’t even count how many photo entries we had—it was hundreds. (Click on the image above to see them all now if you like!) Thank you SO MUCH to everyone who took time out of their busy lives to participate!

If you missed the December 1st deadline, don’t despair. We’ll be holding this contest again next year, so all photos uploaded to the Mochimochi Friends group will be eligible for (and automatically entered in) the 2015 contest.

We’ll be announcing honorable mentions and semifinalists here on the blog soon, so please check back—we’ll be asking for your help to determine the finalist photos and then the winners, and we want everyone to participate in that!