Tiny Mochis Now Available at Rotofugi

I’m excited to say that a selection of tiny mochis hand-knitted by yours truly are now on sale at Rotofugi, the designer toy store and gallery in Chicago.

 

Rotofugi features toys and artwork by many of my favorite artists (like Mr. Clement, Shawnimals, and Heidi Kenney), so it’s a big honor to have a small place among them. When I returned on Friday after dropping them off on Wednesday, I was psyched to find my tiny gnomes, vikings, owls, and pandas on a table right next to Chris Uphue’s heart figurines!

It’s never been my aim to produce tons of mochis for sale, but instead I like to have a small selection available at venues that I’m personally excited about, and Rotofugi is one of those. But if you live far from Chicago, you can also find some hand-knit mochis in my shop, which I’ve just updated with more designs! 

Pass The Apple

Tiny hedgehog’s got a date! His plan is to impress his lady hedgehog with this delicious apple he found. Tiny hedgehog is going to be late for his date.

This GIF (starring all new mochis!) was made with help from Maureen Boyle. I also did a "making of" post on the Mochimochi Blog. 

NYC Gnomes

Last weekend my husband and I returned to NYC for a visit. It's been a bit less than a year since we moved from there to Chicago, and we couldn't have picked a better weekend to see friends and enjoy the city. 

On Monday I found myself with four spare gnomes and a few spare hours in the city, so I decided to revisit four places that are meaningful to me and set a gnome free at each spot. I may no longer live there, but there’s no reason why a few of my gnomes can’t be New Yorkers!

Gnome #1 started his NYC adventure in Columbus Circle, which was my main hub when we lived in midtown Manhattan.

Other gnomes were set free on the High Line (which represents everything cool and beautiful and ambitious about NYC), in Prospect Park (which I visited almost every day during the four years that I lived in Brooklyn), and on Elizabeth Street (where I got my first job out of college). 

I liked the idea of leaving these guys around the city for anyone to stumble upon and take home. I didn’t attach any kind of tags to the gnomes—I wanted the people who found them to just enjoy the discovery and the mystery. (I did share each of these photos on Instagram and Twitter in real time as I left each gnome behind.) 

A part of me will probably always miss living in NYC, but it’s neat to think that the city and I will continue to have a connection via my little bearded ambassadors of Mochimochi Land.

The Biggest Twig

Another piece of The Wooly Woods is in progress! This one is the biggest yet, found in Chicago's River Park, which is where I run every morning. (Turns out that Chicago really is a windy city, and there are plenty of fallen twigs and branches to be collected!) 

With all the mild weather this summer, I've been spending many late afternoons in the backyard, wrapping and wrapping until the whole thing was wrapped. 

The twiggins who will live in this piece of the Wooly Woods are underway as well.

And now comes the fun part: playing around with the pieces to find the right positions for the creatures and inventing the trouble that they're getting into, which will include more characters and woodsy elements. 

This piece will be on display at Vogue Knitting LIVE in Chicago next month, along with some of the pieces from the original 2013 Wooly Woods show in Berlin. 

The Slowest Firecracker

Happy Fourth! (Don't try this at home!) 

A Little Mochimochi Popping Up in Seoul this Summer

Some hand-knit Mochimochi goodies are now for sale in Hyundai department stores located in Seoul for four weeks this June and July!

My tiny characters, mini gnome scenes, and postcards are part of a pop-up shop organized by Everyday Mooonday, a gallery focused on character art that recently opened in Seoul. The gallery owner, Diny Lee, saw some of my knitted artwork in NYC when the both of us lived there, and I was so happy that she kept me in mind for this opportunity. You can spot the tiny mochis on display right in the center of this photo. 

Here's a closer look at one piece—a tiny hand-standing gnome. 

Along with the recent publication of Super-Scary Mochimochi in Korean, this is making me feel that Mochimochi Land and Korea might just be a good match!

Yoshi’s Wooly World Concept Art

If my Twitter feed is any indication, knitters and crocheters are pretty psyched about Yoshi’s Wooly World, the new game Nintendo just announced that’s coming out in 2015.

This is the second yarn-themed Nintendo game in recent years (Kirby’s Epic Yarn came out in 2010), so I take this as a good sign that knitting and crochet still have a solid pop culture presence, and there is plenty of crossover between gaming and crafting. Awesome!

Just a few days after I first heard about Yoshi’s Wooly World, a couple of nice people on on Twitter let me know that a little piece of Mochimochi Land made an appearance in Nintendo’s public announcement about the game. When discussing the game’s development, the Nintendo presenter showed this image, among others.

They added yarny Yoshis to Gnomes vs Snowmen! The photo looks like it came from my display at Vogue Knitting Live in Chicago last year, so someone must have taken it from the event’s website.

I don’t have any more information than that, but I just had to share this fun discovery! It’s very cool to think that my art may have had some small influence on how the game designers envisioned the wooly world of Yoshi. I’m looking forward to playing the game next year!

Gnome Team Selfie

The first half of 2014 has been taken up almost entirely with the new book that I'm working on (look for it in 2015!), but I did manage to make this small sculpture earlier this year for the 10th anniversary Pictoplasma Festival. 

I made this sculpture for the Portrait Gallery of characters for the festival, which happened in late April in Berlin. Somehow I couldn't resist the idea of gnomes taking photos of themselves as a kind of "group selfie" portrait. 

Here it is from all sides: 

I was sad not to be at the festival in person this year, but from the photos I've seen, the Portrait Gallery was the place to be! 

Thanks to Pictoplasma for letting me be a part of their anniversary festival! The portrait gallery is traveling next to MARCO, the Museum of Contemporary Arts in Monterrey, Mexico, where it will be on exhibit from September 18th to January 11th. 

American Illustration 33

I'm so excited to share the news that my 2013 holiday ID project with Nickelodeon was selected to be in American Illustration 33.

Having worked with illustrators in the past, I know just how honored I should feel to have this project recognized by the people at American Illustration. I would say that it's a dream come true, but honestly it's a dream that never even occurred to me! 

The selected stills from the animations are up on the American Illustration website, and the book will be available in early 2015. My thanks to CWC-i and the people at Nickeolodeon promotions for helping make this happen! 

Wood you be Mine?

Happy Valentine's Day! May you find love in unexpected places today.