Category: Exhibitions

Asteroid Scarf!

Posted on by Anna

Update: Thank you to CRAFT for sharing this!

I just finished making the biggest (and final!) thing that will be in my show in Berlin.

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It’s a rainbow asteroid scarf! It measures about 26 feet long. That’s a lot of scarf…

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But it’s not for wearing. It’s meant to hang throughout the show, starting at one end on the needles of the giant yarn ball (which is now anthropomorphic and holding a pair of knitting needles), and ending up around the neck of the Snowman Planet. I guess you’ll just have to see it.

The show opens April 6th at Smallspace gallery in Berlin. Join us for the opening at 7 pm if you can!

Seeing Stars

Posted on by Anna

What’s a knitted solar system without stars? Lots and lots of stars…

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Being a star factory isn’t quite as fun as it might sound, but I’m hoping the finished effect will be worth the tedium. I can’t wait to arrange them into constellations.

In case anyone is wondering, I’m planning to release a star pattern a bit later on this year. For now, these guys are headed for my show in Berlin next month. 37 down, 13 to go!

Mochimochi Worlds at Pictoplasma Festival

Posted on by Anna

Updates:

Photos from the show
More photos of the planets

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This big round bear, along with the giant ball of yarn and the snowman that I’ve recently posted, is going with me to Berlin next month to be a part of the Pictoplasma Festival, an annual celebration of character art!

My pieces will be on exhibit from April 6th through the 10th in a new installation called “Mochimochi Worlds,” held at Smallspace gallery. If you’re in the area, please join us for the opening at 7 pm on April 6th!

The show will be part of the Pictoplasma Character Walk that is open to the public.

I’m so excited to be involved in the festival, and I’ve been having a blast working on this new show—it will be made up of nine randomly-themed planets and other celestial bodies. Knitters who stop by the gallery will be able to pick up patterns to make some of the alien life forms they see.

I can’t wait to go to Berlin for the first time and see what other character madness is happening at the festival!

Thank you to Lion Brand for providing Hometown USA and Wool-Ease Thick & Quick yarn for the big planet bodies.

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Crazy Wearables for Luv-able + Hug-able

Posted on by Anna

I had a blast making my plushes for this year’s “Luv-able + Hug-able” show at gallery hanahou in NYC. The theme was “Wearable,” so I took it literally with knitted jewelry!

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I haven’t come up with a name for these guys yet, so let me know if you have suggestions!

This year’s show is going to be the biggest ever, with more than 50 plush artists from around the world. Check out all the info at the gallery website. And join us on December 9th for the opening!

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By the way, we’ll have the honorable mentions from the photo contest up here soon, so be sure to keep checking the blog!

An Incredible Opening Night!

Posted on by Anna

Last night was just amazing. The opening went better than I could have imagined, with a fantastic crowd of good friends and other generally awesome people.

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Thank you to everyone who came out! Thank you especially to everyone at gallery hanahou for making it happen: Koko, Azusa, Erika, Gabe, and Laura. And Cascade for supplying allll of the yarn that went into this installation!

I was thrilled that the show got some some great press, too!
CRAFT
Trust Your Style
Mr X Stitch
Pattern Pulp
The Village Voice
and others.

My installation will be up at gallery hanahou in NYC through October 29th, and more photos will appear here soon!

Show Setup, Day 3: Almost there!

Posted on by Anna

It was a full day of stitching my installation together today, and I think it’s really looking like something now! It’s amazing what a difference a bunch of mattress stitch and backstitch makes to pull things together and add cohesion. No photos today—my hands were too busy!

Well, just for fun, here’s one photo that I took a while back when I was doing the shoot for the invite.

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The opening is tomorrow night (or tonight, if you’re reading this on Thursday)—I can’t wait! If you’re in the NYC area, please join me 7-9 pm at gallery hanahou in Soho. Then the show will be up until the end of the month. (The gallery hours are limited to weekdays noon to 6 pm.)

If you’re nowhere near the NYC area but are instead closer to Seattle, be sure to check out “Plush You!,” which is opening this Friday (5-9 pm) at Schmancy and other venues! I don’t have any work in that show this year, but there will be tons of amazing plushes from all kinds of plush makers.

Show Setup Day 2: The Big Stitch

Posted on by Anna

Two more days until my show opens! That means that the knitting part is basically over (a relief), and I’m up to my knees in stitching things together. To save time at setup, I came with many larger pieces of the installation already assembled, but now it’s time to attach all of those to the ground and sew on all the extra little bits that will hopefully make the whole thing interesting.

I started with the river—here it is halfway stitched on.

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The difficult part about the assembly isn’t so much all the stitching, but it’s the leaning way out over the table to sew on the stuff in the middle. All this back-bending backstitch isn’t my favorite thing, but I’m sure I can endure a couple of more days of it.

Tomorrow will bring more stitching, and then something needs to go on those white gallery walls too…

Show Setup, Day 1: Train Trauma

Posted on by Anna

So today was the big first day of setting up my show! It was exciting and a little traumatic.

My wonderful friends at gallery hanahou were nice enough to set up a platform for the installation, and then they helped me attach the ground layer blanket. It fit perfectly!

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You can see the pieces from Stina Persson’s show, which just ended, still up on the walls. Her work is amazing, and it felt a little weird to be displaying my silly knitted stuff right next to her nuanced watercolors.

Next it was time to get the model train set up and working. And work it did not, except to go halfway around before it derailed. That was kind of devastating, since it worked at home just fine, but the softer, slightly uneven surface didn’t seem to be helping. I was freaking a bit, but John was cool-headed about the whole thing and spent several hours making different adjustments until it was working pretty much perfectly. So he definitely earned his “World’s Best Husband” mug today.

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While John was working on the train, I got started on the stitching things to that big blanket.

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I have to say, in a larger room with white walls, the whole thing looked much smaller overall to me, and I was definitely thinking, “is this all I did with most of the first half of 2010?” But I guess I just have to concentrate on the details—no sense in second-guessing anything at this point.

Tomorrow will be all about assembly, and not at all about trains!