Author: Anna

Miriam Felton’s Tiny Mochi Advent Calendar

Posted on by Anna

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

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

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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 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.

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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!

Deck the Walruses Pattern FREE with Purchase through Jan 1!

Posted on by Anna

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Our 2014 holiday pattern is here! With Deck the Walruses, you can knit up a wooly wally and a wardrobe of hats for him in an afternoon. Perfect for quick gifts and holiday decor!

The pattern automatically comes FREE with any purchase of $5 or more from the Mochimochi Shop through January 1st! A link to download the pattern will be emailed to you within 24 hours of your purchase. (You don’t have to add it to your cart.)

This is a really simple project: a spherical shape for the body, with a little embellishment on the face, and the tail and front flippers knit as separate pieces and attached.

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I hope you all enjoy!

Tired Turkey

Posted on by Anna

It’s become a tradition for me to post a picture of one of my cats looking vaguely turkey-like on Thanksgiving Day. I think we can all relate to this tuckered-out turkey!

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Today I am giving thanks for an awesome husband and two adorable cats, for my larger family and friends, for my assistant Maureen, for art and music and creative encounters, and for getting to do what I love for a job. And anyone who happens to be reading this post, thank YOU for being here and sharing Mochimochi Land with me.

Stay safe this weekend, don’t get into any Black Friday fights, remember to submit your photo contest entries by Monday, and also check back on Monday for the reveal of our 2014 holiday pattern!

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

Win 10 Tiny Mochi Kits

Posted on by Anna

I have some good news and some bad news. The bad news is that we’ve received a total of two video entries so far in the Mochimochi Photo (and video) Contest. I guess that’s what I get for putting a category in parentheses! The good news is that both entries are great and I would love for either of them to win. Also good news: your chances for winning will be pretty great if you make a video entry of your own by Monday. And what would you win? Here’s what:

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Ten best-selling tiny mochi kits will go to the winner of our video category! (The winner may choose ten different kits if she or he likes.)

If you’re unsure about what to do for this new category, there are so many possibilities: stop-motion animation, puppetry, and live-action are all acceptable—as long as your video contains at least one toy made from a Mochimochi pattern, you’re good to go. The length of your video can be really short (just a few seconds) or up to around 5 minutes long.

The deadline is December 1st, so get videoing! See full contest details.

The Half-Off Holiday

Posted on by Anna

What’s sadder than this small Thanksgiving display at Michaels, with everything 50% off way before Thanksgiving has even arrived?

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Maybe only the other side of this display.

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Browner, messier, and even more half off.

I first noticed Michaels’ sad Thanksgiving display before Halloween, when it was also discounted. (It may have been 40% off then, but I can’t remember.) Clearly Thanksgiving is less fun for retailers than the other major holidays, and that’s one more reason to like this holiday. Brown and orange and yellow just haven’t been cool in a mainstream way for a few decades, so if you want a Thanksgiving-themed sweatshirt or an elaborate fall centerpiece, you’re going to have to actually get creative.

I’ll admit that I’m not working on any Thanksgiving projects this year—I’m just looking forward to a few days with my extended family—but this has me wondering how many of you are out there making any Thanksgiving crafts this year. Can we have a show of hand turkeys?

Win Kitschy Kits and Vintage Patterns from Bonney’s Stash

Posted on by Anna

A bit more than a week is left to enter the Mochimochi Photo and Video Contest! I’ve already showed you the beautiful lotion bars from Milk+Honey and the rainbow of Palette yarn from Knit Picks that are in store for our winners, and now to reveal the prizes that come from my mother-in-law’s stash!

Bonney’s stash, if you aren’t familiar, is the undisputed titleholder of World’s Biggest Yarn Stash. I first introduced it to the world here on this blog in 2007, and in 2011 I did a follow-up interview with Bonney about her stash. (That means it’s about time to do another official check-in on the stash in 2015!) More than just yarn, Bonney’s stash includes kits, tools, weird toys she found on Ebay, and plenty of other randomnesses. So I didn’t know what was going to come when I asked Bonney if she would donate something from her stash for this year’s photo contest prizes. It turns out that Bonney was characteristically generous, and she picked some real gems for us!

Our first-place photo winner will receive these vintage patterns straight out of the mid-20th Century and Bonney’s stash!

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PLUS vintage kits, including a valuable Howdy Doody slipper kit (soles included)! You know you want that kit.

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PLUS this awesome bag that has creepy anthropomorphic rabbits playing croquet on it.

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Our second-place photo winner will also get vintage patterns and kits (including a valuable Howdy Doody mitten kit!), and creepy rabbit bag.

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And our third-place photo winner will receive a valuable Howdy Doody mitten kit and creepy rabbit bag too!

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I can tell already it’s going to be a great weekend for working on entries. And if you’re wondering about the prize for the video portion of our contest, I’m going to announce it next week! See full contest details.

By the way, if you’re intrigued by Bonney and want to get to know here a little better, check out Mom on Pop, the pop-culture podcast that she does with my husband, John. It’s my favorite thing in the world right now.

Tiny Woodland Buttons are Here

Posted on by Anna

I’m so smitten with the Tiny Woodland creatures that I debuted earlier in the fall that I just had to get pin-back buttons made!

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These guys are available as a pack of 4 for $5 in the Mochimochi Shop.

As it so happens, at the same time that I was contemplating having these buttons made by Busy Beaver Button Co., I got an email from them asking if I’d be interviewed on their blog. And that interview is now up!

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You might want to poke around a bit on their blog if you have a moment—you’ll be surprised at how many cool buttons you see there!

Thanks to Abbey and Busy Beaver Button Co. for the interview!