Paula posted this hilarious pic of her Mochimochi Snowmen on Ravelry the other day.
Snowmen Bowling! Sounds like a fun new holiday tradition to me.
Paula’s photo makes me wonder what other uses Snowmen can be put to… maybe we’ll see some more by Christmas?
This week’s Tiny Thing came early, and it’s available as a pattern! What’s more, that pattern is FREE with any purchase from the Mochimochi Shop!
These little guys are handy holiday helpers! Whip each up in less than an hour, then use them as present toppers, stocking stuffers, holiday jewelry, or ornaments.
Just purchase anything in the Mochimochi Shop, and a link to download the PDF pattern will be sent to you via email within 24 hours of your purchase.
Knit tiny snowmen for your coolest friends!
This kit comes complete with enough fingering-weight yarn (Cascade Heritage, a wool and nylon blend) and stuffing to knit TWO itty-bity snowmen. Make them into pins, ornaments, or just fun little trinkets! The kit also makes a great gift for fellow knitters.
Pattern, yarn, and stuffing are included. You’ll need to supply a set of size 1 DPNs and a small tapestry needle.
Packaged in a reusable plastic zip pouch. May include upcycled post-consumer cardboard bobbins.
NOTE: The finished project is very small and is not suitable for small children.
This item ships within 5 business days.
Update: We had a silly glitch in our shipping calculation for the robot and walrus kits, so if you’ve had trouble purchasing earlier, please try again now. Sorry for the inconvenience!
Finally, last year’s mystery kits are now revealed and available in the shop!
What do robots, ninjas, and walruses have in common? I suppose they’re all creatures that are not to be trifled with. I know I wouldn’t want to get in a fight with any of them!
But really, these guys are just designs that I’d had in mind to make for a while—I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gotten a request for a tiny ninja pattern. I’m pretty charmed with how it turned out!
And yes, there is a tiny robot pattern in Teeny-Tiny Mochimochi, but it was time for an upgrade. So this one is technically Tiny Robot 2.0. These resemble the evil robots that you may remember from Gnomes vs Snowmen, the show I did at gallery hanahou in 2011.
As for tiny walruses, they’re just CUTE, don’t you think?
It’s also thanks to Eat Sleep Knit that the tiny walrus design exists—they originally commissioned it as part of their 2015 Yarnathon giveaway patterns.
Each kit comes with a pattern, fingering-weight yarn (Cascade Heritage), and stuffing to make two robots or walruses or three ninjas in multiple colors. You’ll need to provide a set of US size 1 double-pointed needles and a small tapestry needle.
These three designs are only available as kits right now (sorry!), but YES, the digital patterns will be coming eventually.
One of my favorite mochimochi knitters is Sheila, aka QueenofSheeba on Ravelry, whose funny and creative projects have appeared on this blog from time to time. THIS time she’s been up something that I really wish I’d thought of first: combining mochis with hexipuffs to make mini dioramas she calls hexiscenes!
Not Betty [Biscuit the Baker pattern from Adventures in Mochimochi Land]
Do you wanna build a snowman? [Tiny Christmas Tree from Teeny-Tiny Mochimochi, Mochimochi Snowmen]
Tim Ber [Tiny Lumberjack from Tiny People 2]
Mawwiage [Tiny Bride & Groom from Teeny-Tiny Mochimochi]
I asked Sheila where this idea came from, and this is what she said:
The Hexiscenes actually started out on a sad note. We got the call that my beloved mother-in-law had just entered a hospice for final care. (Sob) I didn’t know the rules for flowers in the facility etc but HAD to bring her something so she knew how much I love her and was thinking about her when I wasn’t there. (Sob! Sob!) It had to be knit and something she could just hold in her hand. It ended up being this:
We go together like peas and carrots [Tiny Baby Bunnies]
That is how the Hexiscene was created ~ with me crying my way through the first one!!! Now every one I make I smile (and cry a little!) thinking “Donna would have loved this!”
It’s touching how small knitted things can contain so much meaning. As you saw above, Sheila has continued to make many more hexiscenes—aside from being perfect little gifts, they seem to feed her dual addictions to tiny mochis and hexipuffs:
I have a thing for tinys as you know AND a thing for Hexipuffs. I have made about a bajillion puffs for chair back cushions, footstool covers, pillows, toys, and heading for five (yup-CRAZY) window quilts! I’m thinking in this drafty old farmhouse I should just start sticking them to the walls as I finish them for warmth-hehe. Not so practical for cleaning though… The point is I don’t want to stop making them OR tinys as you know!
I would love to post all of Sheila’s hexiscenes, but there are just too many at this point. OK, here’s one more—they’re getting more elaborate!
Under the sea [Ichigo the Adventurer from Adventures in Mochimochi Land, Tiny Nosey Fish]
OK, I only have so much bandwidth, so I encourage you to check out Sheila’s project page to see more.
Joan is a friend of Mochimochi Land who lives in Canada and always surprises me with her witty spins on patterns. (Check out her bathing snowmen, for one!)
This week she surprised me with mochi-fied versions of me, John, and our cats Soupy and Nipsey!
How cute are we!! And the glasses! And kitties!
I don’t know what compelled Joan to make us in tiny knitted form (“I swear I do not have this much free time,” she said half-apologetically in her email), but it really brightened my day.
As you’ve heard here, lately I’ve been working on lots of gnome-related things for an upcoming show in Seoul. It’s the type of big project that has me feeling like I’m making very slow progress and there’s tons more to do, and it’s not really profitable work, and why was I even doing this again?
Getting gnome diplomats in the mail every day is helping keep me going, as are the happy comments I’ve been getting here and on social media in response to my gnome-related posts, and also a few very kind and encouraging emails like Joan’s.
Thank you, Joan!!
If you’ve been visiting this blog for a long time, you know what these colorful tiny frogs are all about!
For the past four years, Bonnie of Catharticink has made it a tradition to knit a hand-dyed spectrum of tiny mochis in the colder months—she started with a torrent of snowmen, then followed that with a zipper of Santas, a cloud of bats, and a bunch of birds.
So every year now when it starts getting cold, I start wondering if another brightly-hued herd is on its way to help cheer things up. As you can see, Bonnie really came through with this flotilla of frog gins. They even appear to be forming molecules!
Or they can just be a high-fiber froggie snack.
Bonnie’s beautifully shot groupings have really been a big inspiration to me over the past few years. In fact, I’m working on some soft sculptures right this moment that are heavily inspired by what she has done with this annual series. (More on that a bit later.)
I spotted Bonnie’s frogs in the Mochimochi Friends Flickr group, which is where I find a lot of the knits that I share here. If you’ve taken photos of your toys made from Mochimochi Land patterns, please share them in the group!
Update: Congratulations to the winners!
Thank you to the 677 people who cast their votes on the Mochimochi Photo Contest finalists! While we’re tabulating the results, let’s have another look at the fantastic finalist photos.
Congrats to all of these knitters for making it to the finals! Check back soon for the top three winners and also our exciting video category winner!