I didn’t plan to release any new patterns while I’m deep in the book-writing process, but I had a request in the PJ Discord group for a miniature snake to match my Temperature Snakes and… well, I couldn’t resist! And here’s the result:

Baby Snake is small but perfectly proportioned no-sew baby snake. The narrow body makes it easy to pose in a variety of realistic positions, and you can make your snakes as long or short as you want.

PlanetJune Snakes

I designed Baby Snake to be a perfect miniature version of the snakes in my Temperature Snake and Snake Collection patterns (see photos, below, for size comparison), and you can also use all the striping ideas from those patterns for your baby snakes.

A Baby Snake looks so tiny compared with a Large Temperature Snake!

Choose the right colour of variegated yarn and you have an easy baby Corn Snake to match the big one in the Snake Collection pattern!

And, if you’re making a Temperature Snake this year, you might also like this idea: a Baby Temperature Snake! Spectrum Jr (below) uses the Baby Snake pattern combined with the temperature snake concept for the body rounds: one round per week, using the ‘Most Extreme’ averaging option from the Temperature Snake pattern (max in summer, min in winter, avg in shoulder seasons). SJ has the same temperature readings and yarn colours as his mama, so he’s a miniature representation of my temperatures last year:

Tip: 52 body rounds is the perfect length for a baby snake, although I think 102 rounds with 2 temp readings per week would have given more variety in the colours, so I’d recommend trying that if you want a more long and interesting baby temperature snake.

Make a Snake!

Are you tempted to crochet a super-poseable baby snake (or several)? As you can see, there’s a lot you can do with this simple but well-shaped pattern, just by choosing different yarns to crochet with – and it works up so quickly, with no sewing!

As I like to reward people who choose to donate for my donationware patterns, the PDF version of the Baby Snake pattern also includes additional tips that you’ll only find in the PDF version (instructions for managing the tiny eyes and choosing variegated yarns), and the crochet instructions are all included on one printer-friendly page, so you can save paper and ink by printing only that page.

As always, the pattern is free for you to use online, and you need only donate if you’d like to thank me for my time in creating it, or if you’d like the easy-to-print PDF version with the bonuses.

Go to the free Baby Snake pattern >>

Or jump straight to donate:

Order the Baby Snake pattern >>

Not ready to make one yet? Add this pattern to your Ravelry queue:

I can’t wait to see your baby snakes! Don’t forget to share them in the PlanetJune Community groups, and tag me (@planetjune) whenever you post pics on social!

Until now, the puffy seafoam and squared-off edging additions for my Turtle Beach Blanket patterns have been exclusive to the paid version of the original donationware pattern. That’s been confusing people, so I’ve separated out the 3D seafoam and edging instructions into their own PDF.

Now, you can buy the Turtle Beach Seafoam & Edging instructions bundled as an optional add-on when you buy any of the Turtle Beach Blanket patterns, or pick them up as a separate Expansion Pack in the shop. Much simpler!

About the Pattern

Turtle Beach Seafoam & Edging is an Expansion Pack for any of the Turtle Beach Blanket crochet patterns, and includes all the modifications required to add a puffy 3D seafoam effect and/or a squared-off edging to any of the PlanetJune Turtle Beach Blanket crochet patterns.

Both these modifications can be added to a completed Turtle Beach Blanket, so if you’ve already finished your blanket, you can add the seafoam and/or edging at any point in the future!

• Puffy Seafoam: Add a 3-dimensional effect to your Turtle Beach blanket with the puffy seafoam add-on. This includes right- and left-handed instructions in the pattern, and an exclusive video demonstration (with right- and left-handed versions), so you can watch it in action – you’ll find the video links in the pattern!
• Squared-off Edging: Use the edging instructions to square off the rippled top and bottom edges of your blanket, to give it a rectangular shape. (This edging can also form the base row for any deeper crocheted border.)

What is an Expansion Pack?

• An Expansion Pack is an add-on to an existing PlanetJune pattern.
• The Expansion Pack lets you modify or add to the original pattern to create something else.
• You cannot use the Expansion Pack alone – you must also purchase the original pattern in order to be able to complete the pictured items in the Expansion Pack pattern.

Links to Buy

You can buy the Turtle Beach Seafoam & Edging Expansion Pack for only $2 individually from the shop, or, if you haven’t yet bought any of the Turtle Beach blanket patterns, you can now add it for $1.50 as an optional add-on, just before you add the blanket pattern(s) to your cart.

If you’ve already bought the Classic Blue and/or Teal Ombre Turtle Beach blanket pattern and want to add the seafoam or edging to your blanket, email me (june@planetjune.com) and I’ll send you a discount code to get that extra 50c off your purchase of the new Expansion Pack!

About The Turtle Beach Collection

You can mix and match crochet patterns within my Turtle Beach Collection to make your own custom blanket.

• Mix and match colour schemes and stripe patterns with the Classic Blue and Teal Ombré blankets.
• Add custom details (an edging and puffy 3D seafoam effect) with the Seafoam & Edging Expansion Pack (or the original donationware blanket pattern).
• Add any combination of the original 3D stuffed baby sea turtles, the new flat appliqué turtles, and puffy or flat starfish.

Tip: For the best price, buy the multipacks of both blanket patterns and both sea turtle options!

See the entire Turtle Beach crochet pattern collection here >>

Left: Classic Blue blanket; stuffed 3D turtles
Right: Teal Ombre blanket; flat appliqué turtles

Clockwise from top left: 3D seafoam, puffy starfish, flat starfish, squared-off edging

The patterns in the Turtle Beach Collection continue to be among my most popular designs, and it’s wonderful to see so many beautiful ocean-themed blankets based on my patterns being made all over the world.

Please keep tagging me (@planetjune) whenever you post pics of things you’ve crocheted from my patterns, or, if you’re not active on social media or in the PlanetJune community groups, email a pic to me (june@planetjune.com) – I always love to see what you’ve been making!

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 😉

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!

My 2009 Christmas Trees pattern has been a bestseller for years, but this year I decided I wanted to design a more realistic crocheted conifer that you can mix-and-match with my classic bobble trees in a display, or use alone. And here’s what I came up with: Christmas Trees Set 2!

For this collection, I’ve designed trees with three different styles (Narrow, Standard and Wide) so you can choose your favourite shape and make multiples of the same type of tree, or create a display with lots of variety in shape, size and colour, like mine.

I love how detailed and realistic the foliage looks on these trees – you won’t believe how simple they are to make!

The three tree styles, L-R: Narrow, Standard, Wide

I’ve crocheted samples in 2 or 3 heights for each tree style (and the pattern includes the complete instructions for all 7 of the pictured trees, if you want to replicate them exactly), but these are any-height patterns: you can keep going with the base until the tree is as tall as you want it to be, and then stop to add the foliage.

I encourage you to experiment with different heights for each of your trees – they make a more realistic display when each tree is slightly different!

If you don’t want to use too much yarn, I recommend making your larger trees in the Narrow and Standard styles, and save the Wide style for your smaller trees (the Wide style is a bit yarn-hungry – my taller wide tree is only 5.5″ tall, but uses 120 yds of yarn!)

But there’s no need to worry that you’ll run out of yarn: I’ve included a very simple calculation in the pattern so, if you only have a certain amount of yarn, you’ll know how big you can make your tree without any danger of running out of yarn partway through adding the foliage. All you’ll need is a scale that weighs accurately in grams.

Mix-and-Match Patterns

As you can see, the new trees can mix nicely with my original Christmas Trees pattern (now renamed Christmas Trees Set 1!) – in this photo, the two decorated trees are from Set 1, and the others are all from the new Set 2.

I love the look of the new trees as a natural mini forest, but you can also use the star and decorating ideas from Set 1 with the new Set 2 trees to make them look more festive. 🙂

Purchasing Options

You can buy Christmas Trees Set 2 individually, or bundle it with Set 1 pattern for a special price:

• Christmas Trees Set 2 crochet pattern >>
• Christmas Trees Sets 1 & 2 multipack >>

And, until the end of November 2022, if you’ve already bought the original Christmas Trees pattern, email me with your order number and I’ll email you back with a $1 discount code to use towards Set 2! To find your order number:

1. Login to your PlanetJune account, then go to My Account > My Patterns
2. Look through the alphabetical list of your pattern purchases to find Christmas Trees and click it to go through to the order – your 5-digit order number will be right there!

Not ready to get started yet? Add it to your Ravelry queue or favourites so you don’t forget:

I hope you’ll enjoy making these cute trees as part of your holiday decorating this year, and if you’d like to make them along with the rest of the PJ community, please come and join us in the PlanetJune Ravelry group for our end-of-year Reindeer Games crochet-along.

I’ll be joining in with the CAL too – this pattern is so much fun, I have plans to make more of these trees, including a giant version! Just how big will my tree get? I’m not sure yet, but join me in the Ravelry group to keep up with my progress!

Autumn is my favourite time of year, when the weather starts to cool and the leaves turn glorious colours, and I’m celebrating that now with the second addition to my autumn leaf designs: the Oak Leaf Collection (with a bonus matching tiny acorn design!)

Oak Leaf Collection & Life-Sized Acorn includes two different sizes of oak leaf to crochet, and a realistic life-sized acorn pattern. Each leaf is worked in one piece, with a clever construction that gives a realistic shape and the suggestion of veins. The acorns are worked amigurumi-style, with an ingenious no-sew construction. So the entire project has no sewing – you’ll only need your needle to weave in the yarn ends!

Ideas for Use

• Make a pile of acorns as a tasty snack for an amigurumi Squirrel
• Use a single crocheted oak leaf as an appliqué on a hat or sweater, glue it onto a greetings card, or add a pin back and an acorn to make a brooch
• Make a simple ornament by adding a hanging loop to a pair of oak leaves and one or two acorns.
• Crochet lots of leaves in a variety of colours and add a handful of acorns: scatter them on your mantelpiece or Thanksgiving table, or group them together into a beautiful fall garland or wreath.

About the Patterns

Although they are only available together, I’ve separated the oak leaves and acorns into two separate PDF files, as the crochet and construction techniques are completely different for each, so there’s no info that’s common to both patterns. Here’s a brief intro to each:

Oak Leaf Collection

• This pattern includes large (9-lobed) and small (7-lobed) realistically sized and shaped oak leaves.
• For each leaf size, you’ll find both the written instructions and a complete stitch diagram on a single easy-to-print page.
• For more detailed assistance, the pattern also includes general instructions with photos to help you understand the construction of the leaves, and separate appendices for right- and left-handers including row-by-row photos and stitch diagrams for each leaf.

Life-Sized Acorn

• This acorn is approximately life-sized (only 1.5″/4cm long) and realistically shaped, and has an ingenious no-sew construction.
• The pattern is fully illustrated throughout with lots of step-by-step photos to explain the unique one-piece construction.
• For ease of printing, it also includes a single-page text-only printable version at the end of the pattern.
• Note: This is a completely different acorn from my Amigurumi Acorn design from 2007! That one is cute, round and vastly oversized, with the cap and stalk as separate pieces that need to be sewn together.

About the Designs

I’m really pleased with the work I’ve been doing on applique design in recent years. I’m evolving a new style of applique where I shape the piece with single crochet stitches, which gives a sturdy result without any holes – it’s the 2D version of my amigurumi style! As I develop this style, I’m learning how to create different shapes and angles with each new design, and the oak leaves are the epitome of my work so far in this field.

Spot the difference! Real and crocheted oak leaves

It’s fascinating to me – to have the lobes of the leaf sit at realistic angles and create a symmetrical leaf, the number and position of the stitches has to be different on each side of the leaf… It’s not at all obvious how to do this, but the beauty of it is that once I’ve created the design and written and charted the pattern for you, you can simply follow it to make perfectly-shaped leaves without having to understand any of that!

And the acorn was a different sort of design challenge: making a realistic size and shape when you have so few stitches to work with – even one stitch makes a huge difference! I tried many different ideas (there are well over a dozen green-and-purple acorn prototypes still littering my desk…)

This no-sew method, although unconventional, was by far the best in terms of a good result. After you’ve made the first one and learnt how it comes together, it’s not difficult at all and they’re quick to crochet with no assembly at the end – you’ll love it!

Buy Now

Ready to get started? Pick up the Oak Leaf Collection & Life-Sized Acorn crochet patterns from my shop right now.

Or, if you’re not ready to make them just yet, add them to your Ravelry queue or favourites so you don’t forget:

I hope you’ll love these new seasonal designs and that they’ll spark ideas for your Fall, Thanksgiving and Halloween decorating! And they’d be even more spectacular if you combine them with my Maple Leaf Collection and Pine Cone Collection patterns… I can’t wait to see what you do with them!

Trying something new today: I’ve created my first pattern-exclusive video tutorial: a quick video demonstration that’s only available to purchasers of a specific pattern, and that demonstrates a specific part of the pattern that might trip you up.

In this case, I’m demonstrating the optional Puffy Seafoam add-on for my Turtle Beach blankets, found in the donationware version of the Ribbed Ripple/Turtle Beach pattern.

Isn’t it a lovely effect?

This addition lets you add a row of 3-dimensional seafoam to any of my Turtle Beach blanket patterns. It’s crocheted as an afterthought directly onto the completed blanket, so if you’ve already made a turtle beach blanket, you can add the puffy seafoam at any time!

A Little Background…

Turtle Beach Collection is my most popular pattern set, having gone viral multiple times since I first released the original donationware blanket pattern to accompany my baby sea turtles in 2016, and I’ve been improving and expanding the collection ever since then, with more blanket patterns, flat and stuffed turtles, starfish, and additional modification ideas.

In 2019 I first added a brief explanation for the Puffy Seafoam at the end of the basic Ribbed Ripple/Turtle Beach Donationware pattern. It’s a fast and fun addition with a realistic 3D effect, but the construction is a little unusual, so I thought it deserved a bit more detail to help you make it!

Now, I’ve updated the tutorial in the pattern (it now includes full right-handed and left-handed instructions) and I’ve created an exclusive video tutorial (with right- and left-handed versions) to accompany this, so you can watch it in action – isn’t that cool?

How to Get the Video

If you’ve ever donated for the Ribbed Ripple/Turtle Beach blanket pattern, you can log back into your PlanetJune account and download the new Ribbed Ripple pattern PDF from ‘My Patterns‘.

On page 9 of the PDF, you’ll find the updated Puffy Seafoam add-on instructions, including the links to both the right-handed and left-handed versions of the new video.

Left: Classic Blue blanket; stuffed 3D turtles
Right: Teal Ombre blanket; flat appliqué turtles

You can also add the seafoam to my Classic Blue (above, left) or Teal Ombré (above, right) Turtle Beach blankets, so if you haven’t bought the Ribbed Ripple pattern too, you might like to think about grabbing it now!

For your minimum $2 donation you’ll get the Puffy Seafoam add-on – including the video links – and also an optional edging you can use if you’d like to square off the edges of your finished blanket, to turn it into a rectangle or use as a base to add any fancy crocheted edging. These options work with any of my Turtle Beach blanket patterns.

3D seafoam, squared-off edging

Pattern-Exclusive Videos: Good Idea?

This project was an experiment for me in two ways:

1. To see if I can make a ‘quick’ video that doesn’t take hours of my time to produce and edit (the answer to that is no!)
2. To see how well this idea of making bonus pattern-exclusive video content works – and that’s where you come in…

Please watch the video and let me know what you think!

• Is the video demo a valuable addition to a pattern?
• Is it useful to have the video link on the same page, so it’s right there as soon as you get stuck?
• Would you like to see more patterns with private video tutorials for any tricky bits?

Please email me or comment below with your feedback!

What’s Next

I hope you’ll enjoy the new video! It’s a novel method with a lovely 3D result, and I think the video will really help you to visualize what you’ll be doing as you crochet the seafoam, and how it comes together.

If this ‘pattern-exclusive video’ idea is popular, I’ll start keeping an eye on my customer support requests for any other common questions that would benefit from a quick video tutorial, and then update the relevant pattern with the link once I’ve made the private video.

Tip: From now on, I’ll notify you of any pattern updates in my monthly newsletter, so if you don’t already subscribe, please sign up to make sure you know about any bonus content and improvements I’ve added for the patterns you own!

Amigurumi Beach Ball is a fun no-sew pattern for summer – or for any time of year!

• Make a play ball for the kids, a set of juggling balls, or a stress ball to play with at your desk.
• Make it interactive by adding a squeaker, rattle or bell when you stuff it.
• Stuff it with plastic pellets to make your ball into a bean bag or hacky sack.

For this pattern, crisp colour changes are essential, and I’ve come up with a special new technique (a variant of my invisible increase) that makes the colour changes look extra neat at the increase points, plus I’ve included lots of tips for dealing with the yarn as you go – there’s no cutting or knot-tying required!

This pattern is great for using up scraps of brightly-coloured yarn! You can choose any 6 colours of yarn for this pattern, and the main colour you choose will also be the colour of the top and bottom circles on the beach ball. I made my main beach ball (above) in light worsted weight yarns (Bernat Satin and Red Heart Soft) with an E US/3.5mm hook, using ‘classic beach ball’ saturated colours.

I also made a second beach ball (below, left) from Patons Grace, a sport weight mercerized cotton, with a C US/2.75mm hook and whatever colours I happened to have in my stash. This gave me a slightly smaller ball (2.5″ vs 2.75″), and I love how it looks in the cotton too!

Both balls are a great size for playing with, juggling, etc.

And can I just mention that I designed this pattern very carefully, so the bottom of the ball looks just as good as the top! Look:

Yep, these are the bottoms of the balls! They look good from all sides 🙂

As I like to reward people who choose to donate for my donationware patterns, the PDF version of the Amigurumi Beach Ball pattern also includes additional tips and photos that you’ll only find in the PDF version (including instructions for how to fix any too-tight stitches on your finished ball), and the crochet instructions are all included on one printer-friendly page, so you can save paper and ink by printing only that page.

As always, the pattern is free for you to use online, and you need only donate if you’d like to thank me for my time in creating it, or if you’d like the easy-to-print PDF version with the bonuses.

Go to the free Amigurumi Beach Ball pattern >>

Or jump straight to donate:

Order the Amigurumi Beach Ball pattern >>

Not ready to make one yet? Add this pattern to your Ravelry queue:

Summer Fun CAL

If you’re about to make a beach ball, why not join a relaxed PlanetJune crochetalong (CAL) while you make it? The rules of the Summer Fun CAL are simple: make any PlanetJune pattern in July or August 2022, and share photos of what you’re making!

Here’s a selection of quick and/or summery PlanetJune patterns to give you some ideas…

If you want to join in with the community and see what everyone else is making, come and hang out in the Summer Fun CAL thread in the PlanetJune group on Ravelry or the #crochetalongs channel on the PlanetJune Discord server.

You can also join in by posting your pics on your social media, and remember to tag me (@planetjune) so I can see what you’ve been making!

I hope to see lots of Beach Balls in different colourways and yarns this summer – this is going to be fun 🙂