I have a new tutorial for you today that you’ll probably find especially useful if you’re working on a Temperature Snake (although it isn’t just for snakes!)

Is your stuffing less smooth and even than you’d like? I can help with that!

With my ‘pinch-and-push’ technique, you can manipulate the stuffing of an amigurumi from the outside of the piece, by using both hands to encourage the stuffing to shift into the desired area. This method will save you from having to pull out all the stuffing and start again (which may not even be possible if you have a snake that’s already several feet long!)

I’m demonstrating on a snake because it’s easiest to see what’s happening with a long thin tube, but you can also use this method to pinch-and-push stuffing into a different area of any long or large amigurumi, as long as you still have an opening so you can add extra stuffing to replace the quantity you move.

The Problem

For the purposes of this demonstration, I’ve intentionally under-stuffed my in-progress Temperature Snake in a couple of places.

Below, you can see both dark blue sections aren’t stuffed as much as the rest of the body, giving my poor snake a bit of a lumpy, uneven appearance when straight:

It’s especially important to try to even out the stuffing in something long and thin like an amigurumi snake. You need enough stuffing inside to fully support the crocheted fabric in any position you’ll use it, as these areas will tend to crease or buckle when you try to curve the snake’s body, and that’s definitely not the look you want!

Method

The idea of the pinch-and-push process is to move stuffing forward (away from the open end – i.e. toward the head in this case) to fill any under-stuffed areas.

Note: In all the photos below, the snake’s head is on the right, and the open end of the snake on the left, so we’ll be shifting the stuffing from the left to the right.

Here’s the first under-stuffed area:

We’re going to move some of the stuffing forward from the well-stuffed purple area to the under-stuffed dark blue area.

Pinch-and-Push Instructions:

1. Grasp the work loosely in front of the under-stuffed part, leaving your thumb and forefinger free, and pinch the piece firmly behind the under-stuffed part.
2. Push the pinched part forward. (The rounds of your crochet will be forced closer together, and all the stuffing in that part will be squashed together more firmly.)
3. Pinch the squashed part with your other hand to hold the squashed stuffing in place.
4. Release your push.

As you can see below, after just one pinch-and-push, some of the stuffing has been moved a little further forward (to the right in this photo), leaving most of the dark blue section nicely stuffed and a new under-stuffed section (marked by arrow) a little closer to the open end.

But you won’t be doing this just once! Repeat the pinch-and-push process over and over, as many times as necessary, inching your way back toward the open end as you persuade the stuffing to move forward with each push:

Note: You can’t shift stuffing forward from an area that’s already under-stuffed – if you end up with an empty section, move further back and pinch-and-push more stuffing forward to fill the gap.

Once you get close enough to the open end, you can add more stuffing through the opening to replace the quantity you’ve shifted forward.

Below, you can see that I’ve shifted the under-stuffed section to be much further back. Now it’s close enough to the open end of my snake that I can add additional stuffing to fill that area properly, instead of continuing with more pinch-and-push movements.

Confused?

Don’t worry, this method is easier to do than to explain! Once you’ve tried it a couple of times, you should understand how it works and be able to do it instinctively.

If you’re still having trouble grasping the concept, imagine dropping an orange into a sack. You can grip the orange through the sack fabric, and then use both hands to move the sack fabric around the orange from the outside, allowing you to shift the position of the orange inside the sack.

This is basically what we’re doing here – moving the stuffing (the orange) around through the crocheted fabric (the sack).

Finishing Touches

When you’ve finished shifting the stuffing, squeeze and squash the amigurumi to further even out the stuffing. For something long like a snake, you can also combine that with bending it back and forwards in several directions a few times, to encourage the stuffing to compress and settle into its final state. Repeat until you’re happy with how your amigurumi looks and feels.

Here’s the result – fairly smooth, with no lumps or under-stuffed areas!

I hope you’ll find this technique useful, whether you’re participating in the Temperature Snake CAL, or making a different long/large amigurumi where you realize that you haven’t stuffed the front end of your amigurumi enough.

Give my pinch-and-push technique a go before you resort to removing all the stuffing to start again, or decide to put up with an unevenly-stuffed amigurumi – with a bit of patience, you can probably fix it!

Just a heads-up: I need to take a few days away from PlanetJune due to health issues. I’ll be mostly offline for the next week, but don’t worry – if you have any questions that other members may be able to help you with, you can post them in one of our community groups. As for customer support, I’ll do my best to keep up, but please bear with me if it takes a little longer than usual for me to get back to you. Thanks for your understanding 🙂

I’ve just realised that with the flurry of excitement surrounding the start of the year-long Temperature Snake 2023 CAL, I never showed you the photos of my finished 2022 sample snakes. All my pre-release photos strategically omitted the tail-ends of my snakes, as, well, they didn’t have tails until I knew the final temperature for the year on December 31st and could crochet their last stripes!

So, please allow me to introduce my two beautiful crocheted Temperature Snakes that depict the daily high temperatures in Waterloo, ON throughout 2022…

Spectrum is a Large Daily Snake using the Rainbow colour scheme from the pattern:

Spectrum is named for her colour scheme – the colours of the rainbow.

Kelvin is a Small Every-Other-Day Snake using the Red-to-Blue colour scheme from the pattern:

Kelvin is named for the temperature scale used to measure the colour temperature of light, from warm red to cool blue.

All three of those options (size, length and color scheme) are mix-and-matchable within the pattern – I crocheted Spectrum and Kelvin throughout 2022 so you could see an example for each of the options.

If you’re making a Daily snake for the CAL, this is the approximate snake length you can look forward to by the end of the year:

Spectrum is by far the longest amigurumi I’ve ever made!

Temperature-wise, 2023 is shaping up to be quite different from 2022, so nobody else will ever have a snake that looks quite like these two… but then that’s part of the fun of the Temperature Snake pattern (or any temperature project): you don’t know in advance which colour you’ll be using for each day, and your final snake will truly be one-of-a-kind.

If you’d like to join the 2023 Temperature Snake CAL, there are well over 700 of us participating now, we’re sharing our progress and chatting in the PJ community online groups, and you’re very welcome to jump in now and catch up on all the daily temperature readings from the start of the year using the online resource included in the pattern. Plus, there are plenty of others who are just starting out or playing catch-up, so you won’t be alone!

I’m aiming to get back online and feeling better in a week or so. I look forward to seeing all your snake update pics and catching up on what I’ve missed!

There are just 4 days remaining until the 2023 Temperature Snake CAL begins in earnest on January 1st – have you picked up the Temperature Snake crochet pattern yet? If not, now’s the perfect time: you’ll need a little time to plan your colours and buy your yarn!

Note: If you’re reading this after January 1st, it’s definitely not too late to join in: you can look up any temperatures you missed online, and it’s easy to catch up on a couple of weeks of stripes in a single crochet session. Please do come and join the fun!

We’ve had lots of planning going on in both PlanetJune groups (on Ravelry and Discord) since I released Part 1 of the pattern a couple of weeks ago, and I thought I’d give you a taste of that today.

Although my pattern includes complete and specific instructions for making a snake that records the daily maximum temperature over 2023 using a palette of 10 colours (plus a bonus colour for the head and tail), it’s great to see how some CAL participants are planning to truly customize their snakes too! We have colour palettes planned that range from 6 colours to over 20 – just look at these stunning combos:

It’s going to be so interesting seeing how differently all these lovely snakes will turn out…

Note: If you’ve already started but haven’t posted to either of the groups yet, we’d love to see how you’re doing too! See how to join the PJ Ravelry or Discord groups here.

In the PJ community, we have members planning to:

• Make a temperature worm (for those who don’t like snakes – just leave off the tongue!)
• Make a pair of snakes: one for the daily maximum temperature and one for the daily minimum
• Use historical temperature records from a birth year
• Use a home weather station to log extremely local temperatures
• Log the change in temperature each day
• Carry along a sparkly thread on special occasion days (like birthdays, anniversaries, etc)

…and much more! So many great ideas – I can’t wait to watch all these snakes growing throughout 2023.

If you haven’t picked up the pattern yet, I just released Part 2 of the instructions yesterday, so you can jump right in and start your snake’s head today if you want!

I’ll be crocheting along with you all year, and I’m about to start making Sophie Jewel, my 2023 snake. These are the colours I’ve chosen for her (if you’re curious, they’re all shades of Lion Brand Heartland yarn, and I’ll be using the warm grey on the right for her head):

This time I’ve chosen to make a Small Daily snake i.e. she’ll be very long and thin! Between those options and the rich heathered jewel tone colours I’ve chosen this time, she’ll look totally different from Spectrum and Kelvin (the snakey samples I’ve been making this year, who you can see at the top of this post).

Ready to join in too? Here are some handy links for you:

• Read more about the Temperature Snake CAL >>
• Pick up the Temperature Snake pattern >>
• Pick up the multipack of Temperature Snake and Snake Collection for a special price >>
• Join the PlanetJune community groups on Ravelry and/or Discord >>

I’m really looking forward to crocheting along with you throughout the upcoming year. See you in the 2023 Temperature Snake CAL!

Would you like to see something amazing? Loooook what I made!!

My giant crocheted Christmas Tree is 108cm (42.5″) tall!

Everything you see here is made from a PlanetJune Christmas-themed crochet pattern – including the tree! – so this truly is a PlanetJune Christmas Tree.

There’s quite a story to how I brought this project to life – I really didn’t know if it was going to work, and had some setbacks along the way – so please settle in and I’ll share the whole adventure with you now…

For my giant tree, I decided to use the Narrow Tree from my Christmas Trees 2 pattern, so it could be impressively tall without getting too wide.

The standard Narrow Trees are on the right here, but this project would be a little larger than all these other Christmas Trees!

I started with the Secure Magic Ring from my Complete Guide to Giant Amigurumi. Together with my trusty 15mm hook and 2 strands of Bernat Blanket yarn, I was ready to begin, but I really wasn’t sure how well this would work: my tree design supports itself without any stuffing, and is completely hollow inside. This is an advantage (I’d like to be able to fold up my Giant Tree for storage when it’s not on display), but giant amigurumi aren’t as sturdy as regular amigurumi – the squish factor is part of their appeal! – and that, plus the weight of the yarn, might lead to some structural problems in the tree, with no stuffing to support it.

So, I started by making a ‘small’ giant tree as proof of concept – just a test project using blanket yarn I had on hand. This tree uses just one ball of blanket yarn, and it worked beautifully! The olive green colour was a little drabber than I’d like for a tree, but it served its purpose: it showed that a giant tree is still sturdy enough to support itself.

With one ball of blanket yarn the tree ended up being 15″ tall (or almost as tall as a small dog):

And I also tried quickly stringing some LED lights on the tree – I could see that, with a little more care in arrangement, that could look nice, but the foliage is pretty chunky on a giant tree, and many of the tiny LEDs in my string were completely hidden, so larger lights seem like the way to go here.

Now that I knew this idea could work, I bought a garbage bag full of yarn (yeah, that’s a standard quantity now!) to bring my vision of a giant crocheted tree to life:

Each of those balls is 300g (10.5oz) of yarn!

My original plan was to make a 4ft tree (120cm), but once I started crocheting my white tree, I quickly noticed how floppy the tree was becoming. I couldn’t remember if my olive-coloured tree had been the same before I added the foliage, or if it was the additional height and weight that was making this one flop, so I started to worry that this supersized version wasn’t going to work at all….

After using 1.25 big balls of blanket yarn, the tree base was 30″ tall, and I decided to pause and add the foliage to the part I’d already crocheted, to see if it would hold itself up with the foliage added, or if I’d need to come up with a way to stabilise it without stuffing – I really don’t have the space to store a huge stuffed tree!

Mmm, this texture looks like giant popcorn kernels to me…

Once I’d finished adding the foliage, the 30″ tree could almost stand up by itself. It was a bit like a wibbly wobbly jelly – it stayed upright, but it was too heavy to hold its shape properly at this size, so I came up with a great (and easy) idea for support: a cone made from poster board inside, exactly like I did for my Pom-Pom Tree but much bigger.

The cone worked perfectly to support the tree, so I decided to keep going. I used the Taller Trees instructions in the pattern to continue as far as Rnd 50, which I calculated would use 6 balls of yarn and make the tree about a metre tall.

In the end I actually used 5.9 balls, and the final height of the tree is 108cm (42.5″ tall) – not quite as tall as the 120cm (48″) I’d originally planned, but still pretty impressive, and plenty tall enough!

The extra height between the 30″ version and the final 42.5″ version made a big difference!

The next problem was that I didn’t have any poster board large enough to make a cone for the taller tree! In the above photo there’s a cardboard box sitting inside the base of the extended tree, with the poster board cone on top, but that made the tree look square at the bottom. I played around with cardboard cones and disks to support the tree, and eventually hit on the idea of using bamboo plant stakes to make a hidden tent that the crocheted tree could slip over.

One of several prototype support systems that didn’t work very well…

My original bamboo + cardboard disks plan wouldn’t hold together securely without taping it all together. I wanted the structure to be completely collapsible so I can dismantle it at the end of the season and reassemble it next year, so I enlisted Dave’s help to design and 3D-print some rings to hold the poles in place and at the correct angle based on my measurements.

Printing in progress

The bamboo doesn’t have an even thickness, so we had to make the holes large enough to fit the thickest parts of the bamboo through. To stop the poles from sliding straight through the rings, I thickened them up with masking tape at the points where they meet the rings. It may not be pretty, but it does the job, and it doesn’t need to look nice as it’s all going to be covered up.

But my concept plus Dave’s experience in designing and printing in 3D made for a winning combination – I’m thrilled with our joint project! The bamboo tent works perfectly; it’s lightweight and sturdy and the crocheted tree slips over the top:

At the end of the season, I’ll be able to remove the crocheted tree and fold it up, then remove the poles from the rings to store everything away neatly for next year!

I’ve just realised that now I have these rings, I could buy longer bamboo poles and make my tree even taller for next year! I still have 4 more balls of yarn, and the tent concept means there’s no problem of the tree becoming too heavy as I add more yarn… But then I’d need more lights, and more decorations, and… maybe I should just leave it as-is… 🙂

I bought a string of 500 LED lights, and after a false start figured out how to wrap them so I didn’t run out. The nice thing about a white tree is you can totally change the look of the tree with different coloured lights. My string can toggle between warm white and various multicoloured options, so I can make the tree look classy or fun at the touch of a button!

The colours don’t photograph very well, but at least you can see that they do change!

And then it was just a case of decorating the tree, and I just happen to have dozens of PlanetJune crocheted decorations just waiting for a home. I’ve never seen them all together before, and I’m delighted by the result!

This tree represents 15 years of PlanetJune Christmases, and I think you can see that my design style ties everything together even though they don’t all match – that’s pretty amazing.

I stepped back to admire my work and I realised there was still one thing missing: a tree topper. Oops…

I thought that would have to wait for next year, but I couldn’t leave the top of the tree empty, so I spent the last couple of days playing with prototypes for a star topper and I hit on a style I really like:

I just finished designing the star today, and this is just a prototype, but it could be the start of next year’s PJ Christmas design..?

So, here it is, my finished giant tree, with and without decorations:

I’m so happy with it!

Apart from the star topper, if you’re looking for any of the patterns for my Christmas Trees or decorations, you can find them all at www.planetjune.com/xmas

And if you’d like to make a giant tree too (maybe not as large as this one!) – or upscale any other amigurumi pattern – my Complete Guide to Giant Amigurumi ebook includes everything you need to know to upscale an amigurumi-type pattern to giant size!

(By the way, the only reason I had to make a scaffolding for this tree project is because it’s not really an amigurumi, as it’s not stuffed – a stuffed giant ami wouldn’t need this level of support!)

I hope you’ve enjoyed seeing how my Epic Christmas Tree project came together! I’m still amazed that I pulled it off – there were a couple of moments there where I really thought it wouldn’t come together – but now I have a beautiful handmade tree that can light up our living room with a warm and cozy glow for years to come.

Wishing a very Happy Christmas to you and your family! ♥

Guess what? It’s time! The Temperature Snake CAL is now ready to launch, as well as my brand new Snake Collection pattern, and if you buy both the CAL pattern and the Snake Collection pattern together, you’ll get a special bundle deal! For the CAL details, see my Temperature Snake CAL blog post, and for links to both patterns and the bundle, go to the end of this post!

About the Snake Collection crochet pattern

My new Snake Collection pattern includes 4 different snake designs with markings loosely based on real-life non-venomous snakes:

Unmarked (single colour) e.g. Green Snake, Black Snake:

Dual-Banded (two-colour stripes) e.g. Ground Snake, Kingsnake:

Tri-Banded (three-colour stripes) e.g. Milk Snake, Kingsnake:

Spotted (diamond-shaped blotches or patches of colour) e.g. Corn Snake, Rat Snake:

Difficulty
Although the markings and colour patterns of my sample snakes are based on specific real-life snakes, I’ve kept the colour patterns simple so they’re easy to memorise and fun to crochet.

• The unmarked snake is a quick and easy project – try it with a variegated or self-striping yarn to easily add some fun colour.
• For the two striped snakes, I recommend my new Ultimate Stripes technique, but I offer additional alternatives in the pattern too.
• The spotted snake has frequent colour changes throughout, but I’ve included a colour chart as well as the written instructions for the body patterning, and I give instructions for how to manage the yarns with no cutting or tying yarn throughout the snake’s entire body!

I’m especially delighted with how the diamond-shaped markings turned out – the complication of the biased (slanted) stitches in amigurumi meant it was incredibly challenging to come up with a simple repeating pattern that would actually work, and another challenge to continue the spots while decreasing for the tapered tail… But I did it! And now I’ve worked it out for you, it’s a very effective and fairly easy pattern to crochet.

Customizing your Snakes:

• You can make dozens of different snakes by choosing different colours that match other real snakes, getting creative with fun colour choices, and/or mixing different marking patterns in a single snake!
• It’s easy to customize the length of your snake – each design has a repeating body section, and you can choose how long to make your snake by including more or fewer repeats of the body section before you continue to the tail instructions.
• I’ve made friendly PlanetJune-style snakes with solid black eyes, but you can make them look more realistic by using coloured eyes or cat eyes with a slit pupil.

Snake Fun Facts

• Snakes are reptiles that are found all over the world. They mostly eat small animals like rodents, birds, lizards and frogs.
• There are over 3000 species of snakes in the world, and less than 20% of them are venomous – most snakes are completely harmless to humans.
• Snakes have poor vision and hearing, so they see the world primarily through their sense of smell and taste, by flicking their tongue around to ‘taste’ the air.
• Just like your two ears let you tell which direction a sound is coming from, a snake’s forked tongue lets it detect which direction a scent is coming from.

Snake Collection or Temperature Snake?

There’s obviously quite a bit of overlap between these two patterns, so if you buy both, you’ll get a big bundle discount! But they each include plenty of unique features and loads of value, so here’s a rundown so you can decide which snake pattern(s) is/are for you:

Snake Collection:

• FOUR complete patterns for snakes with different markings based on real snakes
• ONE size of snake (it’s the same as the 3/4 size in the Temp Snake CAL)
• All the patterns have a repeating body section, so you can add more repeats before continuing to the tail instructions to make your snake as long as you want!
• Make a complete snake immediately

Temperature Snake CAL:

• Year-long crochet-along with the pattern and instructions released in parts as you need them throughout the year
• Online community group for sharing your progress along the way and asking any questions (it’ll be so much fun to see all our snakes growing in different colours!)
• TWO sizes of snake
• Detailed instructions for finding the temperature range in your area, choosing yarn colours, and creating your custom temperature scale
• Full assistance with getting set up, help selecting your colours, etc in the community groups (or directly from me if you don’t want to enjoy the community aspect of this CAL)
• Printable worksheets for filling in your custom temperature scale and colour code, and logging your temperatures and yarn colours throughout the year
• The worksheets are also fillable PDFs so you can log your temperatures digially if you prefer
• In early 2024, the final, complete, non-CAL Temperature Snake pattern will be released as a stand-alone pattern PDF, including any tips and FAQs that came up throughout 2023, and you’ll automatically receive a copy of that pattern too, in case you’d like to make more temperature snakes in the future!

I hope that’s all clear, and you know which (or both) patterns are right for you. If so, here are the links to buy:

• Temperature Snake CAL pattern
• Snake Collection pattern
• Multipack bundle of both Temp Snake & Snake Collection

But if you still have any questions about either of the patterns or how the CAL will work, please leave a comment below (or email me), and I’ll be happy to help!

Happy Snake-making 😉

No time to read this post? Jump straight to the new Ultimate Stripes for Amigurumi tutorial! >>

In 2012, I first presented the two amigurumi ‘Perfect Stripes’ techniques I’d developed (the Invisible Join and No-Cut Join), and they were vastly superior to any of the other techniques that existed at the time. But now, a decade later, it’s time to revisit my recommendations – can I improve on ‘perfect’? I believe I can!

I’ve spent a lot of time making amigurumi stripes this year – while working on the samples for my upcoming Snake Collection and Temperature Snake patterns (both coming next week – stay tuned!) – and all this practice has led to some innovations and a new recommended stripe method for you.

To compare my three perfect stripes techniques, I worked up each of my new striped snake designs using a different stripe method, so we can clearly see how each method looks in a real project.

L-R: No-Cut Join, Invisible Join (modified – see below), Ultimate Stripes

It turns out that neither of the old ‘Perfect Stripes’ methods was quite perfect – if you’re interested in seeing why, let’s take a close look at both, and then I’ll introduce you to my Ultimate Stripes technique!

(Or you can skip the rest of this explanation and jump straight to the Ultimate Stripes for Amigurumi tutorial – I won’t be offended…)

The No-Cut Join: Good (apart from the seam)

The No-Cut Join is still the best technique I’ve found to get the beginning and end of each stripe of colour to line up without cutting the yarn between rounds.

I’ve carried all three yarn colours all the way along the inside of this snake – there’s no need to cut the yarn at all!

It does give a perfect ring of colour every time, but if you look carefully you can see the seam line progressing along the length of the amigurumi.

Follow the line between the two arrows and you can see the ‘seam’ running along the body of this snake

The seam line is subtle, but it means you don’t get a truly perfect result.

The Invisible Join: Great (but only with a fix)

The Invisible Join can be truly invisible, but (as I discovered this year) that’s only the case if you make sure to insert your hook beneath both the duplicated stitch and the original loops beneath the duplicate stitch. If you fail to do this, you’ll end up with a visible horizontal bar above the first stitch of each round (it’s actually the front loop of the first stitch).

Look closely and you’ll see two horizontal bars (marked by arrows) visible at the location of the Invisible Joins from two rounds.

I didn’t notice this subtlety until earlier this year (so I didn’t mention it in the original tutorial) but once I’d seen it, I couldn’t unsee it (and then my perfectionism made me do some crochet magic to fix my entire temperature snake that suffered from this problem – ugh!)

Here’s the difference made by the Invisible Join ‘fix’:

L: Working into just the top loops (the duplicated stitch) leaves a visible horizontal bar in the round below (marked by arrow).
R: Working into both the duplicated stitch and the top loops of the original stitch just below makes a slightly bulkier stitch that covers that extra bar.

As with the No-Cut Join, the colour stripes do line up perfectly, and yes, there’s no seam with this method, but there is still that error if you’re looking for it, unless you remember to always catch that extra loop in your stitch when you get to the start of the previous round.

If you remember to crochet over the extra loop, it’s practically impossible to spot the join (although the stitch that’s worked over the extra loop may look slightly taller).

Both these methods are still very good, and far better than the jog you get with any of the traditional methods for striped amigurumi, so if you don’t want to change how you work, I’m still happy to recommend either of these methods.

But I still wasn’t satisfied, so I went back to the drawing board to come up with a new method that, in my opinion, is the best ever…

The Ultimate Stripes for Amigurumi: The Best!

After experiencing frustration with both my old methods this year, I’ve come up with a new ‘perfect stripes’ method that looks completely perfect!

• It’s slightly more invisible than the Invisible Join (and you don’t have to remember to catch that pesky extra loop with each round).
• It’s barely more trouble than the No-Cut Join (although it does still mean cutting the yarn with every round, even when you don’t change colour).

With Ultimate Stripes the joins are completely undetectable! Where are they in this pic? I honestly couldn’t tell you…

I’m calling this new method Ultimate Stripes for Amigurumi (as the ‘perfect’ and ‘invisible’ names were already taken with my previous techniques!) and this technique is the official PlanetJune-recommended stripe method from now on.

I believe this truly is the ultimate method for making perfect amigurumi stripes, and I hope you’ll give it a try with your next stripey amigurumi!

Go to the Ultimate Stripes for Amigurumi tutorial >>

I’m so excited to reveal the year-long 2023 crochetalong that I’ve been planning for over a year now! Click here to be notified as soon as this CAL is ready for signups… UPDATE: Sign up now! UPDATE: The CAL may be over, but the complete Temperature Snake pattern and workbook are now available! Click here for details >>

You’ve probably heard of temperature blankets or scarves, where you crochet or knit one row per day to represent the temperature that day. The Temperature Snake is an amigurumi-style riff on that concept!

After crocheting the amigurumi-style head for your snake, its body will progress throughout the year, with one stripe per day representing the maximum temperature of that day.

Choose Your Own Adventure

I’ll show you how to choose a temperature range that suits your climate, and design a colour scheme around your favourite amigurumi yarns. Use a traditional colour scheme, or one that suits your taste. I’ll give you guidance with each step as we create your personalized temperature/colour chart that you’ll use throughout the year as your snake progresses.

I’ve designed the Temperature Snake pattern with several options you can choose between to create a completely custom snake, and I’ve crocheted two samples over 2022 so you can get an idea of how all the options look:

• Two different snake sizes (full sized, or the faster 3/4 sized)
• Two different lengths (one round per day, or one every other day for a shorter snake)
• Two ideas to get you started for colour schemes (the classic rainbow, or red-hot to blue-cold)
• Two different tongues (the easier full-sized tongue, or the more realistic slender tongue)

You can get adventurous and mix-and-match any of these options to create your snake, or copy them all from your favourite of my sample snakes.

Getting Started

Head Start: Although the temperature logging can only begin on New Year’s Day 2023, the pre-CAL will start in early December, so you can get started early by choosing which snake pattern you’ll use, selecting your colour scheme, buying your yarn, and making your snake’s head, so you’ll be ready to get going with the temperature stripes as soon as 2023 arrives.

New Year Start: You can also start the CAL on the official start date of Jan 1st. This is the first day you’ll start logging the daily maximum temperature. (By the way, you don’t need to crochet every day, provided you either keep a note of the temperature, or use a website where you can look it up after the fact.)

Late Start: If you jump into the CAL later, you can either catch up on the days you missed, or choose your time range starting later than Jan 1st – it’s up to you!

Community Fun

The Temperature Snake CAL will be most fun for you if you join us in one of the PlanetJune groups on Ravelry or Discord. (If you’re new to the PJ Community, I’ve just made a new ‘Join the PlanetJune Community’ page with an intro to Rav and Discord, the benefits of each, and links to join the PJ groups – please look there for help and guidance on getting set up.)

At first, we’ll help you decide on your temperature range and colours while we’re all planning our snakes. And throughout 2023 we’ll all be checking in regularly to post photos of our snakes’ progress, giving you accountability and encouragement to keep going, and compare how your snake’s colours are changing compared with everyone else’s.

If you’d prefer to fly solo, you can do that too. As with all PlanetJune pattern licences, I’m available for help by email, so if you want me to advise on your colours or temperature range, I’ll help you get set up. The CAL pattern will be updated several times with the next set of instructions, and I’ll email you each time it’s been updated, so you can log back in and download the new instructions!

Your One-of-a Kind Masterpiece

By the end of the year, you’ll not only have your own unique and personal snake, but also a copy of the complete stand-alone pattern (coming in early January 2024), including all the tips and FAQs that have come up throughout this CAL.

And then I’ll make a glorious gallery of all our 2023 Temperature Snakes, so we can fully appreciate the colourful results of this year-long project. How will our snakes vary across the world? I can’t wait to find out! The great thing about this CAL is that, although we don’t know in advance exactly how our snakes will turn out (and that’s part of the fun) I guarantee that they’re all going to look fantastic!

Will You Join Us?

If you’d like me to email you as soon as the Temperature Snake CAL is ready for signups, click here! Otherwise keep an eye on the blog – I’ll post here when everything is ready for you.? UPDATE: You can sign up now!

I hope you’ll join me in the PlanetJune community throughout 2023 as, day by day and round by round, we mark the progress of the year together as we each create our own colourful Temperature Snake!

Have you heard of the new Twist + Lock crochet hook sets from Susan Bates?

Yarnspirations (the company behind the Susan Bates brand) say:

Crocheting just became easier with the Susan Bates Twist + Lock interchangeable crochet hook tool. Select the desired hook size and insert into the opening of the oversized soft touch handle. With a simple Twist and Lock, your crochet hook will fit snugly in place whether in action or in storage. Purchase additional sizes to build your custom crochet hook set.

But is this a helpful addition to our crochet toolset, or just a solution looking for a problem? Coats & Clark kindly sent me a set to test out and see what I think…

About the Set

The Twist + Lock kits are available in various configurations:

• 1 handle and 2 hook heads
• 1 handle, 1 hook head and a cutter
• 2 hooks and a cutter
• the Deluxe Set that includes 2 handles, 2 cutters, and all 6 hook heads (sizes F, G, H, I, J, K – that’s 3.75-6.5mm).

So you can choose your preferred hook sizes and add on additional pieces later, or jump straight in with the complete set.

First Impressions

The hook heads are standard Susan Bates in-line hooks (my favourites). A hook head or cutter can be inserted into each end of the spring-loaded handle, and twisted to lock it in place:

As there’s no thumbrest on the hooks (where the hook size is usually embossed), the size is printed on the back of each hook:

With a hook at each end, the handle becomes quite long:

You can also reverse any of the heads and insert them facing into the handle, for portability:

My Testing Process

For my test, I’ve been crocheting my Cozy Cables Earwarmer using Bernat Satin yarn and a J US/6mm hook. I crocheted a full 4-row repeat of the stitch pattern with my usual Susan Bates bamboo-handled hook and then another repeat with the Twist + Lock hook, so I could really feel the difference the hook makes to the process.

I also tested the cutter out. The blade is so well protected inside the plastic casing that I couldn’t get it to work at all at first, but once I figured out you have to loop the yarn over the cutter and then pull back fairly hard, it worked well enough:

The Importance of Honest Reviews

I’m a big fan of Susan Bates hooks and I really wanted to love this concept, but it didn’t really work for me. I’m uncomfortable writing this, a less-than-positive review, but I think it’s important for people to hear both good and bad points to help inform their purchases. That’s why I’m not an ‘influencer’ – I never accept payment for reviews; you’ll always hear what I truly think.

All the other reviews I’ve seen of this set have said nothing but positive things, and I don’t know if that’s because the reviewers didn’t actually use the hooks before they reviewed them, or whether they truly love them, and it’s just me that doesn’t! Either way, it’s important for me to tell you the truth as I see it, so here goes…

Pros

Let’s start out with the reasons I do like this set!

• It’s nicely made – the heads push and nicely into the spring-loaded body and twist securely closed.
• I really like the idea of always having a cutter to hand!
• You can store your hook head and cutter inside the handle, making it easy to throw into your project bag without worrying about snagging your yarn. Just push and twist and the head pops out, ready to re-attach facing outwards and start crocheting. This would be very convenient for travel.
• The handle is reversible so you can have a hook at either end, or a hook at one end and a cutter on the other, and just flip the handle around when you want to use the other end.
• As with all Susan Bates hooks, these hooks have the inline head shape I love. This shape head makes it far easier to form perfectly regular stitches.
• The soft touch handle is substantial and comfortable to hold in the palm of your hand, and I think it’d be especially useful for those with larger hands or who have grip difficulty.

Cons

Now for the downsides… I have two main problems with this hook that ruin the crocheting experience for me. To make a fair comparison, I got out all my Susan Bates J hooks so you can see what I’m talking about.

Susan Bates J hooks, top to bottom: Twist & Lock, bamboo-handled, Soft Touch, Quicksilver.

Firstly, the grip position. As with all interchangeable hooks I’ve seen (from any brand), there’s no thumbrest on these hooks, and because of the shape of the handle, you have to hold it below the section where the head is inserted.

The standard thumbrest position is between the dotted lines; the Twist + Lock hold is below the bulge in the handle, below the lower dotted line.

This is about an inch below my usual position, and it feels like I have less control of the hook as a result. If you have difficulties forming a tight grip and prefer to grip a larger comfort handle instead of a thin thumbrest, this may be a benefit to you, but personally I much prefer the control of holding the hook closer to the head.

Top: my usual hand position; bottom: my hand is much further away from the hook head.

Secondly, the weight. It was immediately noticeable to me how heavy this hook was in use. I tried taking the cutter out from the base of the handle and that helped slightly, but it still felt much heavier. In case I was biased, I weighed all my Susan Bates J hooks to compare:

It wasn’t my imagination – all my other J hooks weigh between 10 and 12g, and the Twist + Lock weighs 31-37g, depending on what you have installed in the other end. That’s around three times the weight of a standard hook, and if you do a lot of crocheting, you’ll definitely start to feel that difference!

Verdict

Susan Bates hooks are my all-time favourites, because of the head shape, and that’s the same with this new set as much as all their other hooks. But, while I love the concept of the ‘portable toolkit’, carrying your toolkit in the handle of your hook maybe isn’t the best thought-out idea…

There are some plus points: the handle material is comfortable, and the wide grip in the palm of your hand is an advantage for knife-grip crocheters, especially for those with larger hands. Being able to flip the head inside the handle for easy and safe transportation in your project bag is genius, and the idea of always having a safe cutter to hand is very appealing!

If you travel a lot with a crochet project at your side, or have large hands, or your top priority is a wide comfortable grip, and/or you don’t mind the added weight, the Twist + Lock set may be a good fit for you. But, for me, the hugely increased weight and the lack of a good thumbrest position for controlling the hook make this a miss.

If you’re looking for crochet hooks, I’d recommend instead any of the other Susan Bates aluminum hooks:

• The bamboo-handled hooks (if you can still find them), are my favourites.
• The Soft Touch handled hooks are also very nice – the grip isn’t as wide as the bamboo handle, but the material is very comfortable to hold, and the new-style pointier tip is growing on me too.
• The classic Silvalume hooks are just one-piece anodized aluminum, but you can always add a comfort grip if you need a wider handle.

All of these also have the same aluminium hook with the in-line head style as the Twist + Lock, and I’d guess that smaller-handed people like me would probably have a better crocheting experience with any of these than the Twist + Lock set.

(And I’ve reviewed all the other Susan Bates hooks here, if you’d like to know more about those options!)

What do you think? If you tend to like heavier hooks and larger handles with no thumbrest, or you’ve tried a Twist + Lock hook, I’d love to hear about your experience – especially if you disagree with me! Am I missing something here?!