Every year, I write a wrap-up to see how far I’ve come over the past year and set a direction for the year ahead.

I don’t think anyone in the world can say that 2020 turned out the way they’d planned, and I’m no exception!

I’ve been very fortunate to not have been directly impacted by COVID-19, other than isolating, social distancing, mask wearing, etc since March. But despite that, I haven’t had the best year, healthwise: I’m still struggling with fatigue problems, and the bad fall I suffered in July left me with a couple of months of post-concussion symptoms (and brain injuries aren’t exactly conducive to productive work…)

2020 Achievements

Thanks to the pandemic and my head injury, this year has been a bust for me, in terms of quantity of new work. I’ve only published 6 new patterns, and I’ve made little or no headway on my bigger plans and ambitions. But it’s not all bad news!

I think that any progress in 2020 counts as a win, and I’ve definitely made progress. 2020 marks a huge milestone for me: I now have over 300 self-published PDF patterns, ebooks and craft tutorials – isn’t that amazing?!

And I succeeded in completing my most complex design to date. Designing that tortoise shell was an achievement in itself, but figuring out how to explain it clearly in pattern form was a huge undertaking, and, with hindsight, 2020 wasn’t the best year to push myself into such innovation…

I could have been much more productive in terms of quantity if I’d stuck to tried-and-true ‘safe’ ideas. But where’s the fun in that?! I’ve been designing amigurumi for 14 years now, and I have to follow my curiosity and keep trying new things, otherwise I’d be completely bored by now. (And, btw, I’m not bored at all – I still have so many ideas that I haven’t explored yet!)

I also followed up on my plan to post more crafts (not just crochet) on my blog this year with a few tutorials:

And some other craft projects:

(Plus there’ll be a few more projects – knitting, crochet, weaving – that I haven’t finished writing up yet.)

Spending time writing all these craft posts was a bit of a gamble in this age of digital distraction, but I was so happy with the response the non-pattern posts received! I love posting about what I’m making and hopefully inspiring people to try more crafty ideas along the way, and it’s really rewarding to know I still have interested blog readers who find value in my longer-form content in this fast-scrolling social media-filled world. (By the way, huge thanks to everyone who took the time to leave a comment this year and let me know you’re enjoying my posts – I really appreciate it!)

Business Report

My bestselling patterns this year were the Turtle Blanket and Baby Sea Turtles, Bearded Dragon, and Love Hearts (thanks to their repurposing by healthcare professionals and caring crocheters as COVID-19 comfort hearts). Pine Cones, Farmyard Goats and Mushrooms pushed the usual cats, dinosaurs, succulents etc further down in the PlanetJune charts – a bit of a surprise there, but I’m very happy to see different patterns gaining in popularity and joining the bestseller ranks.

And, once my brain was back to firing on all cylinders, I managed to complete a massive behind-the-scenes project last month that had been on hold since March: a much-needed upgrade of my shop. Although the difference won’t be visible to you, I started over and rebuilt the entire shop from scratch with the latest code updates to keep it safe and secure. It was a lot of work, but if the shop code is clean and simple, it’ll be easier to keep things updated and make improvements in the future.

Personal Report

I decided at the start of 2020 to officially ‘retire’ from being an amateur wildlife photographer. That seems like a shame on the face of it, but the pressure of having to take my camera everywhere and try to get ‘good’ photos had started to spoil the relaxation of appreciating the environment and enjoying the wildlife I see. Now I can just enjoy time outside in nature with Dave and Maggie without being stuck behind a lens or worried that my photos won’t be good enough – just appreciating it in the moment is enough.

My biggest personal breakthrough in 2020 was to finally seek therapy for my PTSD and anxiety disorder. After many months of counselling and learning CBT techniques, I not only feel much calmer, but also better equipped to deal with new stressful situations whenever they come up.

And my biggest joy of 2020 (and one with the most serendipitous timing, just before the lockdowns etc began) was adopting my rescue dog Maggie at the end of January. As a first time dog mama, I’d been so nervous to take this step, but it only took one look at her to know that she and I were meant to be together.

I’ve already written about how much she’s helping me, and I’ve devoted a lot of time this year to helping her blossom: from a timid, neglected, skin-and-bone scrap who didn’t know any commands and cried whenever I left her side, to a happy, healthy pup who recognizes dozens of words and knows she’s part of a loving forever family. That’s my most important and rewarding accomplishment of the year.

Looking Forward

I have so many things I want to make: videos! ebooks! new designs! new techniques! new products! but even in writing this list I realise that sounds exhausting.

I know I’m not capable of doing things by halves, so there’s no such thing as a “quick” video or blog post for me – it just doesn’t fit with my detail-oriented personality, for better or worse. And I know my energy reserves are limited; pushing myself today just means I’ll be too tired to do anything tomorrow, so I have to try to respect my limits.

So I’m looking to be strategic with where I spend my energy. I’m trying to make it easier for people to find PlanetJune and discover my huge back catalogue of treasures. If that could completely support me financially on an ongoing basis, like a successful author living on the royalties on their past books, it’d give me the time to follow my inspiration without any pressure.

Last year, my wishes were for acceptance of the things I can’t control (like my fatigue problem, and the bigger problems in the world), appreciation for all the good stuff in my life (I’m so fortunate in many ways), and inspiration (a new decade is a perfect time to try new things, and I have a feeling I have some great ideas coming!)

And, although I couldn’t have guessed the global challenges the year would present, those goals turned out to be an excellent 2020 coping strategy, and, in re-reading them, I realize that they still ring completely true for me today.

So, my wishes for 2021 are for:

• acceptance of the things I can’t control
• appreciation of all the good things in my life, no matter how small
• inspiration to keep moving forwards and trying new things

For me, these are calm, centred guiding principles to live by. They stood me in good stead last year, and I want to keep going on this path and keep making slow, steady progress this year.

If my wishes sound good to you too, I hope you’ll also be able to find a way to apply them to your life this year. I wish you a very Happy New Year, and a safe and happy 2021!

The first sweater I knitted for Maggie on my knitting machine has been a huge success – the only real problem is that, with 3 snowy walks each day, I need at least 3 sweaters in rotation so I always have one dry and ready for her next walk!

I vaguely remember these days before snow season began!

Next, I’d planned to knit a striped sweater for her, but I decided to refine the basic pattern (and get some more machine knitting practice) before getting too fancy.

Dog Sweater #2 (Lavender)

Did you know that the tummy cut-out on dog sweaters is only necessary for male dogs?! I didn’t, and poor Maggie’s tummy was always getting covered in mud or snow in her first sweater, so no more tummy cut-outs in future.

I also decided to make the back slightly longer, to see if it would help keep the sweater from being pushed up by her tail.

It’s so comfy she fell asleep during the test fit!

Other than that, I followed my original pattern exactly (apart from the yarn colour):

The new sweater (right) is 3″ longer on the tummy and 1″ longer on the back than the original sweater (left).

And now for the moment of truth:

So cute! The back length is better, and the tummy coverage is just right.

You may notice that she looks a little stockier now – that’s because she wears a harness under her sweaters these days (ever since the scary moment that she slipped her collar and ran straight into the road…).

The leash attachment point on the harness is further down her back than with the collar. Between that and the extra bulk from the harness, the neck opening is now a little low-cut.

To combat that I decided I should add an extra 1.5″ at the neck (and one more inch at the tail end) for the next version…

Sweater #3 (Greys)

The yarn I’d used for the first two sweaters (Bernat Satin) is very soft and I thought a firmer acrylic might be a) more hard-wearing and b) less likely to ride up Maggie’s back when she’s walking. So I raided my stash and found a couple of skeins of Hobby Lobby ‘I Love this Yarn!’ acrylic.

I made the length modifications I’d decided on above, and, as Maggie is a stylish pup, I thought I’d try knitting all the ribbing in a lighter shade of the main mid-grey colour:

I crocheted very carefully around the leash slit, to make sure it looked neat even in the contrast colour. I think the result is super stylish:

Sorry the colour balance is so far off between the pics above and below – it is the same sweater, I promise!

I think we have a winner with this design! The fit is great now, with more coverage at the front and full coverage at the back.

The fabric feels resilient, and I’m sure it’s going to wear better than the Satin yarn sweaters (which are already a little fluffy around the cuffs).

And look how smart that ribbing and leash slit are! I’m really happy with how this turned out.

Is this it for tweaking the design? Well, no, I think I might also try adding an extra inch to the legs next time to give her more protection in deep snow.

But that striped sweater is still on the cards too! It might just need to wait until the lockdown ends so I can go yarn shopping…

It’s so rewarding to knit functional clothes for Maggie that are much better fitting than anything I could buy from a pet store. And she gets so many compliments when we’re out walking these days 🙂

With Christmas rapidly approaching, I thought I’d share my tips on how to arrange a (crocheted) wreath so it looks balanced and beautiful, using my Christmas Decor wreath as an example.

Wreath Inspiration Gallery

Of course, wreaths aren’t only for Christmas, and there’s no one right way to design or arrange a wreath! Depending on your aesthetic, you may like your wreath packed full or sparse, colourful or minimal, with one big focal piece or a sea of little ones.

Here are some beautiful wreaths made from PlanetJune patterns, and designed and crocheted by members of the PlanetJune Ravelry group, so you can see how versatile and fun crocheted wreaths can be:

Image credits (L-R, row by row): 1 MagicalAmigurumi; 2, 6, 7, 10 sujavo; 3, 8, 9 petrOlly; 4 aaBrink; 5 Marli2311

Pattern credits: You can find all the crochet patterns in my shop! (Ask me in the comments below if you don’t recognise something specific, and I’ll let you know which pattern it is!)

Different styles, different seasons, different themes, different results, and yet don’t they all look gorgeous? (Well done, PJers!) As you can see, with a little imagination and a few crochet patterns you can create a crocheted wreath for any occasion…

Ready to Crochet Your Own Wreath?

If you’re short on time, space or funds for your holiday decorating this year, how about whipping up my (free) Mini Wreath Ornament crochet pattern instead? It’s only 3″ across, works up in no time, and comes together like magic with almost no sewing required!

But if you’d like to decorate a larger wreath and don’t feel confident to create a design that looks balanced, I’ll give you some tips below. You can copy my method completely for your next wreath, or you can take any of my ideas that you like and make your wreath in your own style.

Design Your Wreath

Start with a wreath base

If you’d like to make your wreath completely from scratch, check out my free Crocheted Wreath Base pattern. Otherwise, you can buy a wreath form from a craft store as a starting point – there are lots of options (see the gallery above for some ideas).

Choose your patterns

In this tutorial I’m using all eight of the patterns from my Christmas Decor Collection, but you can use any patterns that fit your theme.

Decide on your overall colour scheme

Your wreath will look more harmonious if you crochet all the embellishments from a limited colour palette – see the gallery above for some great examples of the effect of different palettes.

To make the different elements stand out and give the wreath more interest, try using tones of your main colours – lighter or darker versions of the same colour.

e.g. I used three shades of green (and two different reds) to crochet my pieces. This helps you to tell the mistletoe, holly and ivy apart, even when they overlap each other.

To draw the eye and stop everything from blending together too much, you’ll need some highlights in a contrasting colour.

e.g. The small pops of yellow and white in my wreath bring it to life.

Don’t go overboard with the colours – if your wreath gets too busy, your eyes won’t know where to look! Repeating colours around the wreath help to give it a cohesive look.

e.g. I used the same shade of red for the poinsettias, baubles, and bow.

Arrange Your Wreath

Arrange the elements

If you have a main focal piece, place that first, then arrange the other elements around it.

Space each type of component out around the wreath so there aren’t any clusters where the same item or the same colour are touching. Go for balance but try to avoid too much symmetry or repetition – the aim is to make your wreath look natural and not too ‘perfect’.

Start by placing the larger pieces, spacing them out around the wreath, and then start to fill in the gaps with smaller pieces.

e.g. This diagram shows the positions of my larger pieces – the bow, holly and poinsettias. First I placed the bow at the bottom centre of my wreath. Using three of each of my larger components (instead of two or four) made it easier to spread them out around the wreath without arranging all the components in a repeating pattern or perfect mirror-image.

Fill all the spaces (or don’t)

Your design may be intentionally sparse, so parts of the wreath form are visible. This can look lovely if you buy a pretty wreath base, or crochet the form in a cheerful colour – maybe with stripes or other colourplay – and make the form a feature of the design. (There are some beautiful examples of all these in the gallery above!)

If you don’t want to make the wreath form part of the design, try to fill all the large spaces with more embellishments. You can either choose part of one of your patterns, e.g. a single holly or ivy leaf or tiny bauble would work well in my case, or add other tiny pieces from simple patterns – e.g. a small flower, leaf, or heart – in a colour to match your design!

When adding the smaller pieces, you can choose which pieces go where semi-randomly, but do your best to choose different colours wherever pieces are going to touch or overlap.

It’s always okay to leave small spaces where the wreath form shows – if your form is a dark colour like mine, it’ll recede into the shadows, or if you make it match your components, it’ll blend in nicely.

Rules are made to be broken!

e.g. Breaking my colour palette ‘rule’, my silver bells don’t fit my colour scheme, but I think it makes them stand out more than if I’d made them in yellow, white or red, don’t you?

In the end, the best design for you is one you like the look of, so
don’t be afraid to play around, try moving pieces about and pinning them in different places to see how they’d look. Stand back and look at the whole wreath from a distance to see if any elements look out of place.

It’ll probably take a little tweaking before you come up with a layout you’re happy with, but I think it’s worth it!

And please ignore any of my tips that don’t feel right in your wreath – they’re only suggestions, and you can see from the gallery above that there are countless different ways to make a very attractive-looking wreath.

A wreath can be a lovely way to display small crocheted amigurumi, appliques and other embellishments, to celebrate an occasion or just to look pretty.

I hope this post has given you some inspiration, and, if you decide to crochet a wreath, I’d love to see it! Please tag me (I’m @PlanetJune on all the socials) or email me a photo 🙂

And enter it into the PlanetJune End-of-Year CAL too! You’ll get a contest entry for each PlanetJune pattern you use (and there are prizes for everyone, so don’t miss out…)

Don’t miss the launch discount, at the end of this post!

With the winter chill setting in, it’s always my ears that feel the cold first. I usually wear a very functional earwarmer – just a shopbought band of boring black insulated fleece – but I really wanted something a bit more stylish to bring some cheer to the season this year. And here’s what I came up with – a wonderful cable pattern that looks far more complex than it is!
 

I’ve given two width options using different yarn weights depending on how wide and bulky you’d like your earwarmer to be, and how quickly you’d like to get it finished (thicker yarn needs fewer repeats!) 

The dense crochet cables make a plush squishy fabric that’s great for blocking wind. The edges of cabled panels tend to be gappy, but I’ve filled those gaps with some hidden stitches with extra squish on the inside to keep you warmer around the edges.

 
They’re only hidden from the outside! You can clearly see those snuggly stitches all around the inside top edge in the photo above.

The worsted weight option can also be worn as a fitted neckwarmer, as shown below. If you want a chunkier neckwarmer, you could upscale it further with a bulky or super bulky yarn to make a wider cowl.

This earwarmer is worked flat and seamed, you can easily customise the fit by working the pattern until it’s the desired length. Try it on as you go and check if it’s long enough to give a snug fit around your head, or just use my standard measurements as a guide if it’ll be a surprise gift for a child or adult! 

As always with my PlanetJune Accessories designs, the pattern includes full stitch instructions and my tips for all the techniques used, as well as written and charted versions of the pattern.

If you’ve been nervous to tackle cables, I’ll walk you through it in the pattern. There’s a 4-row repeat, but every wrong side row is just plain half double crochet, so you only have two pattern rows to remember. After you’ve made a few repeats, you’ll be able to fly through the pattern and make impressive-looking earwarmers for everyone on your list! 

Links and Launch Discount

Ready to get crocheting? You can buy the Cozy Cables Earwarmer pattern individually from my shop, or as part of a Custom Set of any 3 PlanetJune Accessories patterns of your choice.

And, for this week only, save 50c on the Cozy Cables Earwarmer pattern by using discount code COZY at checkout. (Valid until Monday November 30 2020.)

Tip: The discount is valid on the Earwarmer alone and the Custom Set including the Earwarmer – so you can save even more by buying the multipack deal with the discount!

Or, if you’re not ready to buy just yet, please heart or queue it on Ravelry so you don’t forget about it:

If you’re planning on making one (or more!), please join the PlanetJune End of Year 2020 CAL – I’d love to see your earwarmers, and you’ll be entered in the CAL contest! Join us in the PlanetJune Ravelry group (or click here for full details of the CAL, including non-Ravelry entry option) 🙂

I do hope you’ll enjoy this pattern as much as I’ve enjoyed designing it. I’ve been wearing my earwarmers out in the snow already this week, and I can report that they’re keeping my ears and forehead toasty warm, even when my cheeks are freezing!

After the success of my first big machine knitting project, I wanted to try something smaller so it wouldn’t take as much energy to knit, and now I have Maggie I finally have a small recipient to knit for!

(You may think machine knitting sounds easy and automated, but there’s a lot to it: pushing the carriage back and forth across the needles; remembering to move the weights up every few rows; checking no stitches have jumped off the needles, and following the pattern by counting rows and manipulating stitches to make increases or decreases. Doing all that at the same time takes physical and mental energy – and the more tired you get, the more chance you forget to do something and risk dropping a stitch or skipping a section of the pattern. No prizes for guessing how I know all this!)

I decided to keep it simple for my first attempt at a dog sweater: I drafted a basic pattern by measuring the sweater I bought for Maggie last winter – it’s just formed from two knitted rectangles stitched together, so it should be simple to make. By using the leftover yarn from my last sweater, I didn’t even need to make a gauge swatch to calculate the number of stitches and rows I’d need, so I could get started right away.

My knitting machine is very basic and only forms knit stitches, so in my last project I hand-knitted all the ribbing after machine-knitting the bulk of the sweater. This time I was brave enough to knit extra rows for the ribbing, and then drop every other column down by the length of the ribbing while the piece was still on the machine and latch them back up in the other direction to form purl columns, so there was no hand-knitting at all involved. Once you get the hang of this, I think it’s much faster than hand knitting ribbing.

I knitted my two rectangles on the machine, remembering to leave a slit for the leash at the shoulder, and stitched the two rectangles together (without finishing anything in case it needed to be altered). Then it was time for the first test fitting!

Maggie wasn’t so sure about this monstrosity with all the dangling yarn ends, but it fit nicely, so I could weave in all those ends and move onto phase 2 of the sweater…

You see, Maggie’s fur attracts snow, and the more she walks in the snow, the more tiny snowballs form on her legs, until she ends up with snow and ice ‘boots’ caking her entire legs!

By that point, it’s difficult for her to walk – that’s no surprise, with blocks of ice in her armpits – so I decided to add some sleeves to this sweater, in the hope of preventing the snow from getting too high up her legs.

The armholes in the sweater are just slits, so I knitted some teeny-tiny little rectangular sleeves with ribbed cuffs:

I seamed them up and stitched them into the armhole slits.

I wasn’t at all sure how this would look, as it’s the equivalent of a drop-sleeved sweater for a human – a boxy shape without a close fit – but this is a dog sweater, so I wasn’t too worried: it’s going to get dirty and snagged on twigs and thrown in the wash dozens of times over its lifetime. All it needs to do is keep her warm and stay in place on our walks.

But, flattened to the side, it looks like it should work…

And it needed one finishing touch before we could field-test the sweater: strengthening the leash slit with an edging. I decided to keep it simple and single crocheted around the slit with the same yarn. It turned out to be an easy way to make a very neat-looking buttonhole.

And now for the moment of truth: will Maggie like her sweater?? Let’s try it out at the park and see what she thinks…

I think that happy face says it all – it’s a big success!

(By the way, it looks from these pics like the sweater might be too short, but that’s just because Maggie’s sweet spiral tail pushes it up her back so it won’t stay in place – I don’t think there’s any way around that!)

As I made Maggie’s sweater from the leftover yarn from my own, we now have matching sweaters. And while we won’t be going out in public like this (any time Maggie’s wearing her sweater, it’ll be cold enough for me to need a coat), I couldn’t resist asking Dave to take a photo of us in our matching outfits…

Hahaha – isn’t that hilarious?!

I’m really pleased with how this project worked out. And I’m especially happy because, by the time I got to the second sleeve, I finished the entire piece without making a single mistake – maybe I’m actually getting the hang of this machine knitting thing!

It’ll probably take 24 hours for a wet sweater to dry before Maggie can wear it again, so I think she’s going to need at least a few more sweaters, don’t you? 😉

That gives me an excuse to try some more knitting machine experiments without having to make a me-sized sweater. I think I’m going to try some stripes on her next one, so stay tuned to see how that turns out…

This year has been a struggle for everyone, so let’s try to end it on a high note, and celebrate our love of crochet together, with prizes for everyone!

The annual PlanetJune Christmas Crochet-Along (CAL) is back, but it’s even more inclusive this time around. You can enter the End-of-Year 2020 CAL any time from now until the end of the year by:

• Crocheting any PlanetJune Xmas/winter-themed patterns you’re making for your holiday decorating
• Crocheting any PlanetJune pattern you’re giving as a holiday gift or as a donation to a good cause (or selling to someone who’s buying it as a gift)
• Crocheting any PlanetJune pattern you’re making for yourself – remember, you deserve treats too!

Basically, you can make any PlanetJune patterns you want – the more the merrier! Share what you’re making and join our crochet party as we approach 2021.

Come to the PlanetJune group on Ravelry and join the fun! Share your crochet plans, post photos of your projects in progress, let everyone else know you like their projects, and (of course) post pics of your finished projects so we can all appreciate them.

Prizes

Thanks to a generous anonymous benefactor, we have extra prizes this year:

• First prize: $20 PlanetJune Gift Certificate
• Second prize (2 winners): $10 PlanetJune Gift Certificate
• Participation prize (2 winners): $5 PlanetJune Gift Certificate
• Runner-up prize (everyone else!): 10% PlanetJune discount code to spend in 2021

Pattern Options

While you aren’t limited to my seasonal patterns with this CAL, I thought I’d whet your appetite for project ideas with a collage of all my Christmas patterns:

Isn’t that amazing? There are soooo many to choose from! You can find all these patterns at www.planetjune.com/xmas – including plenty of free/donationware options if funds are short 🙂

How to Enter

Ravelry Users
Post a pic of your PlanetJune projects to the CAL thread in the PlanetJune Ravelry group, and tag your projects with PJCAL2020 in order for them to appear as part of the CAL.

1. Posting a photo of your finished PlanetJune project on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter
2. Tagging me (@PlanetJune) in the post so I’ll see it
3. Using the hashtag #PJCAL2020 in the post so I know it’s an official entry (only use the hashtag once per entry please, even if you post multiple photos or in multiple places!)

Example message “Here’s my entry into the @PlanetJune End-of-Year CAL! #PJCAL2020” (and add your photo, too!) 

Rules

• Prizes will be drawn from all eligible entries, starting from first prize and working down the list, with a maximum of one prize per person.
• You’ll receive one entry per PlanetJune pattern used in a completed project and tagged PJCAL2020 (if you make e.g. a Christmas wreath using 5 different patterns, you’ll get 5 entries).
• Entries will be capped at 8 per person, to give everyone a chance of winning.
• Bonus entry option (for the participation and runner-up prizes only): even if you don’t manage to complete a project, you can still be entered into the contest – all you need is to have posted at least 5 posts in the CAL thread. So do join in the conversation – you’ll be guaranteed at least a runner-up prize!

I do hope you’ll join us for this PlanetJune end-of-year crochet party – I’m really looking forward to seeing what you’re making from my patterns, as holiday gifts or for yourself! See you in the ravelry group or on social 🙂

I’m so happy with the reception my Tortoise patterns have had already! Thank you so much to everyone who’s already bought them or shared them on social – I’m so glad you love them too!

It’s been a very long journey to get to this point, so I thought I’d put together a visual diary of creating my most complex, detailed and challenging pattern to date.

For anyone who looks at the pictures of my finished tortoises and thinks that doesn’t look so hard to design, this post should be an eye-opener! Although my style is to create designs that look smooth and simple, the process is anything but.

So here goes: a decade to get properly started, and then 10 months to get finished!

2011: Conception

I came up with the idea to make a tortoise along the same lines as my AquaAmi Sea Turtle, with a segmented shell and amigurumi-style head and limbs.

There were a couple of other cute tortoise patterns out there, but they all had circular shells and that’s just not right: tortoises have very oval-shaped shells. I sketched out a design for the shell segments that would make an oval shell using simple geometric shapes, and started crocheting.

The initial concept for the shell

Once I started to assemble my pieces, I quickly realised the problem with my design: it was going to produce a flattish shell top. That’s fine for a sea turtle, with its streamlined shape for swimming, but completely wrong for a land tortoise with its domed shell.

I was a fairly new designer back then, with only a few years of experience, and the challenge of creating a very specific asymmetrical 3D shape from simple geometric segments was beyond me – I just didn’t know where to go from there – so I set it aside, and the notes and prototypes were filed for later…

You can see a couple of the original shell segments (with some dinosaur parts!) in this work-in-progress photo from 2011 – before I realised my idea wasn’t going to work…

2012-2017: Research

Moving from Canada to South Africa in 2011 brought an unexpected benefit. Although I knew that tortoises must live wild somewhere in the world, I only specifically knew about giant Galapagos tortoises, until I made the delightful discovery that ‘normal’ tortoises are pretty common in conservation areas and empty wild spaces in the Cape!

Throughout my years in Africa, I had endless opportunities to meet and study tortoises, from spotting wild tortoises while I was out in nature…

… to hanging out with rescued tortoises at my local wildlife sanctuary, World of Birds (tortoises live for a very long time, and keep growing throughout their lives, so ‘cute’ pet tortoises are often abandoned when they get too large)…

… to braking for wild tortoises crossing the road in undeveloped areas (and ‘awwww’ing whenever I spotted an adorable baby tort!)…

… to getting to hold those baby torts and learn more about them at an education and conservation centre…

In all that time, I learnt to appreciate these fascinating reptiles more than ever, and study their shells and markings up close.

2020: Realization

January

After my Christmas break, I was ready to jump into new designs for 2020! With an extra decade of design experience under my belt, I had a new idea for how to tackle that tortoise shell shape.

After all my research time, I knew exactly what I was aiming to create: a life-sized realistically-shaped tortoise with correct (if simplified) shell structure:

• The carapace (upper shell) has 13 main scutes (segments) with 5 vertebral scutes down the middle, 4 costal scutes around each side, plus a rim of marginal scutes.
• The plastron (lower shell) is shaped to give the legs room to emerge, and has a gular (throat) scute at the front.

You don’t need to know all those details, but when you look at the tortoise, it should just look right to you, from all angles.

An early prototype: the general idea is good, but it’s too boxy and the scute shapes are all just a bit wrong

Completely reworked in shape and size, this is almost the final shell design, minus the edging

It’s beginning to look like a tortoise!

February

The basic design was finished – and check, check, check, I’d included all the features I wanted in the shell, the shape was lifelike, the size was great, and the shell fit around the body beautifully.

You probably think great, I was 90% done and it’d all be smooth sailing from there? If only that were true – the fun designing part was now basically finished, but a lot of hard work was still to come…

March

To take my mind off the lockdown etc, I decided to test my prototype instructions by making a giant tortoise (using the techniques from my Complete Guide to Giant Amigurumi)…

My biggest (and certainly heaviest) giant amigurumi to date!

It was so much fun to make, but it highlighted a lot of things I’d need to explain in the pattern, and that I’d need to refine the design to simplify the assembly process. It turns out that coming up with the design, although it was a long time in the making, was just a small step in the process of producing this pattern – being able to clearly explain something that’s so unique was a whole new challenge.

May

I started prototyping expansion pack ideas while trying to figure out how on earth to make a useable and enjoyable pattern from my well over 150 step-by-step photos and 16 pages of handwritten notes…

Maggie looks a little perturbed by the shell-less tortoises!

July

I felt like the pattern was starting to get into shape, but I still had parts I hadn’t figured out how to explain clearly when I had my accident and temporarily broke my brain. Concussion meant no chance of making progress on such a high-level task – I couldn’t concentrate on anything, let alone something so demanding.

My giant tortoise was now part of the family and a fixture in my living room, but I wasn’t sure if he’d ever be able to have any crocheted relatives around the world…

Yes, my giant tortoise is bulkier than Maui and Maggie combined!

September

With the post-concussion symptoms finally fading, I could get back to whipping this pattern into shape. But – disaster – I couldn’t remember anything I’d been planning to include, or where I’d left off! I had to make another complete tortoise from my notes so I could re-learn the design well enough to explain it clearly.

My 16 pages of handwritten notes – there’s a pattern hidden in there somewhere…

I started to regret thinking this could even be possible – the shell was so complicated, and there were no precedents to consult for any of the techniques I’d come up with to make this design work with 18 pieces and no sewing at all (except the back legs).

I threw out pages and pages of explanation I’d put into the pattern that were either too technical or relied on too much expertise – I didn’t want to drown you in irrelevant info, or for this to be a pattern that only a few advanced amigurumists would be able to tackle!

I kept tweaking the techniques and the instructions to make things clearer and cleaner and easier to follow, but it felt like I’d never reach the end of this marathon.

October

Success! With 18 pages, over step-by-step 70 photos with lots of annotations to make things even clearer, and separate right- and left-handed versions, I finally had a pattern that I could be proud of. I’d tried to include solutions to everything that could possibly trip you up, so your questions are answered before you even think to ask them.

This pattern is unlike anything you’ve seen before. If you follow it carefully and add stitch markers at all the specified places to make sure everything will line up, it’ll guide you step-by-step through the whole process to make a fantastic tortoise!

It’s very fitting that this design is a tortoise: it took a lot of small slow steps to go from a vague concept to a great idea to a satisfying design to a solid finished pattern, but, as in the Tortoise and the Hare fable, slow and steady wins the race.

I always try to give every design the time it needs to become the best pattern it can be. (But I do hope that my ideas won’t all take 10 years to come to fruition from now on!)

I hope you’ve enjoyed this insight into my design and patterning process. And if you’d like to enjoy the results of all that work, you can pick up my Tortoise crochet patterns from my shop!

*Cue the fanfare*

Please allow me to present… the PlanetJune tortoises!

I’m so excited to be able to share my tortoises with you today! I have so much to tell you about them, though, I don’t know where to start…

I’ll limit myself to the relevant pattern details today, and do a follow-up post later to share the long history of this design and my inspiration, and why my tortoise has been the most challenging (and eventually satisfying) pattern I’ve ever written!

Okay, so what you’re looking at above is actually two patterns:

• Top row: Tortoise – the main crochet pattern
• Bottom row: Simple-Shell Tortoise, Turtle & Terrapin – the expansion pack

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.

Between the two patterns you can mix-and-match to customize your own perfect tortoises (and freshwater turtles and terrapins). Let’s look at them in more detail:

About the Designs

Both the patterns make amazingly realistically-shaped life-sized tortoises. They are about 8.5″ (21.5cm) long from nose to tail. Of course tortoises start life much smaller than this, and just keep growing and growing throughout their very long lives, but I settled on this size as it looks and feels just like a real pet tortoise!

These are an ingenious low-sew design – the only sewing you have to do in the entire project is stitching the back legs to the body (and those joins will be hidden by the shell, so you don’t even need to do tidy stitching to get a perfect result).

All the tortoises have separate upper and lower shells which are stretched over a fully-enclosed smooth stuffed amigurumi body. This gives a perfect finish with no worries about stuffing leaking through anywhere, and a satisfyingly solid result.

And they are just so realistic! Once you’ve crocheted the shells together over the body, your tortoise’s head and legs will look like they’ve just popped out of his shell so he can go for a walk or find some lettuce to munch. 🙂

Tortoise Crochet Pattern

The main tortoise crochet pattern has a realistic patterned upper shell made of 13 shaped segments that are crocheted together into a 3D shape that perfectly matches the shape of the body beneath.

Don’t be intimidated, though: you’ll be working in a join-as-you-go method: crocheting one piece, then crocheting it together with the previous piece(s) to build up the shell, so you never have more than 2 pieces to confuse you. Every step is clearly set out with explanatory annotated photos so you can match what you’re doing to what you see in the photos.

The lower shell is also realistically shaped and crocheted in one piece so it’s fast and easy to complete.

As there’s such a lot to this pattern, with 18 pages and over 70 step-by-step photos (with over half of those being for the upper shell!), I’ve released it as separate right-handed and left-handed editions, so you can choose your version before you checkout, and the photos will all correspond to exactly what you’ll be seeing at every stage. I’ve only done this with ebooks until now, but this pattern is special in more ways than one!

Simple Shell Tortoise, Turtle and Terrapin Expansion Pack

This Expansion Pack includes all the modifications required to crochet a Tortoise much more quickly, with a simple but well-shaped one-piece top shell with or without a contrast trim. This is a simpler and more beginner-friendly option, but still has that realistic tortoise shape throughout!

This Expansion Pack also includes modifications to turn the Tortoise into a (freshwater) Turtle or Terrapin with a pointier nose and pale-coloured lower shell. All these modifications are mix-and-match, so you can make Tortoises, Turtles and Terrapins with the geometric or simple shell style, with either head shape, with or without the contrast trim on the top shell and with a pale- or self-coloured lower shell.

Here are some examples, so you can see the different options in the Expansion Pack:

Left: Pointed (turtle/terrapin) nose; single colour upper shell; contrast colour lower shell
Right: Rounded (tortoise) nose; upper shell with contrast-coloured trim; matching colour lower shell

Colour Choices

For any of the tortoises, you can stick with muted ‘natural’ colours to match the shades of a real tortoise, or get as creative as you want! A brightly-coloured tortoise (like my magenta-and-mustard example) looks vibrant and cute, and would make a lovely decoration for a baby’s room, or a perfect toy for any child. There are no wrong choices when it comes to amigurumi tortoise colours. 🙂

Buy Now & Launch Discount

Don’t you need these tortoises in your life right now?! If so, pick up the patterns with these links:

• Just the standard Tortoise pattern
• Tortoise and Simple-Shell Tortoise, Turtle & Terrapin expansion pack
• Just the Simple-Shell expansion pack (but remember, you can’t use it without the Tortoise pattern!)

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

Tortoise:

Simple-Shell Tortoise etc Expansion Pack:

And for one week only, you can take an extra 50c off the price: add the Tortoise or Tortoise + Expansion Pack pattern(s) to your shopping cart, and enter the discount code LETTUCE at checkout! (Offer ends Thursday October 29, 2020.)

I hope you love my tortoises as much as I do!

Don’t forget to tag me (I’m @planetjune everywhere) when you’ve made yours 🙂