I had kind of a whirlwind weekend while in Pasadena for Vogue Knitting Live. I will blog about it! But first… our monthly giveaway!!! Thanks to my lovely blog sponsors for the wonderful prizes. ONE LUCKY WINNER WILL RECEIVE:

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I’m teaching a crochet class this Thursday night, 5pm – 7pm, at ImagiKnit in San Francisco! There’s still time to sign up. We’ll be making mini donuts from my book that you can turn into fridge magnets, pins, hair clips, key chains, bag charms, whatever you like! I’m also bringing a slightly different mini donut pattern if you want more circular donuts (rather than the oval ones that I prefer!). This is a good class for intermediate beginners. Things will go more smoothly if you are already familiar with how to hold a crochet hook, how to chain, and how to single crochet. I can teach you about working in the round, increasing, and decreasing! The class is a promotional price of $25 and you can sign up with ImagiKnit by calling 415-621-6642. See you then!

Oh my gosh, I had more fun wearing this outfit than I thought I would! This adorable suspender skirt was sent to me by Unique Vintage for my Style Society posts. It is navy blue with white polka hearts. I know this would look so super cute with a great blouse, but I am somewhat lacking in the cute blouse department. The good news is that a cute t-shirt works just as well! I paired my Jitterbug Suspender Skirt with a Hello Kitty x Johnny Cupcakes shirt from a few years back plus some saddle shoes from Amazon that I just picked up for a Halloween costume one year. I still want to buy a higher quality pair at some point.

The suspenders attach with white buttons and are also adjustable. There is a zipper in the back with a hook closure. I love the way this skirt nips your waist in. As a lady with short legs, I always kind of avoided skirts of this length. Somehow I feel like this is working, though!  When I was putting together this outfit in my head, I felt like I was conjuring a schoolgirl or someone about to meet a friend at a bookstore or library. As it turns out, I was just meeting myself. I guess that’s okay, too.

Suspender Skirt: c/o Unique Vintage, Shirt: Johnny Cupcakes (no longer available), Necklace: YouMakeMe Design, Shoes: Amazon, Purse: Kling via ModCloth

OKAY, I know it’s only like the day before Mother’s Day, but I posted a YouTube video for a Mother’s Day project anyway. You know how it goes with me … I’m a terrible planner when it comes to videos and holidays, and you can always use a bunch of older projects for this year’s present, and then you can use this one for future presents! 😛

I need to shoot better photos of the scarf and of me wearing it! But anyway, as I explain in the video, I have a store-bought scarf that I wear all the time and that is getting kind of old-looking, so I wanted to make myself a new one. I figured, you might want to make one, too. There are a lot of patterns and tutorials out there for chain link scarves already, so this isn’t a new-new idea, and I don’t even know if there is some cool tip or trick I’m missing out on. It’s just something I made for myself in real life. If anything, it’s just inspiration to start digging around in your stash and putting together yarns you might not have normally put together! In my scarf, I have some Madeline Tosh, Lion Brand, Knit Collage, and handspun from Etsy. The other fun thing (for me) about the video is that I lit my hands with my new OttLite (that you can win, too!). You’ll notice that the light changes throughout the tutorial portion of the video, because I kept changing the light settings around. I like whatever setting I had it on for the very last tutorial shot! I think that was the cool temp at full blast.

Anyway, I hope you have a wonderful weekend, whatever it is that you’re doing! <3

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I’m super excited that OttLite contacted me and offered to send me a new desk lamp to review AND giveaway! This is the LED Desk Lamp with Color Changing Tunnel and USB. I have an older model that was gifted to me years ago, but this new one has some really neat bells and whistles! I’d actually been using an old ugly black desk lamp from Target on my craft table. Back when my craft room was in my spare bedroom, and the walls were yellow, it was really hard for me to get enough light on my work to see true colors. I would complain that I couldn’t tell my yellow pompoms from my light green pompoms!

Sorry ahead of time that these aren’t the most amazing and beautifully styled photos. My work table is pretty boring, but I wanted to show you where I’m actually using my light in real life. This is where I pack and ship orders, and also where I glue pompoms to stuff, hot glue things to other things, sew beads to hair pieces… all my non-crochet work. My OttLite makes an amazing difference, and I wouldn’t just say that! Since it’s LED, it’s energy efficient and will last a long time. At first I was a bit afraid that the lamp’s modern look would feel really strange in my space. When it arrived, I was like, this looks like an alien out of Prometheus. You know, the baby one that bashes in that one guy’s space helmet. But I think that the white color helps it feel more comfy, and now I love it. Actually, I kinda wanna glue tiny plastic figurines to the top of it, but we’ll see what happens. The neck of the lamp is really bendy. You can bend it forward and also bend it side to side. I also used it to light my hands in the YouTube tutorial I’m about to upload. BUT HERE’S THE REALLY NEAT PART.

On the left side of the base is the power button and a button that says “M.” The M button controls the temperature of the light, so you can have really cool light, or a warmer light, or a mix of both. SO RAD.

On the right side of the base are some arrow buttons. These control the strength of the light. There are 4 different strength settings. And that rainbow strip in the center? That controls the color-changing tunnel!!! IT’S CRAFTY PARTY TIME. You can slide your finger along the rainbow strip to choose one color of light, or, if you hold down the green power button, the colors will start to automatically cycle. (I have no idea why all my photos captured the purple cycle…!) There’s also a USB port in the back that I didn’t get a photo of but you can charge up your phone while you work and listen to some tunes!

I made a dinky video to show you all of this in action.

The giveaway winner will receive the exact same light as mine in the white color. Giveaway is open to the United States and Canada (except Quebec). This has to do with voltage requirements, although in general, OttLites are available around the world. Just not for this giveaway. Giveaway will run until Friday, May 13th 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. Just use the Rafflecopter widget below to enter. No giveaway accounts please! A giveaway account is a social media account that you use only to post about giveaways. Good luck!

 

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