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A Little Lion on the Way

Posted on by Anna

I’ve got some personal life news to share today: John and I are expecting a baby boy in December!

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This is the first thing that I’ve knitted for him, a little lion ball. I’m planning to make several more in different colors and also maybe with different types of manes. They’ll either become a mobile or will just be little balls to play with.

Here’s the side view—very simple.

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The due date is December 19th, so the holidays will certainly be different for us this year!

I’ll continue shipping orders as long as I can, but there will be a delay in sending out tangible orders sometime after the beginning of December. (I’ll put up a notice about it when that happens, and we will continue shipping on a delayed schedule after that.) I’ll also be taking a few months off from most work, so the blog and social media will be pretty quiet for a while, but I plan to be back at it whenever I can.

Thanks in advance for your patience while we figure out how to be parents!

An Evening at Lion Brand and NYC Gnomes

Posted on by Anna

Following up on the previous post, last Thursday I was happy to be back at the Lion Brand Yarn Studio!

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Technical difficulties that resulted in me hoisting my laptop up for everyone to squint at, but people were patient with me and we all had a nice time.

Thank you to everyone at the Studio and everyone who came out! (And thanks to Koko for the photo!)

I was in the city for a couple more days, so I spent the time visiting friends, seeing museums, and sprinkling a little gnome magic around. One gnome wanted to be right in the middle of everything, so he got dropped off at 14th Street and 9th Avenue in Manhattan.

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Gnome number two was more of a hipster, so he disembarked at the Bedford Ave subway station in Brooklyn.

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Gnome number three was up for some culture, so he left us at PS1 in Queens.

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And the last tiny gnome took off all his clothes at City Hall in Jersey City.

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I’m certain that each of these guys has now found a new home and is having a whole different big city adventure now.

While I was leaving them around, of course, I shared their locations and photos on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. So if you’d like to keep up with future gnome drops in real time, follow me there!

Sept 17th Talk and Book Signing at Lion Brand Yarn Studio, NYC

Posted on by Anna

I get to go to NYC next week! I’m always excited to visit the last place I called home, and this time the occasion is also exciting—a talk and book signing at the Lion Brand Yarn Studio!

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If you’re in the NYC area, please join me next Thursday, September 17th, at 6pm, when I’ll discuss the adventure that was the making of Adventures in Mochimochi Land with a slideshow talk. The studio always does other little giveaways in conjunction with their talks, so it’ll be a fun evening. RSVP here!

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Maybe I’ll also bring a few gnomes with me to leave in the city while I’m there for a couple of days. If you see a gnome roaming around the city, please give him or her a nice home!

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It’s Mystery Kit Time Again!

Posted on by Anna

Put on your Sherlock hats, it’s time again for mystery kits!

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These are three all new tiny designs that may not return again for a while. And through September 30th you can get them for free! Here’s how:

• Order 2 kits or books (or one of each) from the Mochimochi Shop, and you’ll receive one randomly selected mystery kit with your order. (No need to add the kit to your cart!)

• Order 4 kits or books (or some combination thereof), and you’ll receive TWO mystery kits.

• Order 6 kits/books, and all will be revealed!

Like all tiny mochi kits, these come with a pattern and enough yarn (Cascade Heritage, a wool/nylon blend) and stuffing to make 2 or 3 itty-bitty creatures. You’ll need a set of size 1 double-pointed needles (which you can also now purchase from the Mochimochi Shop).

Would you like a hint? Well, we’ve got a human-like creature, a machine-like creature, and a beast-like creature in the mix this time. We’d also love your help keeping the mystery fun by not discussing the kits you receive online until October.

You know you love a good mystery!

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Back Page Contest Winner

Posted on by Anna

It was very hard to choose a winner of our Back Page Contest—so many of you found clever ways to use the 2-dimensional landscape page from Adventures in Mochimochi Land. (I knew you guys would come through big time!)

So John and I had a big debate about it last night, and we finally settled on…

Gummy Bear Photo Bomb by Tara!

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We loved the way that this image plays with the idea of a photo itself, and it has so much energy and humor.

Congratulations, Tara! You win this awesome collection of books from Potter Craft and Potter Style.

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I’ll be contacting you via Flickr for your mailing address.

Of course, we were smitten with lots of other photo entries, so here are some highly deserved honorable mentions.

One way to get a kite out of a tree by KnitWit685

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Travel Agent Squidy by Michelle

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The Photo Shoot by juleenbean

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Photographer Eddie by Salla Ahola

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(We liked the caption to this one: Nature photography proved to be too challenging for Eddie. The birds were just flying around and posing behind his back.

Big thanks again to everyone who entered this contest. We’ll have our big annual photo + video contest coming up in a couple of months (with even more awesome crafty prizes), so please stay tuned for that!

Playing with Clay

Posted on by Anna

Last year I blogged about trying wheel pottery for the first time in a class I was taking at the Lillstreet Arts Center in Chicago. It was very eye-opening to be a beginner at something again! I’ve got a small collection of ugly vessels around my apartment now, which have proved to be great for yogurt and also cat food (for the cats, not for me.)

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I’ve since moved on the handbuilding, which is definitely more my speed. After a day of typing and knitting, it feels so nice to get my hands into some clay and just push things around! I attempted a few slab cups and coil bowls early on, but I guess you can’t keep me from making creatures for too long, because when I started giving things eyes the ideas came much more quickly.

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This time I’m working with porcelain, not because I’m hoping to create anything fine, but because I figured it gave me the most options for surfaces, like starting with a blank canvas. But I still haven’t figured out what I like in terms of surfaces, so that’s why none of these guys are finished yet.

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I’m thinking these last guys could be nice all in white, and then making some out of different colors of clay to add to the mix could be neat too…

So I’m still really trying to figure out what I’m doing, but sometimes that’s a good feeling. If I ever get around to finishing something, I’ll share it here.

So that’s what I’m getting up to lately when I’m not knitting!

Reminder: Back Page Contest Deadline is August 31

Posted on by Anna

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These friendly Ann Arbor elephants by maymansara are here to remind you the entries to the Back Page Contest are due next Monday, August 31st. That’s plenty of time to put together a fun photo using the back page landscape in Adventures in Mochimochi Land. (And if you can’t get a copy of the book in time, you can download and print it out and use free patterns from the book for your entry!)

The winner will get a sweet collection of books from Potter Craft and Potter Style, including the awesome Adventure Time Crafts, which I reviewed earlier this year.

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And just between you and me, we haven’t had many entries so far, so your chances are great if you enter this week! See full contest details.