Socksmith asked if I wanted to check out some donut socks, and OF COURSE I said yes, and seriously, I love them so much! These socks come in mint or black, and I requested mint to go with all my pastel clothes. At the time, I didn’t realize that Socksmith was a company local to me, not far in Santa Cruz. This also meant that my socks arrived super quickly!

Instead of putting together an outfit with the socks (which I’ll probably do later anyway), I decided to try wearing them with different shoes.

I immediately thought or clear jelly sandals to show off fun socks! But I also thought they would look sweet with a little white t-strap.

If you know me at all, you know I’m usually in some sort of black stompy boot. Even with a darker outfit, these socks are still a fun wink of color. And these silver boots? Okay, I NEVER wear them, except for maybe an 80s costume night. Frankly, they are really uncomfortable, even though they are super amazing. But I like to whip them out at random fun times. Like donut sock times!

And lastly, I just treated myself to these amazing pink poodle shoes. I think the donut socks and the poodle shoes were made for each other.

As you can see in this last photo, the socks are a teeeeensy bit big on me (I’m a US 7 1/2), but I think that popping them in the wash will fix that right up.

After poking around the Socksmith site a little, I realized I already have the macaroni and cheese socks. I also have my eye on the fawns, the soft serve, the watermelons, the gingerbread house, the roses, and the teddy bears. There’s both a women’s section and a men’s section, knee highs, over the knees, shorties, and more. You can shop online or find a store that sells them near you!

*****

Donut socks c/o Socksmith, Sparkle Jelly Shoes: eBay, White T-Straps: ModCloth from a few years ago, Black Boots: UNIF, Silver Booties: Irregular Choice from years ago, Pink Poodle Shoes: Irregular Choice.

Heres Box #3 from my Bento Box series for the JapanLA 10th Anniversary Party and Art Show. (Box #1, Box #2)

This is boiled egg chicks on noodles with edamame and carrots. At first, I was going to make peas and carrots, but I got bored of making peas and wrote an easy edamame pattern instead :P.

One of my blog sponsors, Violette Loveace of Knit Kritters, contributed five knit patterns to the soon-to-be-released book “Knit Beanies: Easy to Make, Fun to Wear,” which you can pre-order on Amazon.com as well as in the Knit Kritters shop if you’d like a copy signed by Violette. You can also enter to win your own copy (plus a finished hat!) via the Rafflecopter widget below! I always feel like there is a big rift between crocheters vs. knitters, but when I was at Vogue Knitting Live, I discovered that there are a lot of you that can do both! (I can knit, but it takes so long and I’m not very good at it.)

Whether you’re new to knitting or looking for an easy stash-busting project, you’ll find fun stitches and techniques to give your beanies terrific texture and fantastic flair. Projects include colorwork, ribs, cables, lace, and more, with hat styles for men, women, and kids. Other knit designers in the book are Jen Lucas, Megan Kreiner, Sheryl Thies, Amy Polcyn Niezur, Doreen L. Marquart, Jessica Anderson, Sharon E. Mooney, Shana Galbraith, and David Owen Hastings.

Violette asked if I could shoot some of her finished hat designs from the book to show you guys, but I look really terrible in hats plus I just got my permanent eyeliner re-touched and look extra scary, so I borrowed the lovely Manda (and a CareBear backpack).

This is the Curly-Q Beret on Manda and a Cat Hat on the CareBear.

Manda then switched to adventure mode with the CareBear while wearing her own Cat Hat.

This is the Alphie.

This is the Parry.

And this is the Big Needle Duo.

Don’t forget, there are 15 more patterns in the book, organized by yarn weight, with lots of styles and shapes. It normally retails for $19.99, but you can enter to win one here PLUS a SURPRISE finished hat from one of  Violette’s patterns. ALSO if we hit 300 entries, we’ll be giving away another book and another surprise hat, and if we hit 500 entires, we’ll give away a total of 3 books and 3 hats! So keep spreading the word!

Giveaway is open worldwide and will run until Tuesday, June 14th at midnight PDT. Winner must be 18 or over and must also respond to my email within 24 hours or I will choose a new winner. Winner will be chosen randomly via Rafflecopter/Random.org. Please make sure that twinkie@twinkiechan.com will get through your spam filters. While Violette will pay for shipping your prize, you are responsible for any possible customs or duty charges. No purchase necessary. Void where prohibited. No giveaway accounts please! A giveaway account is a social media account that you use only to post about giveaways. Good luck!

Here’s Box #2 from my Bento Box series for the JapanLA art show. (Box #1)

This is shrimp tempura with strawberries and lemon slices. The little soy sauce bottles have real soy sauce in them, and the caps are super-glued on. Manda helped with those!

I had a time deciding what color to actually make the shrimps. I feel like tempura batter is actually quite light in color, like pale yellow, but this darker color also screamed FRIED FOOD at me. Hairy happened to be dropping off the dogs while I was in the throes of color selection, and I was like THISONEORTHATONE and he picked this one, so it was!

I love that green yarn I used for the lettuce SO MUCH. It’s Madeline Tosh Merino DK. But I didn’t save the ball band and I have no idea what color this is :(, and I think it’s discontinued (is it Tanenbaum?! Moorland? Mill Pond?! JADE?!). It’s spendy, and I don’t think I would use it for selling finished projects in my Etsy shop, but it would’ve been nice to have known what it was. I’ve been looking for a less expensive alternative, but it’s hard to find that perfect, vegetabley, variegated green. If you have any tips, let me know!

I sent in my four pieces for the JapanLA Anniversary and Art Show, and I thought I would share photos of each one every day this week. I’ve always been dying to crochet some bento boxes, and this art show was really the perfect opportunity for it, since the theme is Super Kawaii Food Art.

Kind of a weird thing happened while I was crocheting these boxes. At first I really liked the idea of the food looking back at you, faces and bodies pressed against a plastic window. Then the process became less an aesthetic experience and a little bit more of an emotional one. I kind of joked about it with Manda. I was like, “This is like putting together lunches for my unborn children.” I’m generally pretty sarcastic and I’ve never been much of a kid-person, but the joke came from some place inside me a little bit real. I’m potentially having a lil solo show in September in LA (dates and details and everything are still in the works), and I’ve become obsessed with working on an entire Box Lunch theme, based on lunches I would make for people I love. We’ll see. I’m not usually that sentimental when it comes to my crocheting, but, I really really REALLY loved the experience of making my bentos! I’m usually into creating patterns and pieces that have a function and that don’t just sit around on a shelf, but these were definitely made to simply hang on a wall (even though all the food pieces are all still loose and removable inside) and have no actual use besides cuteness. I suppose a person could turn them into keychains, hair clips, pins, etc, if they felt like it, but I decided to leave them as is.

So here’s the first one. I already showed you guys this one in my blog entry for the art show, but here are more photos of it and more close-ups to start off the week.

HOT DOG OCTOPUS on rice. With broccoli and cherry tomatoes.