The Summer of Dinosaurs crochet-along was a huge success, with new dinosaurs joining the herd pretty much every day, until we had an amazing 129 completed projects by the end of July! Here’s an overview of all 129 dinos completed during this CAL so you can admire our epic yarny Jurassic Park (if you’d like to see any of the projects in more detail, click here to view the CAL gallery in full, but you’ll need to be a Ravelry member to see them):

What an amazing collection! I love the variety: colours, styles, sizes, customizations, and photo staging. And top quality crocheting by all involved!

The Prizes…

This was a prize CAL, generously sponsored by Lion Brand. The Grand Prize yarn will be provided by Lion Brand and shipped directly to the winner, and I’m providing all the other prizes.

• Grand Prize: 3 skeins Vanna’s Choice (the yarn I used to make all my dinosaurs!) and 1 skein of the gorgeous new Textures yarn plus a PlanetJune crochet pattern of your choice
• Second Prize: a PlanetJune Amigurumi Essentials Kit plus a PlanetJune crochet pattern of your choice
• Third Prize: a PlanetJune crochet pattern of your choice
• Runner-up Prizes: there are no losers at PlanetJune! All other participants who complete one or more entries in the CAL will receive a 10% discount code towards your next order from PlanetJune.com 🙂

I grabbed all 129 entries and pasted them into Excel so they were in numbered rows, sorted alphabetically. Then I used random.org to generate 3 numbers between 1 and 129 (inclusive) for the winners. And they are:

Grand Prize winner: #31 kathertine
Second Prize winner: #74 NeofelisNebulosa
Third Prize winner: #98 pandabugcreations

Congratulations to the winners! Look out for a Ravelry PM from me so you can give me your details for your prizes. And to all the other participants, I’ll be PMing you too, with your runner-up discount code 🙂

Thanks to all of you who particiapted, for making this crochet-along so successful – it’s been an absolute pleasure to see all these wonderful ami dinosaurs popping up over the past 7 weeks!

There’s always a crochet-along running in the PlanetJune group on Ravelry. If you’d like to join a current or future CAL, please join our group and participate as often as you want – we’d love to see your projects.

Anyone for (Crocheted) Fruit?

I was honoured that some of my crocheted fruit patterns were used to create the farmer’s market-themed window of the Lion Brand Yarn Studio store in Manhattan! (All the non-PlanetJune fruit and veg were freestyled by the creators of the window display.) I’d love to see this window in person, wouldn’t you?

Photo courtesy of Lion Brand.

Read all about it in the Crochet World newsletter (no longer available), or try my free patterns to make your own: Amigurumi Pears, Amigurumi Citrus Collection (and Amigurumi Apples – not pictured above, but the perfect way to round out your crocheted fruit salad!)

Summer of Dinosaurs CAL

The Summer of Dinosaurs CAL was a massive success, with well over 100 entries! I’ll be posting the winners of the contest and a roundup of our amigurumi dinosaur army here in a couple of days 🙂

Free-For-All CAL

Keeping it simple for the summer, the August crochet-along is a free-for all! That means free choice: you can join in by making any PlanetJune patterns, including finishing up WIPs you’ve already started.

You can make any PlanetJune patterns from my shop (amigurumi and accessories), any free patterns from my website, or any of the patterns from my books – lots to choose from! Luckily Ravelry has a nice list of all 212 patterns on my designer page if you feel like browsing 🙂

(Until I wrote that paragraph, I had no idea I had so many designs. That’s an average of 25 designs per year for the 8.5 years I’ve been a crochet designer… Wow!)

Review and Win contest

You’re automatically entered in the next monthly draw every time you write a review for a PlanetJune pattern you’ve enjoyed – and you’ll also be helping future customers make an informed decision about patterns they are considering buying.

As I didn’t post a monthly update in July, I have two winners to announce today 🙂

June’s winner is Heather R‘s review of my Lion & Lioness pattern:

Having made both the lion and lioness, I could not have been more thrilled with this pattern! June’s pattern is both realistic and adorable. This pattern includes loop stitch for the lion’s mane – something I had never attempted – but the instructions are very clear, and there is even a video online which is incredibly helpful. I found the pattern easy to follow and loved the end result!

And July’s winner is Jaclyn M‘s review of my AmiCats Calico Cat (far left in the above photo of the AmiCats Collection):

This was the first pattern I bought from PlanetJune, and I was not disappointed! The pattern is very easy to follow, with lots of pictures and detailed instructions. I was very pleased that my cat came out looking like the picture. In fact, I was so pleased that I bought two more AmiCat patterns!

Congratulations, Heather and Jaclyn – I’ve emailed you both to find out which pattern you’d like as your prize!

What’s Next?

This month, I’ll be busy with three AmiDogs design commissions, and I’ll be working on some new amigurumi, PlanetJune Accessories designs and non-crochet craft projects for next season. I’m hoping to squeeze in a visit to my family some time this year, so I have to try to get ahead now so I can afford to take some time off later – I love being self-employed, but it does require careful planning… 🙂

Even though I’m in the middle of winter, I’m channeling summer with my new free PlanetJune Accessories pattern: the Crochet Braid Bracelet.

Crochet up a speedy braided bracelet with this decorative cord technique that’s deceptively easy to crochet as it uses only single crochet stitches! Customize the length and look to match your own style or make a personalized gift. Simply change the yarn colour and button fastener to go from playful children’s jewellery to a rugged man’s bracelet, or from a beachy summer look to a fashion accessory in your favourite colour.

Isn’t it lovely? This bracelet uses a special technique that uses single crochet stitches worked in an unusual way to create a decorative cord. It’s very easy once you’ve seen it in action, so I’ve made a new video tutorial for this technique: Basic Crochet Cord (as always, my videos are available in right- and left-handed versions). Once you’ve made a bracelet or two, you’ll probably want to make more of these cords to use for other things (I have some suggestions on the video page!)

Although the basic Crochet Braid Bracelet is a free pattern, I’ve included lots of bonuses if you choose to donate for the PDF version:

• Step-by-step text and photo instructions for the Basic Crochet Cord (in right- and left-handed versions), so you can make the bracelet without having the video in front of you
• Bonus tips and advice
• Instructions to make a double-stranded variation – a neat two-strand bracelet with the button centred over the crossover point

I hope you’ll enjoy crocheting bracelets as much as I do – as you can see, I couldn’t stop once I got started… More colours! More button styles! So much fun…

Go to the free Crochet Braid Bracelet pattern >>

Or jump straight to donate:

Order the Crochet Braid Bracelet pattern >>

Not ready to make it yet? Add it to your Ravelry queue:

On Saturday, I attended a block printing workshop, taught by Jesse Breytenbach, a Cape Town-based illustrator and printmaker. Jesse has a Masters in printmaking and many years’ experience of relief printing, producing beautiful textiles like these:

The last time I tried printmaking was ‘carving’ into styrofoam with a pencil in primary school(!), but I love learning and I love making things, so I couldn’t pass up the chance to learn a new skill from a world expert in this craft.

I loved that this workshop wasn’t a class to make a specific project, but a way to learn the skills and techniques which we can then apply to any projects in future. Jesse just told us to draw simple shapes and then start to carve them….

We used plastic easycut lino and learnt how to use a selection of carving tools to turn our drawn shapes (above) into a block ready to print from (below).

Jesse (below, left) walked around throughout and offered help and insight to all the participants. It was so useful to hear all her tips and expertise as the workshop progressed.

I started out far too timidly with carving away the excess material, but by the end of the class I really felt like I understood the process: how to make clear outlines, how to carve fine and deep lines, how to efficiently clear away unwanted material, and how to check if the block is finished or needs a bit more work.

Then it was time for the messy part: inking up our blocks and printing onto fabric!

Everyone else’s test blocks were far more ambitious than mine – I just wanted to learn to carve, but the others made far more complex shapes with more fine detail and multiple colours. Here are some of my favourite prints from other participants:

Looking at the variety of blocks we made, you can start to see how versatile this medium is. It was really interesting to see how all the different types of blocks behaved when they were printed.

I rotated my simple ‘boring’ block to make different patterns, which was fun and yielded some surprisingly interesting patterns! These were just test prints, so I tried to judge the spacing and angles by eye, but, with a few registration marks so I could print them evenly, I think I could make some really nice prints from my little block.

This workshop was such an enjoyable and creative morning. I usually make things in isolation, so it was really fun to be creative in a group setting and get to see what other people were making. I’d definitely recommend learning a new craft from an expert, if you get the chance – they can point out exactly where you’re going wrong so there’s a lot less trial-and-error and having to figure things out for yourself.

If you live in or near Cape Town, I can highly recommend learning about block printing from Jesse! If you’re interested, contact Jesse for more information or to sign up for her mailing list for notification of her next workshop dates.

Once I got home I felt so fired up by learning a new skill, I really wanted to do some more carving. My ultimate goal when taking this class was to be able to carve a block in the shape of my PlanetJune yarn planet logo. Before I went to the workshop, I thought I’d need lots of practice before I even attempted it, but I was so excited by the whole process that I couldn’t stop myself from getting started right away, on the same day…

As a novice with only a few hours’ carving experience, I knew I’d probably mess up the carving a few times and waste some lino, and I was prepared for that to happen. But I took it slowly and steadily and remembered Jesse’s advice, and, somehow, I didn’t make any critical errors – I even remembered to carve my block as a mirror image so the design will print the right way round!

And a couple of hours after starting, I’d gone from a square of blank lino and a piece of plain fabric to a PlanetJune yarn planet print…

I’m so excited by all this! It feels really special to have my own hand-carved block so I can print my own hand-designed logo.

What am I going to do with it? Well, I’m planning to sew up some project bags to store my crochet works-in-progress, and print my logo in one corner of each one. They’ll be PlanetJune projects in more ways than one – isn’t that just perfect?!

This is sweater #6 of my ‘learn to knit by making a dozen self-designed sweaters’ project. (Here are links to #1, #2, #3, #4 and #5, if you’d like to see my progress.)

I wanted to stretch myself – but not too much! – with this cardigan, so I decided to include a narrow lace panel up both arms and on either side of the button band on the front as a test to see how I’d like doing something that takes a bit of extra concentration. And look at the result!

It looks almost professional, doesn’t it? I picked a very simple stitch pattern that’s only 5 stitches wide, and only 1 in every 4 rows actually involves doing anything other than knits and purls, but it made a huge difference to the look of the cardigan.

This lovely lace panel runs all the way up each sleeve.

(And yes, I know the yarn colour looks completely different in these close-up pics, but purple is notoriously difficult to photograph, and the different lighting conditions inside and outside didn’t help with that! The true yarn colour is somewhere between the two – a very muted plum colour.)

The rest of the cardigan is just stockinette (with my usual waist shaping for fit) and the non-lace parts knitted up fairly quickly. I really liked the seed stitch button band from my previous cardigan, so I used the same band for this one, and also made matching seed stitch cuffs and bottom band, to tie it all together.

I wanted to make polymer clay buttons again, but I didn’t think I’d ever be able to match the purple of the yarn with my buttons so I decided that a neutral contrasting colour would be safest. In case you think everything goes right first time for me, I’ll have to show you my disastrous first attempt at making the buttons for this cardigan… but I’ll save that for another post! Luckily, things went much better second time around.

I used Sculpey Granitex which has a built-in stone effect, so I decided to keep it simple and just cut plain circular buttons with two holes – no further embellishment required.

I finished with the same details I’ve used in the past: sewing thread to match the yarn instead of the button, and hidden anchor buttons inside the button band to avoid putting too much stress on the yarn. Those little details always make me happy, even though I know nobody else will notice them, but it’s an added pleasure every time I put on something I’ve made and get to enjoy the little finishing touches.

This is the halfway point of my learn-to-knit project and I’m so pleased with how this cardigan turned out. Knowing how to make a sweater that fits me makes all the difference – this is a cardigan that can button all the way down without drowning me at the bust and waist or pulling at the hips. It’s revolutionary!

It’s really worth learning how to make clothes (whether you’re sewing, knitting or crocheting) that fit you properly and don’t make you feel that (for example) your hips must be the size of a house because you can never fasten the bottom button on any store-bought cardigan. My problem now is that I think I may have to learn to sew clothes too, because I’d really like all my clothes to fit properly after discovering how good that feels! Maybe that’ll be my next learn-to-craft project, once my dozen sweaters are finished…

After this success, I’ve been inspired to get a little more adventurous with the lace in my next cardigan – and you’ll see the results of that when I finish #7!

Last weekend, I took the opportunity to travel with Dave, as he had an astronomy conference in Durban, on the other side of the country. South Africa is so huge that it takes 2 hours to fly from coast to coast, from Cape Town to Durban. We stayed at Umhlanga Rocks, a resort village just north of the city of Durban.

Cape Town is on the cold Atlantic Ocean, and Durban is on the warm Indian Ocean, so the climate is quite different. We’re in the middle of winter at the moment, and it can get pretty cold in Cape Town, but this is Durban’s weather:

Not a horrible place to come for a winter weekend break! And waking up to this gorgeous sunrise over the ocean was quite nice too…

While Dave was working, I walked along the promenade by the beach and hunted for wildlife. It’s amazing what you can find, when you really look. What’s that on the roof of that hotel?

It’s a monkey!

Vervet monkeys are common in Durban. We saw some from the car as we were leaving the airport, but I couldn’t stop on the highway to take photos, so I was secretly hoping I’d be able to spot one when I had my camera ready. I got lucky with this thoughtful-looking windswept monkey – doesn’t his fur look soft?

I also spotted lots of birds that I recognised as being related to ones I know from Cape Town, but different regional varieties. I had to look them all up when I got home, like this stunning Spectacled Weaver:

And this happy little guy is an African Pied Wagtail:

A sunbathing skink:

A handsome Dark-Capped Bulbul (the Cape Bulbuls I see in my garden have white rings around their eyes):

And Common Mynas, which I didn’t expect to see in South Africa!

I was amazed to spot this wild bee hive half-hidden beneath the leaves of an aloe:

And very happy to see my first Speckled Mousebird (it’s hard to see in the photo, but its long tail feathers extend right down to the bottom left of the picture):

But possibly best of all was when I spotted a pod of dolphins, swimming together in the sea!

Although my photos don’t really capture the magic, it was just beautiful to watch as they came up to the surface and dipped under again as they swam…

It was a lovely, if very short, getaway. My knee held up to a lot of walking, and didn’t hurt at all provided I stayed on flat, paved surfaces. So I’m definitely not up to hiking just yet, but I think I’m ready to cautiously resume my quest for wildlife. 🙂

And I’m also consciously working to improve my wildlife photography skills – I don’t know if you can tell that from these photos, but I’m trying! I’ll only ever be an enthusiastic amateur in this area, and there’s a lot of luck involved in wildlife photography, but I’m happy that I managed to capture almost everything I saw last weekend in a fairly pleasing portrait. I think I’ll keep improving with more practice and trying to be more aware of lighting, surroundings, etc.

I hope you’ve enjoyed my little window into some of the wildlife on the east coast of South Africa!

We’re now 2 weeks into the Summer of Dinosaurs crochet-along, and the dinos are starting to overrun the PlanetJune Ravelry group, with 50 projects and 37 finished dinosaurs posted already!

With 5 more weeks to go, I thought now would be a good time to help out any of you who’ve been reluctant to join the CAL because you’re not familiar with Ravelry. Ravelry is a huge site that has a lot to offer, and that can be a bit intimidating when you first sign up and have so many options to click into. There’s definitely a bit of a learning curve to Ravelry, but the good news is that you only need to use a tiny fraction of the site to enter a PlanetJune CAL.

Don’t be scared! Just click through to my PlanetJune Crochet-Along FAQ, where I’ll show you, step-by-step, everything you need to know to add your CAL project to Ravelry and post it to the PlanetJune group.

The PlanetJune group on Ravelry, where you can find pattern support, chat about crochet (and more), make new friends, and share your love of PlanetJune patterns!

And, once you’re comfortable with the PlanetJune corner of Ravelry, I recommend you start to explore the whole site a bit further – it’s totally free to use, and it has a lot to offer anyone who crochets (and/or knits).

Ravelry includes a searchable database of pretty much every pattern and yarn in existence, so if you’re looking for something in particular it’s easy to find it. You can also see all the projects other people have made from the patterns or yarns (before you decide to buy them!) and their verdict on what they thought of it.

Don’t forget that with every Summer of Dinosaurs CAL entry, you’ll be entered to win some of the amazing prizes pictured below: your favourite colours of Lion Brand yarn, an amigurumi kit, PlanetJune patterns, and runner-up prizes for all entrants (see the main CAL post for full details of the prizes).

Ready to make some dinos? Join the crochet-along now!

We’re only 1 week into the Summer of Dinosaurs crochet-along, and the PlanetJune Ravelry group is already teeming with dinos. Just look…

Rawr!

It’s a thrill to see new unique colourful dinosaurs popping up every day, and to have lots of new participants joining our regular band of CALers! There are 6 more weeks to go, so that’s plenty of time for even a complete beginner to crochet a dinosaur to join our virtual herd…

If you’re tempted to join the CAL but you’re new to amigurumi, or haven’t made a PlanetJune pattern before, this is a great opportunity to have a go. Even if you’ve been crocheting for years, amigurumi (and my patterns in particular) use a specific set of techniques that you may not be familiar with.

For your first dinosaur (or even your first amigurumi!) I recommend you choose the Brachiosaurus (who’s also our CAL mascot, pictured above left), as it has simple shaping, only a few pieces to stitch together, and an undeniably cute result.

I have a comprehensive range of amigurumi tutorials at www.planetjune.com/help, but you’ll only need a few of them for this CAL. To set you on the track to success, let’s take a look at the tutorials for making the best-looking dinosaurs…

The Essential Tutorials

To make beautiful amigurumi with no lumps, bumps or holes, all you need are these 4 absolutely essential techniques:

Magic Ring for Crochet
Start crocheting in the round with no hole in the middle.

Invisible Decrease for Amigurumi
Decrease without leaving any bumps or gaps.

Ultimate Finish for Amigurumi
Close up the remaining hole neatly with a smooth, gap-free finish.

Amigurumi Seamless Join
Create a smooth, almost invisible join when you stitch an open-ended piece to a closed piece.

Bonus Tips for Dinosaurs

For those dinos with horns, spikes, plates, wings and flippers, these tutorials have you covered:

Flattened Pieces
What does it mean when a pattern says to flatten a piece of an amigurumi after crocheting?

Narrow Pointed Tubes for Amigurumi
My tips for making thin pointy bits on amigurumi, such as spikes, legs, horns and tails.

Basic Techniques and Troubleshooting

If you’re new to amigurumi-making or find your stitches don’t quite look right, try these tutorials (or see my Amigurumi Troubleshooter for further assistance):

Which is the ‘Right’ Side?
Which side of your work should face outwards? (And does it matter?)

Front, Back, Both Loops
Which loop(s) should you work into to make a crochet stitch?

Yarn Over
How exactly should you wrap the yarn over your hook for crochet?

And if you still have any questions, that’s what the PlanetJune community is here for: we have lots of friendly crocheters in the PlanetJune Ravelry group who understand exactly what you’re going through, and are waiting to offer any help and advice you need. 🙂

I hope this post has tempted you to join the dino fun this summer (and, don’t forget you may win a great prize too, thanks to our CAL sponsor, Lion Brand!)