Each month in 2023 I’m sharing a Temperature Snake CAL roundup with a collage of some of our snakes’ progress – even if you aren’t joining in, I think you’ll enjoy seeing all the snakes growing throughout the year!

At 5 months through the year, we’re almost halfway through our snakes now! Here’s the May collage from some of the latest photos that have been posted. These are taken from the CAL threads on Discord and Ravelry, plus some from people who’ve tagged me (@PlanetJune) on FB and IG or emailed to me:

Click to see the full-size collage

Good work, everyone! Can you spot your snake?

If you’re making a Temperature Snake too, please join us in the PlanetJune community groups, share your snake’s progress with us all, and get chatting with our friendly community!

And, if you’d like your snake to be included in the next monthly roundup, please post an up-to-date pic (or email it directly to me: june@planetjune.com) by 9am EST on July 3rd. Do remember to tag me (@planetjune) if you post on social, or I won’t see your pic.

Putting together these collages is a real challenge for me, like a strange jigsaw where I have to trim all the pieces to fit as I assemble it. But I think it’s worth it – it’s so cool to see the snakes growing with each month that passes. I try to include as many snakes as possible in each collage, so please do get your pic to me if you can – I love seeing how your snakes are progressing. 🙂

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!

If you’ve just found PlanetJune from the article about my Temperature Snake CAL in the latest issue of Simply Crochet magazine, I’m so glad you’re here! Please take a look around my site and let me know if you have any questions.

If you’d like to jump into the crochet-along with us, you can learn more about how it works and pick up the Temperature Snake pattern here, then start choosing your yarn colours!

If you’re new to amigurumi-style crochet, you can find crochet tutorials for all the techniques you’ll need (the magic ring and invisible decrease are the two absolute essentials) on my Crochet Tutorials page. And there are links in the pattern to more help and tutorials (like my Ultimate Stripes technique, which is optional, but I recommend it if you want to make the most perfect stripes for your snake).

You’ll find Temperature Snake CAL threads in both the PlanetJune community groups (on Ravelry and Discord – see details for how to join the PlanetJune community here) or, if you prefer to share on Facebook or Instagram, remember to tag me @PlanetJune whenever you post an update so I can see your progress!

This is a low-key, supportive CAL. Make progress on your snake whenever you have time, and we’ll cheer you along as you go! If you want to make a 2023 snake, the pattern includes a link to a website with historical temperatures, so you can get the data for the temperatures in your area back to the start of the year (or use any source you prefer – for example, I like to use my local weather TV channel’s website!)

There are two ways you can get your snake caught up:

• Once you get used to the pattern, you’ll be able to fly through a few weeks of stripes in a single session, so enjoy a couple of good catch-up sessions and you’ll be caught up in no time.
• Or, you can make two or three rounds per day instead of one for the rest of the year – you’ll be playing catch up for a while this way, but you’ll still be ready to finish your snake in December with the rest of us.

Take it at your own pace, and enjoy watching your snake’s colours change with the seasons as it grows throughout the year.

Welcome to PlanetJune, and welcome to the crochet-along!

Each month in 2023 I’m sharing a Temperature Snake CAL roundup with a collage of some of our snakes’ progress – even if you aren’t joining in, I think you’ll enjoy seeing all the snakes growing throughout the year!

It’s hard to believe we’re 1/3 through 2023 already, but temperature snakes don’t lie: we’ve completed four months (or 120 stripes!) now, and our snakes are starting to get more.. well… snakey in appearance!

Here’s the April collage from some of the latest photos that have been posted. These are taken from the CAL threads on Discord and Ravelry, plus some from people who’ve tagged me (@PlanetJune) on FB and IG or emailed to me:

Click to see the full-size collage

Looking good, everyone! Can you spot your snake?

I think we’ve all used a good variety of our colours by now – and I just love seeing all these different colour schemes start to become more obvious! You can also see that our snakes aren’t just stripey sticks any more: by this point, they’re starting to get fairly poseable. I expect we’ll see lots of variety in the monthly photos from now on, as we all bend and curve our snakes in different ways for the photos!

Now we’re a third of the way through the CAL, there are very few new signups, but I’m happy to report that we have over 750 worldwide participants! Isn’t that amazing?! I’m really looking forward to seeing the gallery of completed snakes next January – it’s going to be spectacular…

Are you making a Temperature Snake? Don’t forget to join us in the PlanetJune community groups, share your snake’s progress with us all, and get chatting with our friendly community!

Got behind on your snake? Don’t worry, it’s fine. There are many months left for you to catch up, but try putting on your favourite podcast, audiobook or TV show and get crocheting – you’ll find that it’s surprisingly fast to add a few weeks of stripes to your snake. (Aren’t you glad now that we aren’t making huge temperature blankets?!)

And, if you’d like your snake to be included in the next monthly roundup, please post an up-to-date pic (or email it directly to me: june@planetjune.com) by 9am EST on June 3rd. Do remember to tag me (@planetjune) if you post on social, or I won’t see your pic.

I’m trying to include as many snakes as possible in each collage, so please do get your pic to me if you can – I love seeing how your snakes are progressing. 🙂

Today’s PlanetJune Story comes from Hils Parker from Ickenham (in the London Borough of Hillingdon, UK), who made this amazing super-sized Discworld to top a post box earlier this year. Just look at this beauty!

I really enjoyed seeing Hils making this amazing project (which she shared in the PlanetJune Discord group), and asked her to share the whole story here with you.

Keep reading to the end to see the topper in place on the post box!

And now, over to Hils, to explain how this all came to be:

In recent years in the UK many groups have sprung up with a habit of yarnbombing their local postboxes. The British postbox is something of a unique design in the world of mailboxes, a very distinctive column shape typically painted red, with a rounded mushroom-like top that just lends itself to decoration! Officially the boxes belong to Royal Mail, but they don’t mind the public adorning them as long as access to the mail slot and door is kept clear of obstruction.

My own postbox topper group started in March 2021, in the midst of Lockdown 3. A desire to do something to bring a smile to the community led to the idea of decorating the 18 postboxes in our area. Fast forward two years, and our group has expanded and gained a multitude of crochet and knitting skills (as well as a little infamy!). We now have a planned timetable for when we’ll make toppers during the year and the themes we’ll follow. For spring 2023 our theme was World Book Day.

For me there could only be one choice – I had to pick Terry Pratchett’s Discworld. I’ve been a fan since being introduced to his books as a teenager, and for years the latest novel was an easy birthday or Christmas gift to give me. I’ve had encounters with Sir Terry on several occasions but sadly never had a chance to properly say hello in person.

I had come across June’s crocheted Discworld some time before, so I knew it would be the perfect place to start looking for inspiration and tips. After reading through her incredibly helpful notes, I unhesitatingly purchased her sea turtle and elephant patterns. But there was one big issue I needed to tackle – the scale. A British postbox is 22″ (56cm) across with a domed top. I needed to make my Discworld much bigger than the original patterns gave hook and yarn measurements for!

I decided to start with the four elephants, and then work out the relative scale of the turtle and disc from those. My first attempt with a 3.5mm hook and DK yarn proved too small. Doubling my yarn to using 2 strands of DK and switching up to a 5mm hook seemed more promising. But what of sizing up Great A’Tuin?

After joining the PlanetJune Discord server, I asked for help in my endeavour. Everyone is lovely and so forthcoming with tips and advice! It’s a fabulous little crochet community there, so I do recommend checking it out.

I can’t say my first shell attempt with an 8mm hook and chunky yarn [pictured above] was especially successful! But using two strands of chunky yarn, and adding an extra fourth round to the hexagons of the shell made it big enough to look substantial on the postbox and fit on the four elephants.

I found working with the chunky yarn and large hook quite tough; I was grateful to be able to give my fingers a rest after completing A’Tuin.

The Disc was a very different challenge to that of scaling up patterns. I decided I wanted to add the various Discworld continents as applique pieces on top of a plain blue crocheted circle ocean. As postboxes are quite tall, adding this relief would hopefully help to make them more visible. I measured how big I needed the disc to be (25cm) and made a brown and blue flat circle which would have plasticard sandwiched between them to provide some structure to the disc and help it survive the outdoor elements.

I scaled up an illustration of the Discworld map to match the size of the disc, printed off a copy and started creating the lands. As these involved quite a lot of small detailing, I switched to using a 3mm hook and a single strand of DK.

Making the continents was an exercise in freehand crochet and very much a case of making it up as I went along! l began at the centre with the hub of the Discworld, Cori Celesti, and radiated out the main landmass from there. I tried to follow the contours of the continent by eye and placed my crochet pieces frequently against the map to check how well they matched. The Unnamed Continent and Klatch were made as one single piece, then the Counterweight Continent and Fourecks as separate pieces, then more individual islands. The underside of the applique pieces became a mass of loose ends to tuck away and use as extra relief as I sewed them on top of the disc!

Postbox toppers require liberal amounts of wire, cocktail sticks and kebab skewers to help support the pieces and fix them to each other, and this one was no different. The final touch after sewing all the pieces together was to brush out an extra round of white yarn I’d crocheted around the edge of the disc to emulate the waterfalls tipping over the edge. I’d say I was perhaps only semi-successful at doing that, I managed to draw blood at one stage! An extra addition of light blue yarn sewn around the edge to secure places where I’d destroyed the stitches from the brushing added some subtle colour changes.

June: I love this brushed Rimfall effect! And here’s the finished project:

The World Book Day toppers were in position for 2-3 weeks around the village in early March, surviving wind, rain and even a sprinkle of snow!

(Back to me, June, again!)

Isn’t that fantastic? I love the special touches Hils added to her Discworld – the 3D effect on the landmasses and that Rimfall are wonderful! And did you notice the ‘starry sky’ background with that sparkly black yarn? Hils had some inspired ideas here – including the title for this story (I’m sure all fellow Pratchett fans will get it, right?)

Thank you so much, Hils, for sharing your story and your impressive project with us today – and well done 🙂
Please leave Hils a comment if you’ve enjoyed this post!

PS – Inspired to make a Discworld of your own? Read all about my original project – approved by Sir Terry Pratchett himself! – and get the sea turtle and elephant patterns on my amigurumi Discworld info page.

Do you have a PlanetJune Story you’d like to share? I’d love to hear it! Please email your story to june@planetjune.com, together with one or more high quality photos showing what you’ve made from PlanetJune patterns. If I choose your story to feature here on the blog, I’ll send you your choice of pattern from my shop to say thank you!

Dear Blog Subscribers,

I’m so sorry that you just received 50+ emails from me!

Last week, I decided to do a spring clean of my website and get rid of some of the older posts that didn’t have any ongoing value. And then today, I changed my mind and decided to reinstate them – they’re a log of the progress of my business over the years, and sometimes people like going back and seeing the evolution of PlanetJune.

What I didn’t realise was that, in reinstating them, WordPress would publish them as ‘new’ posts and send notification emails to all my subscribers – one for each post. And what’s even worse is that they are all the least-interesting posts I’ve ever written, dating from many years ago – if I was going to send you a bunch of blog posts, those wouldn’t be the ones I’d choose!

So, please delete all the emails from PlanetJune by June Gilbank: Blog <donotreply@wordpress.com> that you received today, and please don’t unsubscribe – I promise this won’t happen again!

What a disaster – I’m incredibly sorry.

Please forgive me…

Each month in 2023 I’m sharing a Temperature Snake CAL roundup with a collage of some of our snakes’ progress – even if you aren’t joining in, I think you’ll enjoy seeing all the snakes growing throughout the year!

Now we’re three months into the CAL, the season is changing, and we’re all starting to see new colours popping up on our snakes. (The colour transition should be even more obvious by next month’s roundup!)

Here’s the March collage from some of the latest photos that have been posted. These are taken from the CAL threads on Discord and Ravelry, plus some from people who’ve tagged me (@PlanetJune) on FB and IG or emailed to me:

Click to see the full-size collage

Well done, everyone! Can you spot your snake?

Now we’re a quarter of the way through the year, our snakes are starting to get too long to straighten out for these photos! This is a good thing – although it makes it more difficult for me to put the monthly collage together when the photos are all different shapes, we can start bending and posing our SIPs (snakes-in-progress) from now on, so they’ll look more fun.

With more people still joining every week, these photos represent just a tiny fraction of all the temperature snakes being made all over the world. I’m so thrilled with how well this is going – just look at all these colourful noodles.😊

If you haven’t joined in with the community groups yet, please do come over, share your progress with us all, and join in the conversations!

And, if you’d like your snake to be included in the next monthly roundup, please post an up-to-date pic (or email it directly to me: june@planetjune.com) in the last couple of days of April, or by 9am EST on May 2nd May 3rd. I’ll try to include as many as possible in each collage.

Feeling like you’re missing out on the fun? Don’t worry: you can still join us for this CAL! Grab the pattern and get caught up – we’d love for you to join us for the rest of 2023 🙂

And now, onto the second quarter!

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

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

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

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

The Problem

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

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

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

Method

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

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

Here’s the first under-stuffed area:

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

Pinch-and-Push Instructions:

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

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

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

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

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

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

Confused?

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

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

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

Finishing Touches

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

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

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

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