I’ve enjoyed using KnitPicks yarns for many years – they have lots of varieties and colours to choose from, from basic acrylics to fancy bases like merino and alpaca at reasonable prices. I made all the projects in Everyday Crochet with KP yarns and they all turned out beautifully:

A selection of my book patterns; pretty yarns make pretty projects!

So I wanted to let you know that KnitPicks is having an amazing sale on yarn right now, with up to 60% off! I’ve just stocked up on enough to make a few new sweaters for the winter. And, if that’s not enough, I have bonus coupon codes for you to make the deals even better.

I always like to stack discounts wherever I can to get the best possible deals, so read on for my top tips for saving money with a KnitPicks order, and my recommended tools to buy:

Free Shipping

KnitPicks offers free shipping over $75 USD (US/CA), £85 (UK), $120 AUD (AU) if you want to replenish your stash or stock up on tools. If your shopping cart is anywhere near those totals, try adding a couple more balls of yarn or a tool or two to push it over the limit, and the extra cost will be partially or totally offset by the shipping savings.

I took complete advantage of this: I was at $65 + $10 shipping, so I added $10 more yarn, still paid $75 total, and got 5 extra balls of yarn for no extra cost!

Bonus Coupon Codes

These are the best current offers at the time I write this post (click here to see all the current offers) – you can stack one of these with this sale:

• If you’re buying lots of yarn from the same line: buy 10+ of any single yarn line (you can mix colours) and save 10% with code MYYARNPACK
• If you want to try knitting for the first time, or try some new needles: spend $65+ and and get a free Try It Needle Set with code TRY2024

I used the second code: I’d save $5 on my yarn with the 10% code, but the needle set is worth $15 and I want to try their steel and birch needle tips and get some extra cables, so that was a better deal for me.

My Favourite Tools

I have a few favourite tools from KnitPicks that I use all the time, so I’ve made a page that links directly to each of them.

If you’d like to see my recommendations, or are looking for a little something to push you over that free shipping limit, here are
My Recommended KnitPicks Tools >>

I think we could all use a way to make our dollars stretch a bit further these days, and I can’t wait for my haul of bargains to arrive! In case you’re wondering, here’s my shopping list (I can’t use wool, so I’ve had to miss out on some other lovely-looking yarns):

• I’ve stocked up on Brava Recycle – it’s a recycled acrylic yarn in lovely heathered neutral colours, and with the
  sale price I’ve bought enough to make several sweaters with it.
• I grabbed a ball of Brava 500 – that’s 500g of yarn in a single ball, and some colours are reduced to half price. I should be able to make an entire sweater from a single ball – wow!
• And I restocked on my favourite no-rinse wash, Soak. I’ve been using this for well over a decade, to wash all my handknits and delicates, and even to soak the grime off pet collars and purses. It works like magic!

This particular yarn sale ends on Nov 27th, but there’ll be more KnitPicks sales coming up for Black Friday and beyond (see all the current sales here), and I hope my tips on deal stacking and my list of recommended tools will be useful whenever you read this post! Happy yarn shopping – and saving 😉

I do have a KnitPicks affiliate link, so if you shop through any of my links I’ll receive a small commission from your order at no cost to you, but you know that I only ever give genuine recommendations – this is not a sponsored post!

Over the past couple of years, I’ve fallen out of the blogging habit. After my seclusion while writing The Essential Guide to Amigurumi, I found it difficult to get back into the comfortable swing of sharing things online.

I’ve been putting way too much pressure on myself to make things perfect, and trying to figure out what it means to be ‘professional’ without losing myself and what’s important to me. Posting online used to be easy, but then my anxious brain got in the way with thoughts that I may be old and irrelevant in today’s fast-paced and noisy social media landscape.

Then I remembered: blogging is the way I always enjoyed sharing – it’s slower, more thoughtful, higher quality and longer-lasting than social media. And I don’t (and won’t ever) have ads on my site, so visiting my blog can be a calming respite from the visual assault of endless ads and auto-playing videos – for me as well as you.

So, I’m going to try to relax and start posting here more frequently again, sharing my creative pursuits and what I’m enjoying. That’s mostly crochet and other crafts, with an occasional post about wildlife and nature, growing food in my garden, cooking/baking, and whatever else I find interesting!

I won’t be consistent – as always with me, I’ll only publish things when they’re ready. But I can tell you that I hope to have somewhere between a couple and a few posts per month, depending on my energy and other commitments.

I have lots of projects to catch you up on, so I hope you’ll join me in the coming months for my crochet content, explorations of different crafts, garden experiments, and behind-the-scenes posts about what it actually takes to write and publish a craft book like EGA!

Choose Your Options

You can hear from me and engage as much or as little as you like. Here are the ways you can stay connected:

• All the Blog Posts: If this sounds good, please subscribe to the blog now, and all my posts will be sent directly to your inbox in future so you’ll never miss another post!
• Just the Crochet (Newsletter): If you’re only here for my crochet content, please don’t subscribe to this blog. My monthly(ish) newsletter includes all my crochet-related news for the month including any relevant blog posts, so you’ll never miss out on any new patterns, tutorials or tips I have for you, without the other topics.
• Join In: If you’d like to share about your crafting, reading, cooking, gardening, pets, and life with other positive, friendly, crafty people, I highly recommend you join us in the PlanetJune Discord server! It’s our private ad-free space for text chatting and sharing pics. I find it’s a beautiful antidote to the noise of what social media has become, and our small group gives you a chance to make real connections and friendships with other like-minded souls.

So, hello again, and welcome if you’re new here! I’m really looking forward to sharing more of myself with you again. I hope you’ll enjoy my upcoming posts, and please do comment from time to time if you do – knowing you’re out there will be really encouraging as I try to get back into the swing of blogging…

Throughout 2023, over 800 people from all over the world crocheted along with me to create vibrantly striped Temperature Snakes, with one round of the body crocheted per day in a colour that represented the day’s temperature wherever they live. We’ve waited and watched all year long as the snakes grew in length and became more and more colourful, and now they’re finally finished!

Enter the Temperature Snake Gallery >>

I’ve set up this CAL gallery to showcase and celebrate our year-long crochet journey. You can view all the snakes together, or click into each project to see more about the snake and where it came from.

You’ll see snakes that represent daily highs and daily lows, southern hemisphere snakes whose colours run hot-cold-hot instead of cold-hot-cold, birth year snakes, monthly short snakes, book log snakes, and more – and each one is totally unique, using custom colour palettes and localized data.

Every snake is a gloriously colourful personal record of the year, and I do recommend you immerse yourself in the gallery by looking through all the full-size photos. With so many colours in each project, you can’t get the full effect by looking at a tiny thumbnail!

At the time I write this, 53 snakes have been submitted to the gallery already (congratulations to those who managed to stick with it all year long and complete their snake on time!) and I’m sure we’ll see dozens more snakes being added to the gallery over the coming weeks and months. I’m looking forward to watching the gallery grow and the number of snakes and countries represented continuing to increase.

• If you participated in the CAL and haven’t submitted your snake to the gallery yet, please do (look for the ‘Submit Your Snake!’ section at the top of the gallery page).
• If life got in the way last year and you haven’t completed your snake yet, that’s okay! The gallery will remain open for submissions indefinitely, so there’s no hurry – we’ll welcome your snake into the gallery whenever you complete it. 🙂
• And, if you didn’t make a snake last year, how about making one for 2024? The complete Temperature Snake crochet pattern and workbook are now available, so you can start crocheting at any time!

Enjoy the Temperature Snake Gallery – it’s the beautiful and impressive culmination of a super-fun and engaged year-long CAL. Thank you to everyone who participated, and I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did!

I’ve just set up a PlanetJune Discord server, so now we have a private place for our community to chat and share pics about anything at any time.

After a soft launch with members of the PJ Ravelry group, we’ve got used to how Discord works, so now I’m ready to welcome you to the group! Keep reading to find out how to join…

Ready to Join?

If you already have a Discord account, you can join the PJ server now with this invite link:

If not, read on for more info…

What is Discord?

It’s an app that gives us a private invite-only home for the PlanetJune community – a place where we can talk, hang out, and have fun. (See the Discord Beginner’s Guide for an overview.)

Here’s how the PlanetJune Discord looks on a computer (and you can switch to light mode if you don’t like the black background)

Why join the PJ Discord?

• For friendship: Chat about crochet or anything else in a friendly, private community.
• For crochet help: Get immediate crochet help from anyone in the community who’s online (or type @planetjune in your message to make sure I’ll see it and get to it asap).
• To hang out with me: We have a monthly scheduled Chat Hour where we all try to show up at the same time and chat (I hope you’ll join us for the next one, on Wed 2nd March!) 
• For PJ insider knowledge: Be a part of the PJ Think Tank by sharing your opinion on my secret plans and ideas. You’ll help contribute to the future of PlanetJune!

How do I join?

To join the PlanetJune group:

1. If you aren’t already on Discord, sign up for a free Discord account.
2. Click the verification link in the email you’ll receive from Discord.
3. Visit the PlanetJune group here.
4. Accept our group rules, then our friendly bot, MEE6, will grant you access and send you a welcome message!
5. Recommended: download the Discord app for your phone and/or computer.

Here are a couple of screen grabs of the PJ Discord on my phone (with happy Maggie saying hello!)

FAQs

What is Discord?
Discord lets us create an invite-only home for our community – a place where we can talk, hang out, and have fun. See the Discord Beginner’s Guide for an overview.

How do I use Discord?
You can download the Discord app for your phone or computer, or use it through a browser. (I find the app much easier, but it’s up to you.)

Sign in and you’ll see the PlanetJune server (once you’ve joined through the invite link above), and any other servers you’ve joined. You can check in as often as you want, read past messages, reply to anything you want to, and chat in real-time with anyone else who’s online.

You can upload pictures directly into the chat (this is much easier than Ravelry, as you don’t need to add the photo to a project first). You can share pics of anything related to what you’re chatting about.

How do I get help with Discord?
Ask your questions in the #discord-help channel and we’ll help you. There are no stupid questions – unless you’re a gamer, Discord is probably brand new to you (it was to me too!) Our helpful mods probably know the answers, but, if not, we’ll figure it out together. 🙂

Is Discord replacing the Ravelry group?
No! Ravelry is great, of course, and the PlanetJune Ravelry group isn’t going anywhere – the Discord server is an additional space where we can catch up, chat, and socialise. Ravelry is definitely the best place for long-term stuff like keeping a record of your projects, but our Discord is perfect for real-time chat about anything, sharing a quick pic of your work in progress, or getting instant feedback, support or giggles. (It’s like social media without all the negative parts!)

How do text and voice chat work?
We have two options for chatting: we mostly use text chat (like our rav chat room, but open all the time), and live voice chat (optional, but sometimes it’s nice to actually speak to people and hear their voices in return). You can read over the text chats you’ve missed and reply later, but voice chat isn’t recorded – it’s just live, and you can pop in or leave whenever you want.

How private are our messages?
Unlike Ravelry, where anyone with a Ravelry account can read all our chat threads, the PlanetJune Discord server is private. You need to request access to join (all are welcome!) and our moderators will make sure any trolls or disrespectful people who sneak in are banned, so it’ll always be a safe and welcoming space for everyone.

You can also DM (direct message) another PJ member and have a completely private conversation between the two of you that nobody else can access.

What are channels?
Text chats appear as channels with different topics, so choose a crafting channel (e.g. #crochet) if you want to talk about that subject, and/or post in the general #chat channel to talk about anything and everything!

Our mods will add new channels if there are other specific things we want to talk about, so please let us know and we can split that topic into a separate channel.

What can we talk about?
Crochet, of course, but the PlanetJune community has more than just crochet in common! Whatever else you’re interested in – whether it’s knitting, sci fi, baking, practicing your English, fitness, or anything else – you’ll probably find some of us are also interested and would love hear from you!

For example, in the past we’ve had threads in the Ravelry group for things like reading recommendations, weight loss, photography resources, pets and wildlife, and other non-crafty things. We can add new channels for any or all of those topics, and more…

Can we add new channels?
We can add new channels for anything you’re interested in – I bet other PJers will want to talk about them too! Just suggest a new channel topic in the main chat thread and one of our mods will add it as a new channel.

See you there?

I’d love to say hello to you in the chat room and get to know you better, so please do come and join our PlanetJune community on Discord (jump back to the instructions here). It’s a positive, friendly space, and we’d love to welcome you to the party!

We had to say our final goodbye to our beautiful cat Maui this week.

Although we knew it was coming, we’re still completely devastated to have lost our boy, and I know that many of you have got to know and love him over the years too. If you’ve been following me for any length of time, you’ll know that Maui has been a huge part of PlanetJune – he’s been my assistant, supervising my work, since the very beginning. And, of course, there would be no AmiCats designs without Maui as my muse!

But let’s try not be too sad – Maui has lived a long, happy and adventurous life, and we’re so grateful to have been with him for so long and to have so many beautiful memories. I’ll share a few moments with you today.

We adopted Maui from a shelter when he was a year old. When we adopted him, he was a very sweet but independent boy – he didn’t get along with other cats, which was perfect for us. He was always reserved with new people, but he adopted us right back immediately, rubbing around our ankles and purring as soon as we got him home.

He loved watching our birdfeeders out of the window, and the local squirrels loved to tease him through the window!

Whenever we left the house, he’d sit in the front window and watch us go – it was so cute to see his little face in the window.

Once he realised we’d be together forever, he mellowed and relaxed, and his favourite pastimes were sunbathing and snuggling with us.

And also eating… He really loved his food, and he was so smart that he figured out how to get his paw up into his feeder and sneak extra food. We had to change his feeder for a Maui-proof one eventually, so he didn’t get too fat!

Maui was our constant companion through 6 house moves and two moves halfway around the world and back. He was so strong and brave, and adapted quickly to every change – all he needed to be happy was to be with us.

checking out the snow in Ontario

checking out the view of Cape Town

Maui always loved the toys I made for him – you may remember seeing some of them here over the years (fuzzball and mouse, crinkle ball, cardboard scratcher, fishing toy). The lovely mouse I sewed for his third birthday in 2007 was his favourite and longest-lasting toy – it lost the felt ears after a year, but apart from that it’s still in one piece today?

And he somehow knew the difference between his toys and my yarn and amigurumi and never, ever tried to mess with my yarn!

When we added Maggie to our family in 2020, Maui took it in stride, as always. We bought him a cat tree so he could have a safe place to relax, and he loved curling up in there to survey the world or snooze the day away.

Maggie loved her brother and often slept at the foot of the cat tree to be close to him. They definitely treated each other like family, and they had lots of contented times sunbathing together on the rug by the window.

Maui has been a huge part of our lives for so long, and although the last few months of his decline have been heartbreaking, we had 16 amazing years of love together that I wouldn’t trade for anything.

His loss leaves a huge hole in our lives, but we’ll try to follow his example: to be strong and brave, adaptable, and always make the best of any situation.

Rest well, dearest Maui. You’ll always be with us.

We’ve moved into our new house! After a stressful and incredibly exhausting couple of weeks getting everything done, we’re all starting to settle in, and it’s wonderful to see design decisions we made months (and years!) ago for our home finally come to life.

Our new house is truly lovely, and I’ve been working hard getting it set up in a way that’ll make sense for the way we live, so we can hopefully stay more organised and really enjoy living here 🙂

There’s been the odd unexpected flaw in my endless plans, such as discovering that almost all my pots and pans didn’t work with my new induction stove (oops…)

I’ve had to give away all the pans in this photo and buy new ones, but I’m looking on the bright side – this is an opportunity to re-buy just the pans I need for the way I cook, instead of having a cluttered cupboard full of pans that are rarely used.

It’s a challenge to play food tetris every day (trying to fit things into the mini fridges!) and figuring out which groceries I have fridge/freezer space to buy, but it’s all part of the new house fun, and at least this is only temporary.

My PlanetJune work is still on the back burner, for the time being. Although I’ve set up most of my office and studio, there’s a layer of random clutter everywhere that’s waiting to find a new home, and pretty much all my creative energy is going into sewing curtains…

…and organising my pantry…

…and baking bread…

…and walking for an hour or two every day with Maggie (usually with her best friend Echo)…

…and enjoying the springtime, like this very Canadian sight of a goose family stopping the traffic while they cross the road 🙂

We have ponds and a forest close to our home, so I’m enjoying watching the birds and turtles (and this loopy garter snake I managed to catch with Dave’s phone camera, below).

I’m starting to learn a little about our native flora too, and I’ve even picked up my long-neglected camera once or twice – there’s wildlife everywhere at this time of year, so lots of opportunity for nature photos. (Hmmm, maybe I should resume my occasional nature blog posts?)

This ‘homey’ phase I’m in won’t last forever, and once all the curtains are sewn and the house is mostly organised, I should be ready to jump back into some of the pattern ideas I have for PlanetJune.

But, for now, please bear with me as I allow myself to enjoy this time. It feels amazing to have found a real home and to be putting down roots. I finally feel like I’m part of a community, and knowing I have no plans to ever leave here makes it all seem so real, unlike anywhere else I’ve ever lived before.

This is where I belong. 🙂

You may have noticed that I didn’t have a new pattern for you in January. I actually have four different crochet patterns in progress at the moment, but everything feels a bit scattered, because I have some very exciting news: we just bought a house!

We’ve been waiting for a long time to get to this point. Almost two years ago, when we first signed the contract, our little plot of land sat somewhere in here…

This time last year, we got to make hundreds of design decisions for the interior and exterior of our house – colours, flooring, lighting, bathroom suites, kitchen cabinets – it was endless.

And then, nothing, for a very long time. I was expecting this – multiple people had warned me that new house builds always run late, and the builders had emailed me last year to let me know there would be additional delays due to the pandemic, so I was expecting at least several months of delays.

A couple of weeks ago, we discovered that we wouldn’t be able to attend our own home inspection because of the lockdown, and then suddenly the original closing date was approaching and, although we hadn’t seen it for ourselves, everything was apparently going to be finished on time! That caught me by surprise, so I had a mad scramble talking to banks and lawyers and trying to get the money in place in time to close…

And then it was done, and we held the keys to our new home!

Yay!

But this isn’t the end of the story. There’s a lot more that goes into buying a brand new house than I’d anticipated: lots of unfinished and imperfect things that need to be identified and reported so they can be fixed, a full house-worth of appliances and window coverings to choose and buy and get delivered and installed, and all of this while we’re under a stay-at-home order in Ontario, which means a fun trip to IKEA to pick up all the other essentials we need is not an option at the moment.

So please bear with me – there definitely will be new PlanetJune patterns coming soon, but I need time and energy so I can focus on completing them, and both of those are in short supply right now. My ideas are tripping over each other to get out of my head (hence 4 patterns on the go at once…) but I need some calm and concentration to turn my notes into patterns you’ll enjoy.

Right now, things are both exciting and anticlimactic at the same time. It’ll be a long time before we can actually move into our new house, and there’s so much that I need to do for it in the meantime. So many decisions to make! It’s all quite overwhelming.

But I know it’ll all be worth it in the end – one day, all the pieces will have been slotted into place and everything will be ready for us to start enjoying it. And I can’t wait for Dave and Maui and Maggie and I to be settled in our lovely new home!

Thank you all so much for your kind comments and well-wishes about my accident.

Because of the concussion, my head has been hurting too much until now to spend more than a few minutes at a time on my computer or phone, so I haven’t replied to anyone individually (either here or on social) to say thanks, but please know that it meant a lot to me to get your messages when I was feeling very sorry for myself!

A little health update

Most of my injuries are healing nicely. I have a dentist’s appointment this weekend for my broken tooth, and hopefully by then the concussion will have completely faded and it’ll be safe for me to drive myself there and back. I’m still feeling a little confused, but the killer headaches have faded and I’m coming back to myself.

It was a pretty scary experience, but reading some of the comments people have left me about their similar falls onto concrete that resulted in a broken arm or pelvis, or still having occasional head problems years later, I’m counting myself lucky that I have no lasting damage beyond a ruined pair of expensive glasses and a broken front tooth (and I’m hopeful that my dentist can restore my smile so you’d never know the difference – I know that’s just vanity, but please keep your fingers crossed for me on that front!)

And a little work update

As you’ll already know if you get my newsletter (and if you don’t, sign up now!), my next crochet pattern was due to be a Tortoise with a very detailed crocheted shell. Finishing the shell assembly instructions is still a little beyond my slightly-concussed brain, so I’m putting the pattern on hold for a couple more weeks, or until I’m completely recovered.

But I do have a different design I’ve been working on that needs none of that pesky careful thinking to find exactly the right phrase that most clearly describes an innovative process, so I should have a new pattern for you soon – it just won’t be the one I’d planned to release this month!

I’m still taking things slowly and needing plenty of naps and rest sessions, so please be patient with me as I try to catch up with everything I let slide last week without overdoing things and making my head hurt again…