UPDATE: We’ve decided to extend our Maker Faire stay through Sunday, Sept 30, so you can find me and Mochimochi goodies in the BUST Craftacular area both days!

I’m excited to have a bunch more local events coming up this fall—the next one is the NYC Maker Faire coming up next weekend! On Saturday only (September 29th) I’ll be at the BUST Craftacular area with books and kits and a few hand knitted tiny mochis.

I’ll be sharing a table with the adorable hoodie designer Helene Park of Toasty Time. Please come by and say hi if you’ll be there! All info can be found at the Maker Faire website.

This past weekend was so much fun! I got to spend three days meeting knitters and sharing my Gnomes vs Snowmen with them at Vogue Knitting Live here in NYC.

I love that the awesome people who organize VK Live set aside a generous space for fiber art. This year they had more artists than ever, and also more visitors than ever to the marketplace, where we were set up to show our work.

Some of my original 45 pieces have been sold since the November show, and I pared down the remaining pieces to 24 so that they would fit two tables put end-to-end. It was a super-easy setup (way better than hand-stitching my past display together all over again), and I loved how simply it all fit together in this configuration.

Initially I wasn’t sure how all the knitters would react to the crazy cartoonish violence going on in the scenes, but the response was really awesome! All ages of people were walking slowly around the tables, laughing and cooing over the snowman stranglings and gnome stabbings. And those who were a little less inclined to love gnome-on-snowman fighting just passed by quickly saying, “oh, a little village, how cute!” So everyone was happy.

The hotel lighting, combined with my cell phone-only photos, did not make for great images of the other artwork in the room, but there was also beautiful work by Rania Hassan, who makes paintings with delicate knitted pieces emerging from them, Julia Ramsey, who designs amazing knitted gowns, and Carol E. S. MacDonald, who creates knitting-themed prints. There was also the knitted ceramic work of Alyssa Ettinger, beautiful t-shirts by Angela Spencer, and an impressive yarnbombing by Suzanne Tidwell.

It was a pleasure sharing the space with these talented people. A big thank-you to Carol and everyone else at VK Live for inviting me to be a part of it again! And more thank-yous to Lion Brand and Knitty City for inviting me to their booths (for a Q&A and a book signing, respectively).

By the way, VK Live is coming to Chicago in October, so those of your in the midwest should seriously consider it! (Who knows, some warring gnomes and snowmen might even make the journey too…)

Thank you so much to everyone who came out last night for the opening of Gnomes vs Snowmen!! I had such a great time and I hope you all enjoyed the cute chaos and adorable violence. Photos are coming soon!

For anyone who might be in the NYC area and interested in learning a bit more about what it is that I do, I’m giving a presentation at the American Folk Art Museum next Thursday as part of their new Make it Thursday series!

I feel so honored to have the opportunity to give a talk there. I’ll be showing some photos and talking about how I got started knitted toys and how they turned into the big crazy projects I’ve been doing in the past couple of years.

The talk starts at 6 pm on November 10th. Tickets are $10 for non-members, and can be purchased at the museum website.

I had such a great time at the Lion Brand Yarn Studio last Thursday! They invited me to give an artist talk (coinciding with my installation) and do a book signing, and although I was nervous to speak in front of 50 people, I think it went well. It’s always a joy to meet knitters and share my crazy take on the craft with them, and I take so much energy back with me from these encounters. (Of course it was wonderful to see some familiar faces there too!)

For those who couldn’t make it out to the talk, here’s an interview that we taped beforehand:

Patty Lyons and all of the staff at the LBYS gave me the warmest welcome, and I even got to hang out with them after the event. It was probably the most lively conversation I’ve ever had with a group of knitters! They are a riot.

Big thank-yous to everyone at the Lion Brand Yarn Studio, and to everybody who came on Thursday!