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Tiny Baby Bunnies Contest!

UPDATE: Congratulations to our winners!

I’m so excited to announce a new springtime Mochimochi contest sponsored by Koigu!

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It’s getting to be that time of year when Tiny Baby Bunnies multiply and melt the world with cuteness! We want to see your cutest, cleverest, and most creative uses of the Tiny Baby Bunnies, a free pattern from Mochimochi Land.

Tiny Baby Bunnies might be tiny, but they can do many things! Your bunnies might be hidden for strangers to find, a la the Tiny Bunnies Movement, or they might re-enact a scene from history, or they might even demonstrate math problems. Show us what your bunnies are doing using one photo or a series of photos uploaded to the Mochimochi Friends Flickr group with the photos tagged bunnycontest12.

The top three winners will each receive a basketful of lovely, colorful Koigu KPM yarn—perfect for knitting Tiny Baby Bunnies!

Deadline for entries is April 2.

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CONTEST DETAILS

Eligibility

Knitters from all countries are welcome to enter! To be eligible, your photo(s) must contain at least one Tiny Baby Bunny made from the free Mochimochi Land pattern. The pattern may be modified, but not beyond recognition from the original design.

How to enter

Simply add your photo(s) to the Mochimochi Friends Flickr group, and tag them with bunnycontest12. If you don’t have a Flickr account, it is free and easy to register (though we recommend signing up as soon as possible, because it takes a little time for your account to be approved for sharing photos in a group).

Your entry can be a single photo or a series of photos, but please limit the total number of photos to 6. Photos entered in this contest will not be eligible for the 2012 Mochimochi Photo Contest this fall.

Judging

Winners will be picked by us at Mochimochi Land, but the Flickr pool is open to be seen by everyone. We will be focusing on creativity in this contest, and not just looking for pretty images.

Deadline

The last day to enter the contest is April 2, 2012. We’ll announce the winners shortly thereafter!

Prizes!

The top three winners each get a basketful of yarn provided by Koigu, with the grand prize big basket going to the first place winner. Thank you Koigu!

New Yarn Store in Brooklyn: Argyle

The other day I finally made it to Argyle, the new yarn store that opened up a few months back on Prospect Park West in Brooklyn, just down the block from me.

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I don’t know why I waited so long to go—it’s such a lovely store, owned by this lovely couple, Esther and David.

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Their passion for knitting is apparent in their great selection of yarn and wide array of tools that knitters need. It’s a great feeling to know that if I need some new needles for a project right now, they’re just a walk away!

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The first time I visited, I introduced myself and mentioned my patterns. I’m not the best self-promoter, but Esther and David made it easy with their enthusiasm for my designs! You can now find a bunch of Mochimochi patterns and kits in their store.

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If you live in or near Park Slope/ Windsor Terrace, Argyle could be your new favorite LYS! They’re renovating a back room for classes, and they’re also planning to add other craft supplies in the future. I’m exited to see this small business grow along with the neighborhood.

Tiny Narwhals Lend a Horn

On Friday I asked what a tiny narwhal uses his awesome horn for. So many of you gave fantastic answers in the comments that we have FIVE winners this week!

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From Mandy: Tiny Narwhal used his horn to conduct the tiny undersea orchestra. He keeps them in rythym so the tiny mermaids can dance.

From Sophia: Tiny Narwhal is quite the political animal… He uses his horn to hold up his Occupy Tiny Ice Floe sign! (He’s protesting against all the rich penguins in tuxedos…)

From Diana: Narly Narwhal loved using his horn every morning to help hold the center of the shoelace bows for his pals the Octopi.

From Emma: Tiny Narwhal rents himself out at Tiny Fish birthday parties as a moving sea-horseshoe target.

and from Lexi: When a Mommy narwhal and a Daddy narwhal love each other very much, they get together and knit a baby narwhal.

These five narwal experts each win the pattern for Plinky and Plunky—way to go! (I’m having some issues with my email program, so please let me know if you’re a winner and you didn’t get the pattern.)

Of course, I have firsthand access to the tiny narwhal himself, and he revealed to me that on weekends tiny narwhals pair up and play Chopsticks on Plinky.

Thank you to everyone for the tiny narwhal captions!

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I’ve had unicorns on the brain lately, and that inevitably led to knitting a tiny narwhal this week!

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Let’s have a tiny narwhal caption contest! Of course my question has to be be: what does he use that awesome horn for??

Leave your answer in the comments (one per person), and we’ll choose our favorite on Monday to win…

The newest PDF pattern in the Mochimochi Shop: Plinky and Plunky!

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Cindy Wills Plush

I was recently in Tulsa for the holidays, and a visit home is no longer complete without a trip to Dwelling Spaces, a store in downtown Tulsa that specializes in fun products and art by locals. I’m usually charmed by something there, and this time it was this handmade plush creature.

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When I was checking out, I asked about the artist and was told that it was Cindy Wills, the youngest daughter of the western musician Bob Wills. I was also told that this plush was special—the artist had recently passed away of cancer, and so there wouldn’t be any more of its kind.

I Googled Cindy Wells when I got home, and found a blog and a Facebook page, both of which feature her vibrant artwork in a myriad of mediums (from watercolor to hooked wool), and both of which end abruptly—maybe no one had access to these accounts to log in and post a proper farewell to Cindy.

I wish I had known about Cindy earlier. She clearly had a creative and bright spirit that touched many people. It continues to do so.

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Behind the Scenes of a Tiny Yeti Party

I thought it would be fun to show my setup for shooting the still images for the Yeti Party GIF.

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(Please ignore the horrendous mess. It gets a little cramped working and sleeping in the same room…)

I normally do my pattern photography using a little tent and these super bright lights, but because I had to get my hands into the scene and move lots of stuff around, I skipped the tent and pointed all the lights away so there wouldn’t be too many shadows.

I also had to find a way to suspend the little mirror ball without using something overhead that would block the light, so I just pulled out the top drawer of my yarn storage and hung it down from that.

Here’s a look at a still photo before I cloned out the wires in Photoshop.

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I wanted some of the yetis to make smooth dancing moves, so I inserted pieces of thin wire through the front yeti’s arms and legs, and one through the arms of the yellow-horned yeti, to make their appendages malleable. (You can see a tiny bit of the wire sticking out from the yellow one’s left hand.) The head-spinning yeti and the two dancing guys are stuck to the styrofoam base using straight pins through their backs where they wouldn’t be visible.

I used Photoshop to make the GIF itself, but there are several free GIF makers out there, which you can find with a web search. But if there are enough people interested in how I made it with Photoshop, I’d be happy to share that sometime!

Mochimochi in Debbie Bliss Magazine

Have you seen the new Debbie Bliss?

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If so, you might have spotted Rainycloud and some Tiny Chickens inside…

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That’s right, I was interviewed for the Spring 2012 issue! It was a pleasure talking with Carol Sulcoski in November, and I’m thrilled with the way the interview turned out.

I had the honor of meeting Debbie Bliss at VK Live last year, and I got to hang out with her and her daughter Nell at TNNA in the summer. It was like getting to sit at the cool kids’ table in the high school cafeteria, except these cool kids are super sweet instead of snobby!

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Thank you to Carol and to Debbie!