Blog

Plush You! Interview and Giveaway

I just had the honor of being interviewed by Kristen Rask for the Plush You! blog.

pyinterview

Kristen asked great questions about me and Mochimochi Land, so it was a lot of fun to do. And the interview includes a giveaway! Leave a comment on Kristen’s post by March 31st and you’ll be entered into a drawing for a $15 Mochimochi Land gift certificate.

Thanks so much, Kristen!

Update: I just went over the the Plush You blog and saw some of the incredibly nice comments you guys have been leaving. I know there’s a gift certificate in it for you, but I’m still really moved by the nice things people have been saying. Thank you, everyone!

Announcing Butterfull!

butterfull_announce

Just two days left until spring is officially here, and Mochimochi Land is getting a head start with a brand-new pattern: Butterfull, the world’s fattest butterfly!

Butterfull knits up quickly, with techniques including i-cord, mattress stitch, and duplicate stitch. And nothing says “spring” like a bouquet of dead flowers, right?

butterfull_flowers

You can buy the pattern as a PDF download here!

Songs About Birds

My sister and I got my mom an iPod shuffle for her birthday last year. She was mildly appalled when I showed her the iTunes store, where you have to buy music? I thought you kids all got it for free on Napster, which is illegal and wrong, by the way!

I asked her what song I should find on iTunes for her, and her immediate request was “Legendary Chicken Fairy,” the most psychedelic song title I’d ever heard. It turned out to be an actual song, by country duo Jack Blanchard and Misty Morgan, who wrote songs mostly about birds in the ’70s. My mom started signing along to the iTunes clip:

Chicken fairy in the sky
Mother Goose’s butterfly
Do whatsever’s necessary
Legendary chicken fairy

Sing a song that’s sanitary
Take my wish o big canary
Legendary chicken fairy…

Then my dad joined in from the kitchen. It was weird and kind of cute. But once the moment passed, my mom refused to pay money for the music by these people who apparently had some part in my parents’ courtship. (“Where’s all that free music I’ve heard about?”) We found some NPR podcasts instead. So for Christmas last year I gave my parents Life and Death (And Almost Everything Else), which includes “The Legendary Chicken Fairy” among its 29 tracks. It got a laugh, if not a long listen.

jackandmistyBut it’s actually an impressive collection of songs. (I had bought the album for myself before getting another one for my parents.) Most of them are clever and melodic, and some are rather beautiful. A lot of them are about birds. I would recommend it to anyone with a sense of humor, and maybe kids.