FO: Tiny Superman

Sometimes an idea for the perfect project just pops into my head. Anyone else have those moments? Like there was no planning or anticipation involved, it just was suddenly in my head and had to be made. That is how this guy came about. It's Superman! But much tinier. I made this as a fun gift for a friend who I thought would appreciate it. Who wouldn't like to receive a tiny Superman in the mail?

I used the Knit Kid and Purl Girl pattern, which is free from Anna Hrachovec. I've used this pattern a number of times before and it always is so handy for making people, super or not. You can just change out the colors for the legs and body depending on what you want the person to wear.

This is my first time making the cape pieces from the pattern. I probably should've just attached it at the bind off, but I did an invisible seam and it caused the cape to stick out really far.

To help combat this, I tacked the cape down to the body. You can just barely see the stitch in the above photo. If this was a toy a little kid would be playing with, I would've done something stronger, but this is really just to look cool for a friend so I knew it would be fine like this.

The Superman emblem was the most complicated part to get looking right. I first embroidered the yellow yarn as a base for the shield, then I outlined it with red, then I had to sort of mentally envision an S and only stitch every other line before going back the other direction to fill in the spaces. I'm really pleased with how it came out in the end, but it took several tries and pulling it out to redo.

So on my way to the post office with this guy, I hooked him to my sun visor and took a few photos, lol. Here is Superman flying in to save the day!

And there he goes again! I attached a removable mini lanyard to his back so he can be hung from things, but it is removable so the new owner can decide how he will hang around. I had fun taking pictures of him for the short time he was in my possession though.

Any other Superman fans out there? This was a quick and fun gift to make and I had a lot of fun taking pictures, lol.

I Won! I Won! Thank You For Voting For My Video :)

I've had some awesome news that I waited to share here until my prize arrived :)

I won the Mochimochi Land Video Contest :) I blogged about my entry here, and thanks to everyone who voted - I won 1st place! How awesome is that? Even better than the notoriety are the prizes.

I won a $100 gift card to Knit Picks, a $50 gift card to Mochimochi Land, and Anna's 3 current Mystery Kits. These are all new, unreleased patterns (which is why I don't show what they are in the photos - don't worry I'll share them once they are made up) along with the yarn and fluffy you need to make them. How cool is that? And she even topped it off with an adorable button of a knitted sumo wrestler, lol.

This whole project was so fun. I still can't believe that my ridiculous video won 1st place, lol. Thank you all again so much for voting. I couldn't have won without those votes.

Now I have to start planning next year's entry!

(Please Vote For Me!) My Entries in the Mochimochi Land Annual Photo Contest

Before I get into the details (in case you're only here for a quick read) - Please click here and vote for my video entry for this contest! I'm one of the 3 finalists and your vote would be greatly appreciated :) Read on if you have a moment to learn more about what this all is, lol.

Each year, Anna of Mochimochi Land hosts a photo and video contest. The idea is to use items you have made using her patterns and make some type of clever photo scene or video. I entered for the first time last year, and almost immediately after that deadline I thought of other ideas for the contest. I decided to use those ideas for this year's contest :) This meant I technically had a whole year to make it happen so I shouldn't be doing things at the last minute like last time (hahaha, yeah that's funny). Being me though, I waited until the final week to pull things together. I knitted my pieces throughout the year, but I didn't actually take pictures and whatnot until a week before the original deadline of March 31st. I was thrilled when the deadline was extended for another month. I used to take pictures as a side gig, but I never dabbled in video. Last year's video suffered for this - I still am super tempted to remake my video now that I know a bit more what I'm doing because I do believe in the idea and that it could've been cute if it was executed better. Anyway, this year's video was a long time coming  - it's cheesy and ridiculous and I'm pretty proud of it. I present to you: Stringer Things. (you can watch it here, or you can click here to watch it and to vote!).

This was quite the process to make! I definitely learned a lot of what I would do differently next time, but for my first real (and somewhat successful) animation I think it turned out rather well. Maybe my story was a bit too ambitious for a short video, but if you've seen the show Stranger Things I think it's still funny. I made all of the items you see in the video. I made Mike and Eleven especially for this, but the rest are items I've made over the years. Even the backdrop and ground are actually sweaters I've knitted :) No matter what happens in the contest, I did have a lot of fun making this (and I think my family did too - thanks, Kelly, for doing my audio!)

So anyway, there are 3 finalists in the video contest and the prizes are pretty sweet, so I would greatly appreciate if you could CLICK HERE TO VOTE. Please do watch the others and vote for your favorite. The others did a great job.

My photo entry received an honorable mention again this year. I will confess that I feel like I dropped the ball with this idea. My original plan was to recreate a Degas ballerina painting with mini knitted dancers. I needed a handful of ladies to make this work, but I only managed to make 2 :/ Womp womp. So while my Degas Project may still happen one day, I decided to use the two I had to make a different scene. I call this picture Ballet at the French Court:

Again I used a hand knit sweater for the background (interestingly though I did not knit this one! I bought the pattern sample from Emma Welford for her Polonaise Cardigan so I got the style I love but didn't have to make it myself! lol). I thought the bow and lack of buttons at the front was perfect to act as a stage curtain. The mini Notre Dame is a paper postcard I bought in France years ago and finally built. Anyway, it was fun even if it wasn't what I originally intended. I'm glad I got an honorable mention though :)

So that's another of my big deadlines met this year. Again I would greatly appreciate if you would CLICK HERE TO VOTE, lol have I said that enough yet? The voting is open until May 20th, so please do so promptly. Thank you so much if you do vote, and I will be sure to mention the outcome here when it is announced!

FO: Mini Mike & Eleven

So this project was a sudden revelation a month ago. I was struck with the perfect video entry for the Mochimochiland photo contest one morning, and I would only need to make 2 mini knits to accomplish it :) Sounds good, right? So while I haven't heard anything about the photo contest this year (I'm coming to the realization that it is not happening this year - of course, because I'm actually prepared for it, lol), I wanted to show off my little creations on their own now.

I wanted to make a video based off Stranger Things. I'm not a big tv watcher, but my husband talked me into it and I really enjoyed this show. Now that the show is so popular I figured it would be the perfect subject for the contest since most people would get the references. All I needed were my two main characters: Mike and Eleven.

Can you see the resemblance? I knitted these before the second season came out, so these are based on their looks from season 1. Eleven seemed the most obvious to make first, so I started with her.

I started off with the Mini Ballerina pattern (oddly enough considering my other minis project this year, lol) and made a few modifications to make the characters. For Eleven these were my mods:

• white yarn for feet
• row 14 and 15 of head - changed to light brown for shaved hair
• make separate stockinette stitch rectangle in blue yarn: 14 sts, 5 rows long - steam block as a half circle
• arms: knit 2 rows skin color, 14 rows blue, then 2 rows skin color. Pull through "jacket" and body
• tutu: bind off knit-wise, steam block and attach knit side up

It wasn't really a lot to change, but it was super fiddly since this is so few stitches in such small yarn. I think Eleven took me 2 hours to make. I'm pretty pleased with the likeness though :) Check the back view:

Being that she is Eleven, I had to make her a waffle too. The waffle will play a role in my eventual video (if there is a contest next year, that is), so I decided to go ahead and make one. I just cast on 6 stitches and increased for 3 rows, then bound off. Voilà! Waffle.

Mike was a little harder just from having to pick yarn for his shirt. It seems he's always wearing stripes in the show, but it's very difficult to represent thin stripes in 80s colors on such a small item. I looked through my multicolored sock yarns and liked this one best because it had lots of colors in a small area. This yarn is Yarn Bee Walk Away Sock in the Mamba colorway. I bought this at Hobby Lobby when I first started knitting and it has sat in my stash ever since, lol. I'm glad I finally used some of it (even if it is a miniscule amount). I think it worked great for Mike's shirt. I made the same jacket and arm mods for Mike and just changed the colors for his shoes and jeans, etc.

I'm super glad I had so many colors on hand to make this project happen. That's the thing about these mini knits - they are small but they take a lot of different colors to really give them character. For both of these peeps I used Knit Picks Palette in Oyster Heather (skin), Coriander heather (Eleven's hair and Mike's jacket), and Blue Note Heather (Mike's jeans and Eleven's jacket); Golden Sun Bamboo (from China on ebay) in Brown (hair and shoes), Nude Pink (Eleven's dress), White (shoes), and Butter Yellow (waffle); plus the Mamba for Mike's shirt. That's 8 different skeins of yarn! And all of these skeins are still technically full since I used less than 1 gram of each. Craziness. But when the mood strikes, I'm still glad I happen to have acquired so many colors of sock yarn.

SO there you have it - my Stranger Things homage :) I am really bummed that there is no photo contest this year, but I guess at least I am prepared if (hopefully when) there is a contest next year. And maybe I can get better at video software in the meantime. Yay for planning, lol.

FO: Irma

Have you ever had a project that you've intended to make for a long time but just never got around to it? While packing to evacuate for Hurricane Irma, I planned several projects to kill the time I might have during and after the storm hit. The lions and birds came first, but I knew I may have more time on my hands then just those toys would fill. So I deliberately packed coordinating colors of yarn (that I was able to use for all the projects) and grab my Super-Scary Mochi Mochi book as well. I never want to be caught without a project, and what better opportunity to make the pattern that made me buy the book? So after making my other little critters, and after quite a bit of debris clean up, I cast on my dream monster. I call it Irma :)

This is the Hurly-Burly pattern from Super-Scary Mochi Mochi by Anna Hrachovec. The whole book is filled with cute/scary monsters (mostly cute) like werewolves, little witches, rats, etc. I like a lot of the patterns, but the Hurly-Burly pattern is what made me buy the book. Want to see why?

Wait for it...

Almost there...

Just tuck those legs all the way in...

And you have a different monster :) Isn't it great?! The monster eats itself, lol. I just love it. I'm a bit partial to the orange and yellow side - aren't her pigtails cute?

I love how both sides have stripes but on the purple side they are half the size. It's a cute touch. The stripes look particularly neat on the back:

Like a bull's eye, right? I also love the arms and legs - they are so cartoony and cute.

The only change I made from the pattern was to put the eyes a few rounds lower then the example, and I really like the result.

And the yellow back - see how the stripes are wider? This was a very straight forward pattern as long as you don't mind keeping up with the stripes. I decided to go with the colors she uses in the example mostly because I couldn't figure out any other colors at the moment I was packing and I already knew I'd be bringing these. The yellow is Red Heart With Love in Daffodil, the orange is a mystery thrift store acrylic, the dark purple is I Love This Yarn in Grape, and the light purple is a mystery acrylic I've had since high school and no longer know what it is, lol.

I love the individual touches of each side with their hair - see his little stubble hair?

And her pigtails?

And the feets.

And for the girl.

I'm super thrilled with how this turned out, and having this made up has given me great ideas for this year's MochiMochiland Photo Contest :) At the moment, this is sitting on a shelf in my sewing room and it makes me smile to look at it. And what better name than to call it after the storm that made it possible?

FO: Starting The Degas Project

As you can probably guess (from my lack of posting anything else about it, lol), I did not win anything in last year's Mochimochi Land Photo Contest. It was my first try though, and to get honorable mention on my Letters To Santa photo I put together a week before the deadline is pretty cool in my book :) The whole competition experience though got my head in mochi photo mode. I had several ideas even during that week, but I had no time in which to execute them. Not this year! I'm planning ahead, and I'm making things mostly because I think they will be really cute, but if I can win something at the end of the year that would be nice too, lol. One of the first things I wanted to make happen involved lots of little ballerinas.

Anna Hrachovec has an adorable Tiny Ballerina pattern which I happen to have, and I made this little lady up in April. It's one of those things I've always thought was cute and wanted to make but never made the time. Flash to this year when I had the idea: try to recreate Degas ballerina paintings with knitted ballerinas! lol That will, obviously, take a lot more ballerinas then just one, but I wanted to make one to see exactly what I could accomplish as far as posing the little ladies.

I used Knit Picks Palette in Oyster Heather for her skin, and Golden Sun Bamboo in Nude Pink for her tutu and brown for her hair. I was unsure how the slick bamboo yarn would work for this project, but it was the best ballet pink sock weight yarn I had, so I gave it a try and I am pleased :)

Here's the back view. I had to lean her on an empty Gutterman thread spool to stand up, but it should also give you an idea of her tiny size :)

Since I was trying to copy a Degas painting that hangs above my bed, I gave her brown hair and tried to make the top of the tutu look like it was off the shoulder.

And look at her tiny feet! The only change I made was to make the skirt of the tutu with the knit side out (the pattern calls for the purl side, which would give more of a balloon to the skirt). I liked that it curved gently this way. It did make the skirt a bit longer, so I may have to take that into account next time.

Then I tried to pose her :) This was all done with pins and photoshop, but she does look like she's balancing, doesn't she? I may have to make future ones with longer arms if they need to touch above her head, etc. And obviously I need a better background then plain white (man was it difficult to get details with this stark situation).

So I made a ballerina :) I love how cute she is, and now that I have an idea of what I can do with posing her, I will be able to keep my Degas project going. You'll be seeing more of these little ladies in the future!