Greetings from Mochimochi!

What are you doing tomorrow evening?

If you're in the New York area you should be going to the Greetings from Mochimochi show at Gallery Hanahou.

Here's how the show is described on Gallery Hanahou's website:

"In her first solo show, craft artist Anna Hrachovec stretches the possibilities of knitting as a medium to create an expansive and wacky landscape installation. Crash-landed aliens, rat-infested skyscrapers, giant ants, and everything else that comprises the 8-foot installation is entirely hand-knitted by the artist, who used 200 balls of yarn and more than a million stitches to make it all come to life. And just for fun, the piece includes a working model train – converted into a silly knitted monster, of course!"

Fun stuff! You can find our more about Anna Hrachovec at Mochimochiland.com where she also maintains a great blog. The opening party is tomorrow from 7-9 pm and I've really been looking forward to it. Openings at Hanahou are always really casual and fun and there's usually a very nice amount of champagne...

Hope to see you there!

Knitting and Teaching

Hi. How are you? I'm fine. It got colder here... Finally. It's even cold enough for me to wear my sweater. I'm starting to like this sweater more the more I wear it. I'm still not totally in love with the fit and design but it does do a good job of keeping me warm.

I'm also knitting a new cardigan. It feels like it's going so so slowly. Right now it's sort of a weird vest. I've started on one of the sleeves but i'm changing the design from a short sleeve cardigan to a long sleeve one, and that makes it even more slow going as I figure out what I want to do. I'm really happy with the yarn I'm using. It's 100% wool from Australia and it's soft but it also feels quite strong. It's also a very nice color. This photo doesn't really show the color well, it's really a pretty goldy-tan color and I like it a whole lot.

And lastly, I will be teaching a Beginning Knitting class this Sunday the 10th! It will be held at Treehouse Brooklyn and it's going to be a lot of fun! I will teach everyone how to knit using chunky knitting needles and we will be making beer coozies that kind of look like beer can sweaters (but not with sleeves or anything cheesy like that). I feel like they are the perfect thing for autumn barbecues and chilly bonfire parties to keep your beers from making your hands cold. Totally appropriate for the season and also perfect for gifts!

I hope you'll take this class with me or consider taking the other rad Treehouse classes coming up this month!

Please click HERE for more info!

Tell your Brooklyn buddies!

Still here. Still knitting.

Hi!

So I know I've been slightly absent lately... But I've been knitting a ton. It's really true. I've been working on gifts and a new cardigan. Here's proof (in case you're skeptical):

This is me knitting at in the backyard of a bar in Williamsburg. And I have some other things to tell you about too. But I'll share more tomorrow. Remember when I mentioned taking a beer brewing class? Well I did indeed brew beer and tonight was the night for bottling said beer.... All 48 bottles of it... And I'm really happy about it but also exhausted.

Watch This

Love this.

Thick and Thin

A little while back I found some yarn hiding in a drawer. It looks like this:

It's some of my very first handspun yarn and it's so crazy. It goes from super thick lumps to weak sections that are thin like thread.

I guess I spun this yarn about a year and a half ago and I think it's fun to see what a better spinner I've become. Spinning was really hard for me at first. When my wheel arrived in the mail I sat down at it and couldn't get the hang of it at all. I couldn't get the wheel to move continuously or at an even speed and I didn't draft the wool at all which made it even harder (definitely self-taught...). I seriously might have cried that first day... Rage tears... Just a little.

I'm certainly still not perfect but I've improved a lot.

Thank goodness.

Beer!

Remember how I mentioned I was going to a Beer Brewing class? Well I went and it was super fun! It was held at 3rd Ward here in Brooklyn and taught by the folks behind Brooklyn Brew Shop. I was so into the class and really trying to listen and pay attention that I didn't take any photos. Then as I was looking for beer recipes through the BBS website I stumbled on this photo:

That's me on the far left. As you can see, I was being a very astute pupil. haha

This is Erica and Stephen. They were very nice teachers.

My friend Irina and I are going to go out and buy supplies today so hopefully we'll start brewing tonight!

Also, did you know that a new a new Textile Arts Center has opened in Brooklyn? It's in Park Slope and I think it's technically already open but they're having a Grand Opening and Premier Gallery Exhibition on September 17th! I think it's going to be really fun. You can find out more about all of that here.

Hi

I watched too many episodes of the This American Life tv show a couple days ago and felt bummed out... Then I watched this and felt better. Maybe you need to feel a bit better too?

I promise there will be proper craftiness around here soon. I've been knitting like crazy on a new cardigan it's just so slow going...