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!

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

If I've only got your attention for a quick second, just skip the rest of the post and CLICK HERE TO VOTE! lol Mine is The Tragic Tale of Piggie Antoinette. Thank you so much if you do vote!

If you're here to read the post (and then vote after ... please ... lol), then please read on :)

I've long watched the annual Mochimochi Land photo contest and wished I could join in. I love Anna Hrachovec's patterns, but I never felt like I had made enough of her patterns to make a proper entry in the contest. This year, though, I was struck with inspiration. It all started with Arthur, the big pencil:) As soon as I finished him I remembered that the deadline for entries this year had been extended and I would have just over a week to some up with something, and the ideas flowed from there. So this is what came from my original inspiration: Letters To Santa.

It's amazing what having a large knitted pencil does for your creativity with photos, lol. I had a heck of a time making the nickels by their hands noticeable, and it's very hard to focus on both large animals and small ones in a convincing way. In the end, it didn't really come out as well in real life as in my head, but I still think it's cute :) I ended up getting an honorable mention for this entry! Not bad for my first time entering the contest :)

Once I had the Letters To Santa finished, I decided to keep on shooting. I made the Pig With Wigs pattern years ago (because it's awesome) and I branched an idea out from the Marie Antoinette style bouffant wig the pig pattern includes. At first I thought I would just do a series of photos, sort of like a comic book, but then I got the idea to turn it into a gif and it just took off from there. So here is The Tragic Tale of Piggie Antoinette:

via GIPHY
Again I'll confess it didn't turn out as well in real life as I had hope, but I still think the idea is pretty silly and fun. I used a Carolyn Burnett oil painting I got at a thrift store years ago as the back ground (it's one of my favorites), and I had to create a sort of platform for the animals to be level with the street in the painting. I clothed my pig with a scrap of stretch lace from my wrap top I made last year so she could look more like Marie Antoinette, and I made little torches for all of "the angry mob"  using toothpicks and drawn flames, lol. It's silly, but I think that adds to the overall ridiculousness. The animals I used are mostly from Anna's patterns with a few added friends. I love the Confused Moose with the torches, lol. I had to make one for each bird. I do wish I knew more about making videos though. Photos I can do, but I've never got into video, so I don't know the software and whatnot. I used Giphy to make this a gif, but I wish I could've had more control over the timing of each shot and that I could've added music (I had picked out this song, but I couldn't get it to attach to the gif no matter what website I used - I like to just open it up in a new tab and let it play as I watch, lol). This is my first ever gif though, so I'm pleased it just exists.

And that brings me to by shameless plea - Could you vote for my video? The prize packs are pretty awesome, and there are 5 other videos competing. CLICK HERE TO VOTE If you love another video more, please feel free to vote for it as well (you can pick more than one), I just figured since this is my blog it couldn't hurt to ask, lol.

This whole experience has really got my creative juices flowing, and my husband and I are already dreaming up ideas for next year's contest :) This time I will have longer than a week to make it all happen, lol, so that's something. Thanks so much for voting, and I'll let you know how it turns out!