Category: Blog

As part of Hallmark Channel’s “Countdown to Christmas,” the television channel and Warm Up America! have teamed up for the Stitched with Sweets initiative to create fun and cozy scarves to donate to women’s shelters. The network has also donated $10,000 to the Foundation to support the charity. I designed the scarf patterns and instructions inspired by Hallmark Channel’s “Countdown to Christmas” theme and color palette: mugs of hot cocoa decorated with candy canes and hearts. I also wanted this campaign to be as accessible as possible, so I created an alternate scarf design with more basic rectangular sections. With both of these patterns, you can make a whole scarf to donate or even just sections, and Warm Up America! has volunteers to help seam the pieces together. For knitters, my friend Candace of Yarn Puffy “translated” both patterns to knit. You can find all the free patterns, an instructional YouTube video for the crochet mug scarf, and the address to send your donations to at WarmUpAmerica.org. The deadline for items is February 14, 2024.

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Happy Easter! Last year, I started seeing pictures of people’s Easter lamb cakes on Instagram, and my favorites are the ones that might count as a cake fail. Melty faces. Demonic eyes. Heads that have fallen off. I love them all! You can see my real one below. Get the crochet pattern in my Etsy shop as well as my Ravelry shop. After baking a real one, I realized that my pattern is pretty big and round and chunky. I might make a slightly more realistic crochet version next year 😛. Mine still makes me giggle whenever I walk by, though! Okay, here’s the one I baked. I used a sour cream pound cake recipe and Dolly Parton’s buttercream frosting. I found a set of edible sugar flowers on Amazon.

I recently made a little present for my Secret Santa gift exchange at work, and I wanted to include a handmade card. I used a little Christmas tree appliqué from my Gingerbread House Tissue Box Cozy pattern and decorated it with tiny pompoms. For a little bit of extra something, I painted some snow in the background with white watercolor, and I wrote my note on the back in gold paint pen. I couldn’t decide if I liked the card or not, but I really loved making little trees! I made some in a few colors and sizes and lengths, and I decided to share this tree pattern for free here for all your holiday card making, garland making, gift-topper making, ornament-making, and more! If you scroll down below, you can see that I also gave you the pattern for the thinner tree so you can play with variety. Once you get the general hang of the pattern, you’ll see how easy it is to change it up and get really creative. Don’t forget to tag me @twinkiechan on social media so I can see!

I recently got this sketchbook to use while filming some new Creativebug classes next week. I liked the pink cover and that the cover was stiff. I also liked the gold spiral, but I did not like the text that was on the cover. I decided to crochet a patch or appliqué to cover up the text. It was hard to decide what to make! At first I was going to crochet a strawberry, then I decided to do a multi-scoop ice cream cone, then I thought I might do a crochet Burn Book… and somehow I ended up with a happy little frog. It’s a super easy pattern. It’s basically a circle with some eyes and legs. I loved how it turned out, and I know you’ll find a lot of fun uses for this pattern, too.

Jenny Lemons, one of my favorite shops in San Francisco, is celebrating its 4th birthday this month. You know how much I love to crochet cake, so I was excited to crochet some scrumptious bday cake for the store. I whipped up 4 new, one of a kind cakes, plus 1 cake that I had made for my own birthday last year. You can buy them at Jenny Lemons and also online at JennyLemons.com. This one is inspired by classic birthday sheet cake and is perfect for anyone, especially your favorite person, (insert name here). This cake is inspired by a birthday cake I recently crocheted for my mom! It seemed like a relatively fancy cake compared to the others, which is why it’s 100% gucci. I don’t know if the clown cake is exactly a memory from my own childhood, but it just FEELS like it is! A little bit wacky and a little bit tacky, this cake definitely went the way of more is more. I have a lot of heart-shaped cake forms left over from this year’s heart cake pattern launch, so I gave the same shape a little twist with a goofy happy face and lots and lots of frosting ruffles. Last but not least, my birthday cake! Because crocheting fake cakes is obviously hot girl shit. My elbow has been super painful lately and I need to take a break from crocheting, but I have so many cakes I want to make!

The first time I posted the avocado scarf on my blog was 2009! And I never wrote the pattern until now. You can find it in my Etsy shop and also my Ravelry shop. If you ever made the pear scarf from my first book, you’ll find that these patterns are very similar. This is one of the main reasons I waited to so long to prep this pattern. I felt that it mostly already existed. However, I keep receiving requests to release the avocado, so here it is!

In August, I was the featured artist at Jenny Lemons, which is an amazing art supply store, gift shop, and DIY teaching space in San Francisco. I hosted a craft party via Zoom where we made beaded mushroom pins to go with the neon mushroom theme that I created in the shop window. All of the mushroom and froggy friends were for sale, and they all sold out! Before you ask, you can definitely purchase patterns for them in my Etsy shop: frog crochet pattern and mushrooms and frogs crochet pattern bundle. Taking photos of a window display is tough because of the reflections on the glass, but here are a few snaps from installation day.

Hello! I… have a lot of catching up to do on the blog, but I wanted to let you know that I just uploaded a new crochet pattern: Crochet Strawberries – Halves and Wholes. I recently crocheted a bunch of treats for a crocheted tea party (more on that soon!) and I needed strawberry halves to top my mini cupcakes. Now you can make strawberry halves, too! The neat thing about this pattern is that you can also use it to make perfect matching whole strawberries. How cute is that?

I’m extra excited to release this crochet pattern for a heart-shaped cake, because I know you all will get super creative with it! It’s fairly small at 6 inches wide and 3 inches tall, so there’s not a lot of room for lots of text, but even with that small space, I can’t stop thinking about funny or sweet words to add. You can also skip lettering all together and just cover the top of your cake with lots of luscious frosting. The pattern in clouds a bunch of different kinds of piped frosting and frosting blobs to customize your cake. I include links to all my favorite materials, including these magical cherries everyone always asks me about. Start practicing that piping! [Heart-shaped crochet cake pattern in my Etsy shop.]

Here’s an oldie but a goodie. Are wearable pretzels cool anymore? I remember when I first started making these for my craft shows, they were really really popular! The pattern is so easy that I never posted it anywhere. It did appear in Simply Crochet Magazine Issue 30 which was many many years ago! A few people have asked about it recently, so I dug up some photos and notes and put a pattern together for you. Please enjoy, and I expect to see lots of cute outfits with your new crocheted pretzel brooches! Printer-friendly version is available in my Etsy shop for just $2.00.

Let’s knock out 2020 with THE BEST CROCHET PROJECT OF THE YEAR!!! It’s 100% Soft‘s Dumpster Fire!!! Truck asked if I wanted to translate his iconic and super popular Dumpster Fire into a crocheted plush, and I said OF COURSE. I stayed as true as I could to his original vinyl toy. I didn’t want y’all just crocheting a box with some weak flames inside. This means that the construction is a little bit more involved than with some of my other projects, but I truly feel the results are worth it. I mean, just look at this dude! I have a YouTube tutorial for you also. It’s my longest yet at 2 hours and 15 minutes long. Get ready to hunker down with me. If you don’t need the video, you can find the free pattern below, and also a more gorgeous, printer-friendly PDF in my Etsy shop. I can’t wait to see all of your lil dumps!

I’m a bit late to blog about this, but this is happening 1 more time tomorrow, December 18, at 6pm ET. In collaboration with Joann & Creativebug, I’ll be teaching a free online class on how to make super cute felt gingerbread ornaments! Click here to RSVP and sign up! You probably already have most of the supplies at home, and it’s very easy to substitute various trims and buttons. I do love these little DIY peppermint buttons, though. I kind of want to put them on everything! You also have so much freedom to design whatever shapes of felt cookies you want! That little kitty cat cookie was a last-minute addition but has been getting so much love on Instagram. You still have time to hand-sew a bunch for your own tree or for gifts! Here is a materials list for the class. Don’t forget to RSVP so that you can the link to the free class. 1 sheet of brown or tan felt ¼ inch baby rick rack in white 12 inches of twine, string, thin ribbon, or yarn 2 x 3/8 inch white buttons – these buttons must have 4 holes 2 x ¼ inch black buttons for eyes Black embroidery floss or sewing thread Red embroidery floss Brown or tan embroidery floss to match your felt Pink embroidery floss Small amount of polyester stuffing Tools Cereal box, cardboard, cardstock, or regular paper Ruler Pen or pencil Fabric marking tool Paper scissors

“Excuse me, but I couldn’t help but notice that strange and interesting plant in the window!” Treetopia invited me to join their “13 Haunting Tales” Halloween tree campaign, and even though I had just completed my edible ornaments tree, I loved the idea of decorating my 7.5 foot Tuxedo Black in the theme of a favorite/classic Halloween character.

You can have a lot of fun decorating a Halloween tree! I went with a colorful monster theme for mine, PLUS most of my ornaments are EDIBLE. Treetopia graciously gave me a pre-lit Tuxedo Black faux Christmas tree. This one is 7.5 feet tall which made me realize my living room ceiling is not that high :P. But the black color is a very nice blank canvas for all of your spooky Halloween scenes. I baked colorful monster sugar cookies and I also put together some gigantic marshmallow bloody eyeballs. I gotta tell you that the house smelled really good!

I know that I’ve been a terrible blogger and haven’t written here since December, but I spent Nov 2019 – June 2020 developing and working on my first crochet installation. I also left my job in social media and now work full time helping a company create video content for artists and makers. But let me tell you all about the installation “Sucre Fleuf!” now on exhibition at Sweet Tooth Hotel in Dallas, TX as part of a group fiber art show called Intangible. This is the first year that the Craft Yarn Council has offered an artist in residency for a handful of amazing female fiber artists to unleash their dreams and creativity in yarn. I’m so honored to be part of this! As I mentioned, we have all been working on our spaces since late 2019. We then met up in Dallas in March for a week to install our pieces, get to know each other, and check out each other’s works in progress. In the show, you’ll find crocheting, knitting, tufting, weaving, latch-hooking, all manner of art in yarn form! It is truly a one-of-a-kind experience. I’ll share photos of the other artists spaces later (check out Sweet Tooth’s Instagram), but for now, I thought I’d let you know what I worked on for 8-9 months. I know you will ask if the patterns will be available, and yes, that is my next project. I want to try self-publishing a little book of crochet patterns filled with bread, cakes, and pastries. Right now my patterns are in a really rough form with not-so-great photography. It’s really re-making the projects and taking photos that makes pattern-writing a whole time-consuming production! Here’s a little video walk-through I made on my phone when Manda and I visited the show in June. Due to Covid 19, we were very careful, and were only in Dallas for less than 24 hours before coming home. I felt very lucky she was able to travel with me. It made the trip much less scary! View this post on Instagram A post shared by Twinkie Chan (@twinkiechan) on Jun 22, 2020 at 2:08pm PDT When I was first asked to participate, I kept thinking that I had to work BIG, on a large scale. However, since I live in California and the show is in Dallas, the idea of shipping something very large also seemed daunting. I sketched a few different proposals for the gallery, and ultimately I realized that my creative wheelhouse is in scarves and amigurumi, and then the idea for Sucre Fleuf! was born. “Sucre” means sugar and “Fleuf” is a a word I sort of made-up that sounds French-ish and refers to the fluff of the stuffing I use and the fluff of a delicious cake. It’s also a bit of a riff on “Sacre Bleu!” It was quite an experience to sketch something out in Photoshop and to see it come to life in reality. Everyone at Sweet Tooth was […]

Bunny was feeling very poorly last week and went into the ER again. I was afraid this would be our last Christmas together, so I made us two tiny Santa hats for a photo. She had been wanting to just be in her bed all day with zero energy. I felt bad even bothering her for this, but it only took a few minutes so I hope she doesn’t hate me forever. I ended up pinning both of them to my head after letting her go back to sleep. You could attach them to hair clips or a head band, but I think just using bobby pins makes them really versatile. Now I can thread a loop through them and put them on my Christmas tree or a wreath! We have some on our mantel garland right now. For Bunny, I strung black yarn on each side of the hat and tied a bow under her chin. I picked black to match her fur so the tie would be less visible. I hope you have fun with your mini Santa hats! Mini Santa Hat Crochet Pattern You’ll need a small amount of worsted yarn in Red and White, an H hook, scissors, yarn needle, and you can either make a pom pom with yarn or you’ll need a store-bought one to glue on. I think mine were 1/2 inch white Pom Poms. The RS of your work in Red will show on the outside of the hat, and you’ll flip up the White brim so the WS will be showing. Abbreviations ch(s): chain(s)FLO: front loops only rnd(s): round(s)RS: right sidesc: single crochetsl st: slip stitchst(s): stitch(es)(  ): work everything inside the parentheses into the next stitch[  ]: work everything inside the brackets the number of times indicated Hat Pattern With Red and H hook, make magic circle or ch 3 and sl st to 1st ch to form ring. Rnd 1: Ch 1, 6 sc into ring. Don’t join rnds. – 6 sts Rnd 2: sc, 5 hdc. – 6 sts Rnd 3: [(2 hdc), 2 hdc] 2 times. – 8 sts Rnd 4: [(2 hdc), 3 hdc] 2 times. – 10 sts Rnd 5: [(2 hdc), 4 hdc] 2 times. – 12 sts Rnd 6: [(2 hdc), 5 hdc] 2 times. – 14 sts Rnd 7: [(2 hdc), 6 hdc] 2 times. – 16 sts Rnd 8: [(2 hdc), 7 hdc] 2 times. – 18 sts Rnd 10: [(2 hdc), 8 hdc] 2 times. – 20 sts Rnd 11: [(2 hdc), 4 hdc] 4 times. – 24 sts Rnd 12: 23 hdc evenly, sc. – 24 sts Sl st to next st to join.  Break off White. Join White.  Rnd 13: Work this rnd in FLO. Ch 2, work hdc evenly around. Sl st to 1st hdc to join. – 24 sts Rnd 14: Work in both loops again. Ch 2, 24 hdc evenly around. Sl st to 1st hdc to join. – 24 sts Break off and weave in all […]

I crocheted myself a Santa ornament and thought you might want to crochet some, too! They would make the cutest gifts, or even gift toppers. We also put a bunch on the garland on our mantel, and I think they would look absolutely amazing on your holiday wreaths! Right now, you can get it FREE for 24 hours before I post it to Etsy. Click here get the pattern from my Etsy shop: Santa Ornament Crochet Pattern He’s constructed like a pillow, and you can use whatever you like or have around the house for his eyes, nose, and belt buckle. All the Santas look super cute and comfy on my pink Christmas tree from Treetopia, and while I can’t decide between decorating my living room in a pastel theme or with more traditional colors, Cute Santa bridges the gap pretty well! My mom came for a visit and wanted to steal all of them, so beware: Everyone will want one!

My friend Truck from 100% Soft designed this really cute Ghost Friends Dress with happy ghost foods flying all over it! I decided to make a matching happy ghost pillow, and I love how he turned out! If you’d like to make a friend of your own, click on the link for the free PDF: Little Ghost Pillow I’ll be honest: I worked this up really quickly, and I haven’t had much time to proofread it before posting. If you find any errors or confusing spots, just leave a comment and let me know! I hope you have a lot of fun with your new buddy!

Pink Halloween Tree – Alien Autopsy Style! Quote from my mom: “It’s funny. AND YUCKY.” It’s that time of the year again when Treetopia celebrates its biggest scare-fest! They partnered with 12 influencers – including me! – to join their brand ambassador, Jennifer Perkins, in a very unique influencer- hop. Everyone is decorating a room in their homes with a haunted house theme featuring colored trees and foliage from Treetopia, and you have a few ways to win your very own tree! Scroll to the bottom of this post enter. #TreetopiaScaryRooms While looking at tons of images of haunted houses, I for some reason got really inspired by a particular Alien Autopsy room and completely ran with that theme. I had so much fun decorating my 5 foot pink tree with pink lights courtesy of Treetopia. I used little green aliens, medium-sized glow in the dark aliens, assorted green tree ornaments, and I made my own UFOs with pie tins, treat container toppers, flat back rhinestones, and really awesome stretchy mesh tubing! I love the contrast of all the green decorations with the pink tree. A Closer Look At Our Lab While I focused on crocheting the guest star of my Scary Room – George, the crocheted, autopsied alien – Manda helped me create the crazy laboratory around him. She started by draping everything with plastic painter’s sheeting to create that “secret pop-up laboratory” look. Initially, my goal was to crochet a bunch of organs to suspend in jars filled with colored water, but I was really pressed for time, so Manda improvised and started digging around in the kitchen for anything and EVERYTHING to put in our jars. Me: What’s in the blue jar?! Manda: KALE. AND A ROCK. We surrounded our laboratory shelf with a 10 ft. pre-lit white Christmas garland which Manda also decorated with aliens, green tree ornaments, and plastic aliens to coordinate with our tree, because who says labs can’t be festive, too? The “I.V.” bags are actually something you can water your plants with as you set how much it “drips,” and we just hung them on a silver lamp that I almost gave away because I don’t really use it. Other things in our jars: jumbo bubble wrap, eggs that Manda drew veins on with Sharpie, Polyfil stuffing, udon noodles, FROZEN CHICKEN BREASTS, a dried up air plant, and 1 actual crocheted organ. We just bought a new cabinet for our living room to hide our vacuum cleaner in, but it made its debut as our mad scientist storage area including anatomical research photos and other intimidating looking tools we happen to have in our garage at the moment. George, The Crocheted Alien Who Was Tragically Autopsied But Feels Relatively Okay About It So, I spent a million hours crocheting this alien autopsy, but I didn’t get great photos of him because he was on my dining room table, and I couldn’t get high enough to get his whole body in the frame. […]

My crocheted freak shake is on the cover of Mollie Makes Magazine, Issue 108! The pattern available inside includes the mug, the donut, the whipped cream topping, the chocolate sauce, and the strawberry skewer. The magazine commissioned this project from me, and of course I had to say yes! I had no idea it was going to be on the cover, though, so that was really exciting to find out when they sent me a preview of the magazine in July. If you’re interested in the pattern, you can find subscription and/or download information here: Mollie Makes Magazine Issue 108. View this post on Instagram Take a closer look at my crocheted freak shake and find the pattern in Issue 108 of @molliemakes ! Out now! What hashtags would you use for this? #crochetfood #freakshake #crazyshake #ihaveathingforsprinkles A post shared by Twinkie Chan (@twinkiechan) on Jul 11, 2019 at 2:10pm PDT

I crocheted some quick and easy bunny-shaped egg cozies for a project I’m doing with the video app TikTok, so I decided to post this pattern for free here for you guys! I don’t have exact yardage, and I don’t have step out photos, but hopefully the pattern is SO EASY that you won’t need much visual help. I hope you have a very Happy Easter! Enjoy! Materials (contains affiliate links) Small amount of worsted weight yarn in pink or white. I used Lion Brand Vanna’s Choice in Pink and White. Small amount of worsted weight yarn in brown. I used Lion Brand Vanna’s Choice in Chocolate. Stitch markers or a small amount of yarn in a contrasting color H/5.00mm crochet hook tapestry needle small scissors Easter Bunny Egg Cozy – Body With H hook and whatever color you choose for the cozy color, make magic circle, or ch 3 and sl st to 1st ch to form ring. Rnd 1: Ch 1, 6 sc into ring. Don’t join rnds. – 6 sts Rnd 2: (2 sc) in each st. – 12 sts Rnd 3: [(2 sc), 3 sc] 3 times. – 15 sts Rnd 4: [(2 sc), 4 sc] 3 times. – 18 sts Rnd 5: [(2 sc), 5 sc] 3 times. – 21 sts Rnd 6: [(2 sc), 6 sc] 3 times. – 24 sts Rnds 7-10: Sc evenly around. – 24 sts Rnd 11: [sc2tog, 6 sc] 3 times. – 21 sts Sl st to next st to join. Break off and weave in ends. Easter Bunny Egg Cozy – Ears (Make 2) With H hook and whatever color you’re using for ears, make magic circle, or ch 3 and sl st to 1st ch to form ring. Rnd 1: Ch 1, 6 sc into ring. Don’t join rnds. – 6 sts Rnd 2: [(2 sc), sc] 3 times. – 9 sts Rnds 3-7: Sc evenly around. – 9 sts Sl st to next st to join. Break off leaving about 18 inches of yarn for sewing later. Assembly Sew each ear to the top of the body. Use brown yarn and a tapestry needle to embroider any facial features like eyes. I chose to keep mine simple and just make closed eyes. You can make a super cute Easter display or gift by placing two Easter Bunny Egg Cozies (over real eggs or plastic ones) in a little basket with faux grass or excelsior, surrounded by candy!

Download PDF HERE   Head: With Honey and H hook, make magic circle, or ch 3 and sl st to 1st ch to form ring. Round 1: Ch 2 and work 10 hdc into circle. Sl st to top of 1st hdc to join. (10 sts) Round 2: Ch 2, work (2 hdc) 10 times. Sl st to top of 1st hdc to join. (20 sts) Round 3: Ch 2, [(2 hdc), 1 hdc] 10 times. Sl st to 1st hdc to join. (30 sts) Do not break off. Continue to work in rows for the body.   Body: Row 1: Ch 2 and hdc in same space (go thru both loops to avoid making a hole), 4 more hdc evenly across. (5 sts) Turn. Rows 2-3: Ch 2, 5 hdc. Turn. (5 sts). Do not break off. Continue to work on one of the legs.   Leg #1: Row 4: Ch 2, and 2 hdc evenly, leaving remaining sts unworked (2 sts). Turn. Row 5: Ch 1, skip one hdc, and (3 sc) and sl st in last hdc. Break off.   Leg #2: With wrong side of the cookie facing you, insert hook into 2nd to last hdc of body Row 3. Row 1: Repeat Row 4. Row 2: Ch 1, turn. 3 sc in 1st stitch. Sl st in last st and break off.   Arms: Insert hook where head and body join and work moving away from the head. Row 1: Ch 2 and hdc in same space. Hdc in next hdc. Turn. (2 sts) Row 2: Ch 2, and hdc in same space. Hdc in next hdc. Break off.   Repeat Rows 1-2 on the other side of the body.   Weave in all ends, making sure especially that there isn’t a big hole in the middle of the face where your magic ring was.   To work the white Icing, insert hook into crotchal area (I find this is the most logical place to hide any inconsistency), and with White, sl st evenly along the edge of the cookie. Exercise control while you sl st around. These sl sts should NOT warp the cookie in any way. If your cookie is starting to curl inward, you are sl st’ing too tightly or too far apart. You do want the sl sts to look as uniform as possible. When you go all the way around and get back to the crotchal area, I cut the yarn and just pull the tail all the way up and out of the top of the cookie and then use a tapestry needle to weave it back down to the back of the cookie to tie off and weave in the end. I think this looks more clean than breaking off the normal way, but you can figure out what works best for you, too. To work the Smile, use Pink and sl st evenly along the spaces between Rnd 2 and Rnd 3 of the head, which form a perfect smile guide. Break […]

If you’ve been following my social media at all, you’ll know that I designed and crocheted this little pastel gingerbread village for my local yarn shop, ImagiKnit, here in San Francisco. With a full-time job, I definitely would not have been able to pull this off without help from two of my trusty crochet elves and my bff. It was a team effort! And we made a village! Here’s a video of it in action, because the coolest part of the display is the yarn-bombed electric train! The little people/elves that inhabit this village were heavily inspired by Mochimochi Land’s gnomes. I made little wire stands for them so that they could stand up in the display. Manda helped me lay out the village, and we decided that a Big Tree in the center would be perfect. Time was really not on my side, so while I would’ve loved to crochet a tree, I decided to yarn-wrap a styrofoam cone instead. Still cute! And no snowy village is complete without abominable snowmen or yetis! This pattern is based on the Abominable Snowman crochet class I have on Creativebug, but this one is a bit smaller and constructed slightly differently. While I was taking photos of the window, a woman and her son were watching the train go around. When her son realized that the monster was eating a person, he said he didn’t like it! Sorry, kiddo! I hope that if you’re a Bay Area local, you’ll get a chance to stop by ImagiKnit. If the train isn’t going, just ask them! I’ll provide links to various crochet patterns in this project in the next few blog entries.