Meet the Maker - Anna Hrachovec

My passion for all things knitted continues and I just love these amazing characters that inhabit Mochimochi Land.  Launched in 2007 as a place where knitted toys and people can live together in a spirit of tolerance, the original designs are by Anna Hrachovec, a knitter who lives in Chicago.

Her kits are available on-line, as are books and downloadable patterns and you can even buy them ready-made if knitting is beyond you, although she offers some easy to follow tutorials on-line which might get you motivated to have a go yourself.

 I’ll let Anna continue in her own words;

   

When I made these guys, I didn’t instantly think “THIS will be my new job,” but I did think “This is awesome and I can’t wait to design all sorts of toys!” I had a new passion,  I decided to take a few months just to knit toys and blog about them, and see where that might lead,

The first place I shared photos of my toys was Flickr and before long I was seeing comments from people asking for a pattern.

    

I still remember trying to come up with a website name.  Why “mochi”? Because it was one of my favourite Japanese foods; it’s soft and squishy, like a toy; and because I wanted to make toys inspired by minimalist Japanese character design, so a fun Japanese word seemed fitting to me. Mochi.com and mochimochi.com were taken, so the “land” in Mochimochi Land was just a matter of URL necessity at first, but as my designs grew in number, it seemed natural that they should exist in their own imaginary land.

Flickr, some online press and Ravelry, helped bring people to my website and it dawned on me that there was actually a market for digital patterns.  At this point you’ve probably figured out that I never wrote a business plan. My plan was just to start really small, publishing a few patterns as I went, and see what happened. It helped that there is little overhead in basic pattern making: I just needed the knitting supplies, a camera, and a computer. Now I teach and have been commissioned to create art installations too.  And although these projects didn’t fit anywhere into a profit-making plan, the business side has grown too.  Primarily it was as a self-employed, self-directed person, that I wanted to continue to challenge my creativity, keeping my curiosity alive while I turned my hobby into my job.

     

We may not have them quite this small, but if it's a radish or pumpkin 

you're after to keep your little 'un warm you can find them all here.

 If there’s something to take away from my “how I got started” story, I think it’s that there’s no secret formula to starting a small business, and it’s OK not to have it all figured out right at the beginning. But it does help to have a close-to-obsessive passion about something, an inclination for working independently, and the willingness and resources to invest a few years in it before you can make it your main income.

                 

Some posts to Flickr by amateur knitters inspired by Anna's work.

www.cobwebknits.co.uk