Category: Events

Ten Tiny Pumpkins

Posted on by Anna

Sometimes it’s fun to just settle in with some good podcasts and knit ten tiny pumpkins.

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These dudes are destined to be hunted at Vogue Knitting LIVE in Chicago next month! They’ll be hidden around the marketplace on Sunday, October 26th, and everyone who finds one will win a free copy of Huge & Huggable Mochimochi!

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Registration is open for VK LIVE, and I believe there are also still spots open in the classes I’m teaching there.

Want to knit tiny pumpkins of your own? The pattern is available as part of the Tiny Fall collection!

Ann Arbor Wrap Up

Posted on by Anna

I don’t have a ton of photos to show for it, but my Wooly Woods crafting event in Ann Arbor earlier this month was so much fun!

Around 40 people of all ages came to the district library for fun with wrapping twigs with yarn. It’s such a simple project that I think it lets you get creative in unexpected ways—as soon as we got started I saw people making swings and I-cords and using the yarn in other ways that I wouldn’t have thought to do myself. Many of the participants were knitters and embellished with their own details or with the patterns that I brought to hand out, but many were new to yarn crafting entirely. (I was surprised at the number of people who were eager to learn to knit right on the spot!)

These two cuties showed up a bit late, but still managed to make some colorful sculptures to take home.

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I asked Erin the librarian if one really big branch could be supplied as a group project, and she came through with the perfect thing. Various people worked on it throughout the workshop, and we finished it just in time. It’s now hanging about the reference desk in the youth department.

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It’s hard to tell in this photo, but this branch is around six feet long!

One of the neat things about this workshop was the way that I picked up a couple of handy techniques when I was preparing for it. (Nothing like the challenge of teaching someone to get you to learn new stuff yourself!) First, it occurred to me that I should finally learn to make a proper yarn bobbin so that wrapping twigs didn’t also involve constantly chasing unraveling balls of yarn around the room.

Here’s the video I used to learn the technique:

These kinds of bobbins are also really handy for instarsia knitting.

I also thought pompoms would be a neat element to add to the wrapped twigs, but somehow I’d gone 33 years on this planet without ever making one myself! So I turned to Vickie Howell, who showed me the most basic way with this video:

I was impressed by the great results you can get just by using your hand. (A friend to help you tie a tight knot really does help too.) While I’m on the topic, I’ll mention that while I was researching pompom making I also stumbled across this technique for making mini pompoms using a fork.

I haven’t tried it myself yet, but I foresee lots of tiny pompoms growing in my future Wooly Woods sculptures.

Thank you to the Ann Arbor District Library and to everyone who came out to the event!

Book Signing & Tiny Chicken Class Aug 10 in Chicago

Posted on by Anna

I’m looking forward to my first Chicago Yarn Crawl coming up next month!

As part of the crawl’s events, I’m going to be at Sifu Design Studio signing books from 10am to 1 pm.

Then in the afternoon, I’ll be teaching a tiny chicken class!

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This pattern incorporates elements that I use in many of my designs (like I-cords and picking up stitches), so it’s a great starting point for those new to tiny knitting. You’ll be well on your way to having a mini flock by the end of class!

You can find all of the class details and sign up on the Sifu website.

I’m looking forward to seeing all the yarn crawlers next month!

The Biggest Twig

Posted on by Anna

Yesterday I spent a couple hours on my porch working on a new piece of the Wooly Woods. This one will be the biggest Twiggin home yet!

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If you weren’t visiting this blog when I was preparing for my show last year, I gathered twigs and branches that had fallen near my home in Brooklyn during Hurricane Sandy, and I used those as forms for sculptures, wrapping the twigs in colorful yarn and placing little characters (many of whom were a species I call Twiggins) on them.

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It was one of my favorite projects ever, and it occurred to me after moving to Chicago that I could continue it here—Chicago is known for begin especially windy, after all, and that means more twigs for me to gather! (Yes, I know that the “windy” in “windy city” is referring to politicians, but I’ve found that it is also a windy city in the literal sense.)

So I’ve started gathering twigs in my new home, and it didn’t take long before I spotted the really big twig that had fallen in a storm. I love seeing it transform into something a bit more magical.

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This piece may make its debut at VK LIVE in October, but I should also mention that I’m going to be leading a workshop with this same theme in Ann Arbor next month! If you’ll be in the area, please join me on July 12th at the city library for a fun session of knitting with nature. All are welcome to wrap twigs (much smaller than my big twig!) in colorful yarn, and those who knit will be supplied with patterns to make creatures to live in their twig. It should be fun for all ages and skill levels! Check out the Ann Arbor District Library website for more information.

New Mochimochi Classes at VK LIVE Chicago

Posted on by Anna

Update: The “Knit a Tiny Snowman Scene” class has been cancelled. (Sorry!) But the other two are going ahead as planned!

Registration is now open for this October’s Vogue Knitting LIVE Chicago! Last year I got to experience VK Live Chicago as an artist in the gallery (and as a brand-new Chicago resident), and this year I’m slated to teach three classes PLUS have a presence in the art gallery again. It’s going to be quite a weekend!

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Check out my class descriptions after the jump.

Continue reading “New Mochimochi Classes at VK LIVE Chicago” →

Hunt for Footballs at VK LIVE this Weekend

Posted on by Anna

Going to Vogue Knitting LIVE in Seattle this weekend? Keep an eye out for mini footballs on Sunday!

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Ten of these footballs (five in classic “pigskin” brown, five in Seahawks colors) will be hidden all around the marketplace, and the ten people who hunt them down will each receive a free copy of my book Huge & Huggable Mochimochi!

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They can also keep the footballs.

If you’re not familiar with Vogue Knitting LIVE, it’s an incredible weekend of classes, talks, panels, tons of shopping, and knitted art like you’ve never seen before. I’m sorry to be missing it, even though my absence is for a good cause: I’m working on a new book! I’m happy that at least I’ll be there in spirit with the football hunt. And if you’re going to the Chicago show in October, I’ll see you there.

The tiny football pattern can be found in my Tiny Fall collection. (Winter may be just ending, but it’ll probably be football season again before we know it!)

Bad Photos and Good Highlights from Vogue Knitting LIVE

Posted on by Anna

I got to spend last weekend surrounded by yarn inspiration, knitting celebrities, and sneaky snowmen—it was Vogue Knitting LIVE! This was the fourth year in a row that I’ve been at the NYC show, and my seventh total at VK LIVE. Sometimes I don’t do a recap only because I forgot to take photos, and anyway the hotel lighting is not very conducive to good photos. But good photos be damned—I wanted to blog about it this time!

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Some designers go to VK LIVE as teachers, but I’ve always participated as an artist, which means that I get to display one of my crazier projects and hang out in the marketplace all weekend, chatting with all the knitters and seeing their reactions to my weird tiny mochis. (I also sell my books and kits to cover my costs.) This time I showed my favorite stop-motion animation clips from the past couple of years, which had the advantage of a simple setup: instead of stitching things together for hours, I just had to plug my laptop into a TV screen. That’s my kind of preparation.

BIG WEEKEND HIGHLIGHTS:

• I got to meet the gal who writes those knitting lists for Buzzfeed. And look, she included my toys in a new one after VK LIVE!

• I saw not one but two beautiful Katniss-inspired cowls.

• Amy Singer stopped by to give me an update on the gnome I gave her years back at TNNA.

• The first three sneaky snowmen were found by a family of knitters! They each won a copy of Huge & Huggable Mochimochi.

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• Vickie Howell told me I was on her “short list”(!!!)

• Pretty much everyone who stopped by my area was really nice—not one eye roll or “you have too much time on your hands”-type comment that I was aware of!

• All weekend I visited with the awesome people from the newly-opened La Maison Tricotée in Montreal.

• I met my first yo-yo artist—whoa.

• So many people told me they saw my animations on Nickelodeon last month!

• I got to be on a panel with some of my favorite fiber artists—and it was moderated by none other than Debbie Stoller of BUST magazine and the Stitch ‘n Bitch books.

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(I’m the one fiddling with my iPad while everyone waits patiently.)

• I’m pretty sure Franklin Habit waved at me as he breezed by on the way to another class.

• There were more artists at VK LIVE than ever before, including Nicole Gastonguay, Carol MacDonald, Kelly Fleek, Going Gnome, Ruth Marshall, Knit Together in Love, Suzanne Tidwell, and many others.

As exhausting as VK LIVE is, it’s also exhilarating: it’s like the entire knitting world has gathered at one place, and everyone is psyched to be there. I’m so lucky that hanging out at these events is part of my job!

The next VK LIVE is happening this March in Seattle. I’m actually not sure if I’ll be there or not (I’ll announce here soon if so), but if any of you west coasters are considering it, this is my official endorsement!

Classes and Book Signings in DC and Philly Dec 7+8

Posted on by Anna

DC and Philly, I’m headed your way next month for fun classes and book signings!

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On Saturday, December 7th, I’ll be at Looped Yarn Works in Washington DC! Stop by from 11am to 12:30 to meet some huge and huggable mochis from my new book. Then in the afternoon I’ll go from huge knits to tiny ones, with a “Knit a Tiny Gnome” class from 1-4pm. It’s great for anyone who has used DPNs before but is new to knitting toys. You can get more details and sign up at the Looped website.

On Sunday, December 8th, I’ll be at Loop in Philadelphia! From 10am-1 is another tiny gnome knitting class—sign up by calling Loop at 215-893-9939. And from 2-5pm, another book signing where a bunch of the toys from Huge & Huggable Mochimochi will be there for you to squeeze.

These are two cities that the mochis have yet to visit before, so I can’t wait! Hope to see you locals there!