Category: Mochimochi Land News

Announcing the 2014 Mochimochi Photo Series Contest

Posted on April 22, 2014June 2, 2014 by Anna

Update: Congratulations to our winners!

The time has come, mochi knitters, for this year’s springtime photo contest!

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We all know that cute knitted creatures are great for gifts, decorations, and the occasional tea cozy, but what do your mochis get up to when no one is looking? We want to see your knitted friends in action through a series of photos!

Choose any Mochimochi Land creatures to feature in your story. Then, take a series of photos showing your mochis getting up to something: fighting crime, exploring the universe, putting on a concert—let your imagination go wild!

The top three photo series will win stunning hand-dyed Mini Skeinbows from Happy Go Lucky, an awesome indie dyer local to our new Chicago home. And everyone will win positive creative karma!

The deadline for entries is May 27th.

CONTEST DETAILS

Eligibility

Knitters from all countries are welcome to enter! To be eligible, your photo series must contain at least one knitted toy made from a Mochimochi Land pattern. That can be any pattern from the Mochimochi Shop, from Anna’s books, or one of the free patterns available here. The pattern may be modified, but not beyond recognition from the original design.

How to enter

Simply add your photo series to the Mochimochi Friends Flickr group, include numbers in their titles to indicate the order they should be viewed in, and tag them with seriescontest14. If you don’t have a Flickr account, it is free and easy to register (though we recommend signing up as soon as possible, because it takes a little time for your account to be approved for sharing photos in a group).

This is a series contest, so your entry should consist of 3 to 6 photos showing a story taking place. You may enter up to three series. Photos entered in this contest will not be eligible for the 2014 Mochimochi Photo Contest this fall.

Judging

Winners will be picked by us at Mochimochi Land, but the Flickr pool is open to be seen by everyone. We will be focusing on creativity in this contest, and not just looking for pretty images.

Deadline

The last day to enter the contest is May 27, 2014. We’ll announce the winners shortly thereafter!

Prizes!

The top three winners each receive a selection of colorful selection of fingering-weight wool/nylon yarn provided by Happy Go Lucky: third place gets a 6-skein Mini Skeinbow (Brights), second place gets two Mini Skeinbows (Brights and Lights), and first place gets three Mini Skeinbows (Brights, Lights, and Muted).

Thank you to Julie of Happy Go Lucky!

Tiny Ballerina Kits are Here!

Posted on April 4, 2014 by Anna

I’m excited to announce that we now have tiny ballerina kits in the Mochimochi Shop! I just couldn’t resist packaging this pattern up as a kit—we needed to get a little lady in the collection!

The kit comes with the pattern and enough yarn (Cascade Heritage, a wool/nylon blend) and stuffing to to knit up three tiny dancers. They make sweet little gift toppers, ornaments, and more. The kit makes a cool gift for fellow knitters too!

The kit is $12 in the shop. (International shipping is available!)

Hunt for Footballs at VK LIVE this Weekend

Posted on March 12, 2014March 12, 2014 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!

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!)

Ann Arbor Library Now Offering Mochimochi Patterns

Posted on February 27, 2014February 27, 2014 by Anna

I have some exciting news today for Ann Arbor residents! The Ann Arbor District Library now has 20 of my patterns available for download FREE to all of its cardholders.

How is this possible? Well, this cutting-edge library wants to offer unique items to its cardholders, so we’ve worked out a licensing arrangement for a three-year period. I get a licensing fee, the library gets to offer something new, and the people of Ann Arbor get to knit up Sleepy Snakes, Luvbots, and Gobbledyghosts—everyone wins!

As far as I know, pattern downloads is a new idea for a library, and we have Erin the librarian to thank for that! She invited me to speak at the library last summer (there was also a robot Mochimochi display and a Gnomes vs Snowmen-themed hunt that tied in with the library’s summer game), and things just got rolling from there. I’m planning to return this summer for another event—I can’t wait!

A town where designers are supported, and all the knitters can download patterns for free… sounds pretty ideal to me. Let’s hope more libraries see the potential in this kind of partnership!

New Tiny People are Criminally Cute

Posted on February 6, 2014February 6, 2014 by Anna

If you read my post from Tuesday about the current state of my arcade toy design, you might be wondering if I ever finish any projects. I do! In fact, I have something exciting and new to share with all of you…

That’s right, brand-new tiny people patterns! Can I say that these are my favorite tiny mochis yet? (No, that would make the others sad.) But I’m pretty psyched about these guys. Just think of the madcap capers they could pull off together!

Techniques include knitting in the round on double-pointed needles, I-cord, colorwork, and a little bit of wrap + turn. Like all tiny patterns, these ones recommend fingering-weight yarn and size 1 DPNs, but they’re also great projects for scrap yarn, and you can scale them up as much as you like.

The patterns are now available as a PDF download for $6 in the Mochimochi Shop!

Knitting Mochimochi Now in Spanish and Dutch

Posted on January 27, 2014January 27, 2014 by Anna

While I was feeling a little un-inspired (and maybe also a tiny bit sorry for myself) on Friday, a package of happiness arrived: Spanish and Dutch editions of my first book, Knitting Mochimochi!

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I had heard that the Dutch version had been in the works, but I had no idea the title would include as fun a word as knuffels. Knuffels! According to sources on Twitter, the word means both “stuffed animal” and “hug.” Simply the best word in any language period.

Amigurumi de Punto Mochimochi was a complete surprise, and a very welcome one! It appears to be intended for the market in Spain, but I’m hoping it will find its way to other Spanish-speaking countries too.

With the Swedish version, that makes four languages that this book is available in. Next, the wooooorrrld!

Kitschy Dog Winner and a Discount for All

Posted on January 3, 2014 by Anna

It was great to hear about people’s favorite knitting projects from 2013 in the comments on my kitschy Christmas dog post from earlier this week. You were a busy bunch last year!

And the randomly-selected winner of the kitschy Christmas dog from 1940s Japan is… Commenter #19, Anita!

My favourite project this year was my Sixareen cape by Kate Davies, my first fair isle project.

Congrats, Anita! I just emailed you for your address.

The rest of you deserve a little something for the new year too, so how about a discount on ALL of the PDF patterns in the Mochimochi Shop?

Happy 2014, everyone! Let’s make it a year full of inspiration, art, and love.

Mochis Return to VK LIVE NYC

Posted on January 2, 2014January 2, 2014 by Anna

You can’t keep me away from NYC for long—the mochis and I are headed back this month for Vogue Knitting LIVE in Times Square!

Instead of showing one of my knitted sculptures or scenes this year, I’ll be showing some of my stop-motion animations in the marketplace’s art gallery (which I’ve heard will be on two floors this year—yay fiber art!).

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I’ll also have all my books available for sale and signing, as well as a special discount on kits. Please stop by and say hi if you’ll be there!

PLUS! There will be a tiny snowman scavenger hunt in the marketplace on Sunday the 19th. 10 people who find a tiny snowman will win a copy of my new book, Huge & Huggable Mochimochi!

PLUS! I’ll be leading a free workshop on designing your own knitted toy on Sunday at 11am.

PLUS! I’ll be on an artist panel (moderated by Debbie Stoller) at 2pm on Sunday too!

I can’t wait for all the VK LIVE fun. See you soon, NYC!