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Goodies from Kristen Rask

Posted on by Anna

For those of you who kindly left comments on the interview I did with Kristen Rask of Plush You, we’ll be determining the winner of the Mochimochi Land gift certificate soon! Kristen has been traveling, and has been without much internet access, so as soon as things settle down for her we’ll be contacting the winner.

Kristen is actually in New York right now, and I had the privilege of sitting down with her on Monday for a cup of coffee and a chat about her Seattle store Schmancy and their huge annual plush show, among other things. It was so much fun! I had met Kristen only briefly before, so it was great to get to know her better. She’s even busier than I had thought, organizing all the shows and events that take place at Schmancy, in addition to running the store itself, and she’s working on a couple of books at the same time. And look—she brought me a present!

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This sweet little bag is a Schmancy original, made by Kristen herself. I don’t know how she squeezes in time to do her own crafts, but I feel lucky to benefit from her industriousness! The little bag is perfect for holding knitting notions, so I’ll be using it a lot. And the cute little cloudy thing is a pin! I really need to brighten up my workspace, so I think I’ll find a way to use it for decorating.

Thank you Kristen!!

Update: I just realized that the magnets in my laptop are perfect for hanging Little Cloudy. Yay!

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Anla’s JellyBean

Posted on by Anna

I recently received a sweet email from a girl named Anla, who has been knitting for four years and is now “almost 12.” That’s an awesomely young knitter!

Anla’s been knitting some Mochimochi Land patterns in her free time, and she recently finished her version of Butterfull, whom she named JellyBean!

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This chubby butterfly is sticking to hanging out with trees, so nobody gets hurt that way.

Anla tells me that she used yarn from an old sweater to knit JellyBean’s body, which is a great way to reuse. And instead of using duplicate stitch to embellish JellyBean’s wings, Anla embroidered some sparkly flowers with eyelash yarn. Very creative!

Next, Anla’s going to make some Sausage Dogs. I can’t wait! It’s so cool to hear from such a talented young knitter. Keep it up, Anla!

Frankie the Silent Film Star

Posted on by Anna

My second attempt at amigurumi resulted in an almost convincing toy!

frankie

This is Frankie the Silent Film Star. You might remember him from such slapstick classics as Crackerjack Capers and Gold Diggers of Aught Six. Unfortunately the talented tap-dancing Frankie was phased out of Hollywood once the talkies took over—there were only so many situations writers could come up with to explain away his lack of a mouth.

I guess Frankie doesn’t look drastically different from my pathetic Little Give Up of last fall, but armed with acrylic yarn and a metal crochet hook (thanks, Rebecca!), it wasn’t half the struggle this time. I primarily used this kind of blurry YouTube video to refresh my technique and then experimented with simple increases and decreases. And a star was born!

Mochimochi Display in New London, NH

Posted on by Anna

I kind of feel like I’m doing a lot of “me” talk on the blog lately, but I’ve just had a lot of things going on recently that I’m excited about. Please bear with me for one more!

Bonney was kind enough to arrange for me to put my toys on display at the public library in New London, New Hampshire this past weekend. They have a nice, big display case, so I stuffed it with ALL of my toys!

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I’ve been amassing these guys on various shelves and counters in my apartment over the past year, so it was a lot of fun to have them all together in one place and looking so organized. The library staff were very nice and just let us do our thing and take as much time as we needed to arrange everything (about two hours). By the time we left, the toys had attracted a small group of wide-eyed 5-year-olds, so I called the effort a success.

These ended up being my two favorite shelves:

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The library itself is really beautiful—I was a little surprised I’d never been there before. If you happen to live in the area, I hope you’ll swing by and check out the display while it’s up! (I think my toys will be there for at least a month or so.)

A Super Sweet Butterfull

Posted on by Anna

Alice at Kathryn Ivy just made the cuutest Butterfull!

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She modified the pattern by picking up stitches for the legs and using an embroidered chain stitch on the wings. Oh, and she added a sweet little mouth!

Alice mentioned in her post that there’s one part of the pattern that mistakenly mentions felting, though no felting is actually required. Oops! That’s since been corrected—I’m hoping it’s a minor enough point that it doesn’t trip anyone up.

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This is one butterfly that I would love to catch in a net and take home!

Male Stripper Fabric

Posted on by Anna

My mother-in-law Bonney was eager to share her latest fabric find with me when I arrived in New Hampshire for the weekend:

stripperfabric

Oh my. Was all I had to say. I asked her if she had plans for her half-naked cowboys, firemen, policemen, construction workers, and delivery boys—fortunately, no plans in particular.

I’m supposing that the primary purpose of these prints is to sit in a closet and occasionally be brought out for laughs, but maybe I’m just not thinking creatively enough. For the curious, Bonney got them from eQuilter.com