Knitting Mochimochi Critters

Now that I have more Mochimochi Land patterns than I know what to do with I've been a little overwhelmed at the prospect of knitting everything I want to knit.  However, Christmas provided the perfect opportunity to jump right in and add to me existing Mochimochi Land work which already includes her bat, sleepy snake and mischievous mouse, oscillating owlets, and the as yet unfinished sausage dogs.

I think the very first Mochimochi Land pattern I ever saw was Anna's Woodin pattern on Knitty.com.  As soon as I saw the Woodins I thought of my sister.  Sofia learned a song in pre-school called "Little Bunny Foo Foo" that she used to terrorize us with on car rides by singing over and over.  And for some reason I thought of Sofia and that song and knew I had to make them for her.  But things didn't quite go the way planned.  I meant to make the log that is part of the Woodin pattern, but I started to make it from the yarn left over from the owlets, but half way through I ran out of brown.  The LBYS didn't have any more skeins of the right color so I had to switch to grass so that I could give Sofia her present on Christmas while I waited until the right brown arrived in the mail (but the LBYS was nice enough to give me free shipping).

I've also been hanging on to the snowman pattern since last year so I decided to make stocking stuffers for each of my family members with a different color scarf for each person.  For Todd I also made an adorable little lion and since Esteban asked just in the nick of time I made him plucky mushrooms and a tiny gator. 

Aren't they all adorable? 

As a post holiday project I also started a tiny grouchy couch for Todd which ought to round out my first batch of knitting from Knitting Mochimochi nicely.  And I have a request for a confused moose that will be up next.....soooo much knitting and so little time!

A Spectacular Craftacular

This weekend turned out to be a super crafty weekend. First we made our awesome brooches and then we wore them to the BUST Magazine Craftacular where we got lots of compliments. I have to admit that I didn't know about BUST Magazine until we came across them at Maker Faire, but the more I learn about them the more I like them.

I'd meant to get there earlier but we didn't manage to arrive at 18th street until nearly 10am and when I saw the line going to 6th Avenue, up to 19th street and back around towards 7th I had a little pang (ok maybe a big pang) that I wouldn't get a goodie bag.

Here's the contents of my goodie bag, plush purchases, cards I picked up, and my brooch.

As it turned out we did get a lovely gift bag with nifty stuff and which conveniently helped me to cart my purchases to two holiday parties, then home.

Here Ginger sits on, I mean models, the drapey sweater that Sofia convinced me to purchase in turquoise.  I was drawn to these shirts by the interesting designs and then I touched them and they were so soft I knew I'd have to buy one.  The people at the Pomelo Press booth were really nice and the let me try it on and everything.

Ginger also wanted to be in all of the rest of my pictures to here she is with the latest edition of BUST magazine which as lots of stuff I really want to read. 

Did I mention Ginger tried to be in all my pictures?  As soon as I got everything laid out she promptly ran across the cards.  Todd advised that she wanted to be picked up so I tried, but what she really wanted was to stand on top of everything.

Some of the fun purchases I made also included these adorable little glycerin soaps in the form of the characters from Space Invaders from Lollibomb Beauty.  

At the by {craftgasm} table Sofia and I went through a whole basket of clever little buttons made from maps to find these buttons.  Our pics included buttons featuring Prag (or Praha) where we spent a mini vacation several years ago when I was visiting Sofia during her year in London.  Another featuring Helsinki which we seem to remember being a required stop in all Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego games.  Finally I was drawn to a button with a little flowery doodle. 

The nice woman at the Mama's Hungry table had chocolate cake made with Coca Cola that looked delicious and she told us about here list of good southern food in NYC which we were extremely interested in.

This postcard doesn't actually do justice to the beautiful and creative cards that were on display at Alton Weekes' table.  I could easily have gotten carried away and purchased several of them, but I took one of his postcards instead so that I could peruse them online.

One of the more unusual things we came across were little moss habitats from two different companies.  Twig Terrariums featured environments that included little scenes with figures and even an environment in a light bulb.  SPIRITelemental had more open pieces with many including crystals.  Two different takes on a nifty idea. 

Everyone has a friend with bottle cap magnets, or a bottle cap belt, or maybe a bottle cap covered bar, but I'd never seen bottle caps turned in to jewelry before, especially not jewelry that wasn't obviously a bottle cap.  Jen Roder makes elegant jewelry out of things that most people flick towards the trash, including earrings, pendants, and cuff links. 

There was actually a lot more food and than I would have expected and one of the food/drink tables featured tea where they gave out tiny samples of sweetened Peppermint Patty tea on the way in and Coconut Vanilla Chai on the way out.  not just tea had some really interesting flavors so I asked them to suggest a third and they came up with Butter Cookie so I came home with three little sample tins.

We spent nearly four hours at the Craftacular and we didn't see all of it.  There were two floors of tables, but there were so many people that it was still hard to move around and to see everything.  We visited Anna Hrachovec's Mochimochi Land booth where we got our dose of adorable mini knitted creations, but I had really hoped there would be more knitted, plush, and yarn related stuff. 

I guess I'll just have to get my knitting fix from the latest volume of Interweave knits...

I made a plush brooch!

Last year I went to Jenny Harada's workshop at gallery hanahou and I had a great time making a wee peppermint beastie.  So this year I was very excited to participate in her plush brooch workshop.  Here Sofia and I with our adorable wearable creations with the wonderful Jenny herself.  I can't wait to see what the workshop next year will be like.

Here is a closeup of my happy purple creation along side the postcard featuring the workshop with a picture of Jenny Harada's first three.

Korean BBQ - So Moon Nan Jip

So Moon Nan Jip: Korean for "astoundingly yummy".

Despite living in NJ for three years we really have done a poor job of exploring the culinary options here.  We often end up eating out in NY instead of NJ, but we have found a couple of great places and one of them has the best Korean BBQ.  A friend who also lives in NJ recommended So Moon Nan Jip in Palisades Park and it does not disappoint.  The restaurant has an off-putting papered-over storefront, but inside is a nicely and cozy, and has tables with with charcoal grills in them.  They stay open until 3 am so they are a good option for a late night meal.  We've been there a number of times and everything has been delicious—even the mysterious souffles and fried fish that turn up some times without asking.  We've had nearly all the BBQ dishes and they're all good, but the best is really the kalbi (they do a good marinade).  I'm a fan of dumplings and the seafood pancakes, particularly the oyster pancakes.

So Moon Nan Jip makes you look this satisifed every time.