I’ve renamed my nature photoblog series from ‘Cape Town wildlife’ to ‘South Africa wildlife’, to distinguish these new occasional posts from my previous month-by-month year of wildlife posts. It’s been a long time since I last posted nature photos (9 months!), so I have a lot of special things saved up to show you, when I have time to organise and edit my thousands of photos! I’ll ease back into the wildlife blogging with a study of one of my favourite local animals…

I like to play ‘spot the chameleon’ in my garden. It’s like a real-life version of Where’s Wally/Waldo, only with a much better reward: you get to watch the tiny adorably grumpy-faced lizard after you spot him, and, because chameleons don’t dart off in a split second like geckos do, it’s much easier to take good photos.

I have no idea how many Cape Dwarf Chameleons live in, or visit, our garden. My best guess is ‘several’, and I choose to believe that they are all babies of Kermy, the chameleon I used to watch every day last year (and even fed a grasshopper to, on one magical occasion). Look how difficult it is to spot the (full-sized) Kermy:

There he is! In dark colour mode:

And in bright colour mode, with my hand for scale:

Now imagine how much more difficult the chameleon-spotting game is when they are teeny-tiny babies like this:

Awww! And it’s not just the size that makes it tricky; they change colour like crazy! Here’s another baby (these are all the same species btw, Cape Dwarf Chameleons):

Look at the amazing colours!

I was even more excited though, when I saw this completely different type of baby chameleon…

(who, incidentally, has a pretty neat way of hiding when he sees you coming…)

Where did he go?!

…only to discover the next day that his grey colouring was just skin getting ready to shed and he was a regular green chameleon all along! I could hardly believe it, but I have proof: here he is with just the nose skin left:

And then I spotted this very skinny orange baby on the same bush, so I know for sure that there are at least 2 of them:

The next day, I managed to catch one of them napping! Awwww….

Then I didn’t spot any for a couple of weeks until yesterday, when I found this one – he’s much bigger now, and starting to look more like his daddy, my old friend Kermy 🙂

You can probably tell that I’m pretty smitten with these little guys…

I almost wish I hadn’t already designed my chameleon crochet pattern last year, because I’m just not getting over this fascination, so I settled on the next best thing: I’ve designed a different lizard pattern to indulge in my newfound appreciation for reptiles. (It’s a cute one, and I’ll be revealing it very soon…)

I really hope you’ve enjoyed my chameleon photos – please leave me a comment if so. I promise I’ll try not to leave such a long gap until my next wildlife report 🙂

Happy Valentine’s Day! Whether or not you’re celebrating today, here are some pretty crocheted hearts to brighten your day from our Valentine’s mini-CAL. (Don’t forget to keep reading to the end – we have a new prize CAL starting tomorrow!)

I actually wrote this post long before Christmas, but it’s been too hot to even consider modelling a warm hat until now, so let’s pretend I just finished it – I want to tell you the lemons-into-lemonade story of how I ended up with this lacy knitted hat instead of the cardigan or sweater I’d intended to make…

After the success of my first knitted cardigan, I needed to get another project started asap so I didn’t revert back to my exhausting pattern of working (crochet designing) while watching TV in the evenings.

I looked through my stash and found this interesting yarn – it looks like mohair but it’s actually an acrylic/nylon blend… No, it’s not the loveliest yarn ever, but my Mum found it in a charity shop for next to nothing, and I thought I could use it up on some knitting practice before committing to the expense of buying yarn for a sweater. (As there are no big box craft stores here, no weekly sales, no 40% off coupons, I can’t get any bargain yarn any more, so working through my stash is suddenly more appealing to me!)

I wanted to try a built-in edge to prevent the stockinette curling this time, so I learnt how to start with a built-in facing and cast-on for the back of my unplanned sweater/cardigan:

Built-in facing (look how neat it makes the bottom edge look)

Feeling ambitious, I thought I’d find out how to make knitted lace (i.e. strategically placed holes), and invented a basic pattern to work with:

My very basic lace pattern

Disaster 1: After working through my 12-row lace pattern repeat three times (while watching TV and paying very little attention to what I was doing) I held my knitting up and noticed a couple of big mistakes in the position of my lace holes – one in the wrong place and one extra hole that shouldn’t have been there.

Solution 1: Here’s a big advantage of knitting over crochet: if you made a mistake, even many rows back, you can unravel that column of stitches down to the mistake like a ladder in a stocking, fix the mistake, and then zip all the stitches back up again with a crochet hook by hooking each through the last. Mine was a little trickier than fixing a mistake in stockinette, as I had to unravel some lace pattern stitches – decreases and yarn overs – but it worked! Which means that now I can confidently knit without paying much attention to it, knowing that I can fix a mistake later.

Disaster 2: I realised that a) I really don’t love this yarn enough to wear a sweater made from it, and b) knitting lace without making mistakes would take more concentration than I can afford to spend – the whole joy of my knitting is that I can do it mindlessly to stop myself from working on crochet designs out-of-hours, and that doesn’t really apply when getting into more complex stitches and patterns. What’s the point in completing an un-relaxing project to make an un-wearable sweater?

Solution 2: By luck, the bottom hem of my ‘sweater back’ was just the right length to be a hat band. (That’s only because my gauge was a bit off to begin with, and my planned 18″ back was actually 20″ wide – another reason not to continue with this project as a sweater.) So I stopped working my lace pattern and figured out a decrease pattern to make the top of a hat shape instead. I found out that I can extrapolate my crochet shaping knowledge to make knitted shaping pretty easily.

Decreases create the top of the hat

I seamed the two side edges together, and, voilà, a hat is born:

I knitted a hat – by accident!

And the bonus surprise from all this: I actually like the hat! I think I could get away with a small accessory in this yarn and colourway, whereas I know for a fact I would never have worn it as a sweater. I’ve never designed a hat before as I’m not really a hat person, but this has actually made me consider designing a crochet hat pattern at some point…

I’m avoiding getting fancy with my next knitting project (a sweater). I really like the look of stockinette, and the miles of pulling one loop through another to form a neat even fabric is very soothing to me. Yes, this fabric could be made in minutes on a knitting machine, but there’s still an advantage in making over buying: I can tailor my garments to fit me instead of having to settle for leaving the bottom of every cardigan unbuttoned to accommodate my hips.

Plus, it’s just relaxing to design things without writing anything down or worrying about how it’ll translate into a pattern. Yay for non-work crafting!

February CALs

The Baby Cephalopods and other AquaAmi are already starting to multiply in the Ceph-Along (& friends) CAL thread on ravelry. There’s still plenty of time to join in – the CAL runs all month and you can make a cephalopod in an hour or so! One thing I love about these patterns is how few pieces they have; there’s almost no sewing to do (bliss when you’re used to having to stitch head, muzzle, body, 2 ears, 4 legs, and a tail for one animal…)

It’s rare that I’m still excited enough about a new pattern to want to make more immediately, but I really can’t resist the cephalopods – they’re just so quick and fun to make. I’ve just bought this insanely-coloured yarn that I think will make wonderful colour-changing cephalopods (I can’t imagine any other uses for it – no wonder the shop had only this colourway left):

I’ll be joining in the CAL myself, to see if my gut feeling is correct and I can turn this exuberance of colour into a set of amazing cephalopods….

And if you’re making hearts and roses from my free patterns, don’t forget to share them in the Valentine’s CAL thread before the 14th and I’ll include your photos in the roundup here!

Review and Win contest

January’s ‘Review and Win’ winner is Emily W, with her review of my ever-popular Baby Bunnies:

I ABSOLUTELY ADORE THIS PATTERN!!! As soon as I saw the bunny pictures on June’s blog, I was absolutely ecstatic!!! I had previously looked everywhere for a realistic bunny pattern, but hadn’t found anything that looked promising.

As soon as I bought the pattern, I was immediately swept up in a colony of bunnies – I just couldn’t stop making them! The pattern is SUPER easy, even with the odd increases and decreases needed for the shaping. June explains the concepts needed so well, such as the entire page devoted to explaining angora bunny-brushing techniques! I’m also really glad that, unlike some other designers, June always pays great attention to important details, such as: where to put the eyes and ears, and where to put the feet so the bunny doesn’t flop forward or look like it’s pregnant (I speak from experience from my own attempts at designing a bunny pattern… did NOT turn out well 😛 ) Most of all, I love the fact that the bunny pattern is so easy to customize to look like your own bunny.

Everyone I make bunnies from this pattern for loves the results. This pattern will DEFINITELY become my last-minute birthday present pattern! Thank you SO MUCH for yet another wonderful pattern, June!!!!

You’re welcome, Emily, and thanks for the lovely review – I’ll email you to find out which pattern you’d like as your prize 🙂

And for everyone else, Baby Bunnies will be part of the next PlanetJune CAL (Spring/Easter theme), starting Feb 15th, so get ready for BunnyFest 2013, coming soon to a ravelry group near you…

My sweet Maui just celebrated his 9th birthday, so it was time for me to make a new cat toy. Here’s the handsome birthday boy:

We adopted Maui from a shelter when he was a year old. He’s been our constant companion through 3 house moves and a move halfway around the world, and he’s adapted quickly to every change – if we’re with him, he’s happy (and vice versa).

Maui likes to ‘supervise’ my work by curling up next to me when I’m sitting crocheting on the sofa, and he never, ever steals my yarn – he somehow knows the difference between the crocheted balls that I make for him to maul and the ones that are going to be parts of my amigurumi designs and are not to be touched!

As he’s such a special cat, I wanted to make Maui a special toy for his birthday. The problem is that I’ve made him lots of toys before, and as he still loves the old ones, it’s getting harder to come up with different ideas. So I mixed and matched ideas from some of his other favourite toys, and enlisted my husband’s help for a quick bit of woodwork as the finishing touch.

I started with a crocheted fuzzy ball (based on my Fuzzballs pattern and a good way to use up some eyelash yarn).

I reused the same ‘interesting’ shade of yarn as that Fuzzball in the top right corner, which, despite losing its eyes and mouth many years ago, is still one of Maui’s favourite toys.

Then I added some metallized plastic chocolate wrappers for that irresistible crinkly noise (idea borrowed from last year’s Crinkle Ball Cat Toy tutorial).

These were firm favourites for months but look a bit bedraggled now. I think it may be time to make some replacements – luckily I have a tutorial to remind me of the method 🙂

I scrunched up the chocolate wrappers to stuff inside the ball, and also added a little pouch of catnip. I tied the ball to a long string, and left some dangling lengths of eyelash yarn on the other end of the ball for extra interest. Dave cut down a length of dowel and drilled a hole in one end so I could tie the string to the pole securely. And here’s the result:

It’s a very interactive cat toy: it appeals to sight (dangling yarn tails), sound (crinkly stuffing) and smell (catnip) and brings out Maui’s hunting skills as he runs and jumps after the moving toy. Here’s proof:

You know it’s a good cat toy when the only photos you can take are full of motion blur…

For an older or less active cat, toys on strings are really good for keeping kitty’s interest and enticing him to move, jump, and pounce. A plain ball or mouse gets boring, as it doesn’t move unless kitty moves it or you throw it for him; a ‘fishing line’ toy like this, with a string and a long handle, lets you keep the toy in motion, and your cat interested, without too much effort on your part. I’ve tied strings to toys before, but the pole makes it much easier to jerk the toy about enticingly…

Maui definitely likes his birthday present – I’ll call that mission accomplished!

It’s been a fun month of making and sharing crocheted pet animals in the Ravelry group, using all my pet patterns:

And now it’s roundup time! (Don’t forget to keep reading to the end to see what CAL themes we have in store for February.)

The invisible decrease (invdec) is one of the two absolutely essential techniques for making beautifully neat amigurumi (the other being, of course, the magic ring). But invdec is a little tricky to get the hang of, and there are 2 points during the decrease where you can accidentally lengthen your stitch so it isn’t neat and tight, and the resulting decrease will be far more obvious.

Today I’d like to demonstrate these invdec problem points, so you know where the pitfalls are, and how to avoid them. You’ll find this tutorial useful if:

• You’re new to the invisible decrease technique (watch my video tutorial before you continue reading this!)
• You’ve tried invdec but been disappointed by your results
• Your invdecs look inconsistent, gappy, or too prominent
• You want your amigurumi to look as good as possible!

A Note about Tension

Although maintaining consistent tension on your yarn is a skill you need to master in order to crochet anything beautifully, it’s vitally important for amigurumi, as you need your stitches to be tight and even to produce the regular, firm amigurumi fabric that allows us to create complex ami shaping, and hides your stuffing. I’ve seen some people recommend that you tug on your yarn after every stitch to tighten it up, but that isn’t necessary if you maintain consistent tension.

Tensioning your yarn is a balance between the hook pulling forward and your other hand pulling backward.

How do you do that? Well, while your hook is pulling the yarn forward, your non-hook hand is simultaneously pulling back on the yarn, so you use a controlled amount of yarn to form each stitch. (You probably do this without even realising you’re doing it; if the yarn could just slide freely through your fingers with no tension, your hook would pull up large, inconsistent loops, and your crochet would look sloppy.)

When I talk below about pulling back on the yarn so the working loop is tight around your hook, the goal is to bring the tension back to your standard level, so the working loop should be the same size and tightness as it is for all your other stitches. If you go too far and pull it extra-tight, you’ll just make it more difficult to work back into that stitch in the following round.

Perfecting the invdec

If you look at the top of an invdec stitch, you’ll see there’s a ‘V’ at either side of the decrease. (As invisible decreases are practically indistinguishable from the surrounding stitches, I’ve crocheted my samples with the invdecs and the surrounding top loops in a different colour, so you can see what I’m talking about!)

Left: The source of the problems is these extra-long Vs at the top of the stitches surrounding the invdec.
Right: Invdec done right, with the Vs the same length as in the surrounding stitches.

These two Vs (A and B) are the culprits – if either or both of these is lengthened, there’ll be extra space around the invdec and it can look gappy or sloppy.

Left: The lengthened Vs have left a larger gap at either side of the invdec.
Right: Invdec is indistinguishable from the surrounding stitches (except for my helpful colour change!)

Loop A

Checkpoint: When you begin an invdec stitch, as you’re swinging the hook around to get the tip through both front loops, the working loop (the one that was already on your hook before you started the stitch) tends to loosen up.

Fix this: Once you’ve inserted your hook under the 2 front loops, and before you yarn over, tug the yarn to make sure the working loop is still tight on your hook and hasn’t lengthened.

Left: Lengthened working loop on hook will cause a loose stitch.
Right: Tightened loop – perfect!

Loop B

Checkpoint: After you complete the invdec, you’ve just turned 2 stitches into 1 stitch, and your hook is now further back than it usually would be for starting a new stitch. So this is another point where your yarn can make an extra-long loop, as you bring your hook forward over that extra distance to begin the next stitch.

Left: The position of the hook after a sc stitch.
Right: After an invdec, the hook is further back (dotted line marks the usual position), so there’s a greater distance to reach the next stitch.

Fix this: Make sure you keep tension on your yarn, so the loop on your hook doesn’t stretch out as you insert your hook into the stitch after the invdec. (If, after inserting your hook to begin the next stitch, you see the working loop has lengthened, just pull the yarn so the working loop is tight around your hook again, before you yarn over and continue with the stitch.)

Left: Lengthened working loop after inserting hook into next stitch.
Right: Tightened loop – perfect!

Multiple Decreases

The potential problem is doubled when you’re working 2 invdecs in a row, as you have the ‘too far back’ effect (Checkpoint B) and the ‘swinging the hook’ effect (Checkpoint A) both acting on the same loop, so you should make a little extra effort to be conscious of the size of the loop on your hook, and make sure it stays tight and doesn’t lengthen.

* * *

With a little extra effort to make sure you’re maintaining consistent tension, even while you decrease, your stitches will all stay the same size, and your invdecs will be as invisible as advertised!

Loved this tutorial? I have so many more amigurumi tips and tricks to share with you!

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Make your own aquatic nursery with my new Baby Cephalopod collections: Octopus & Squid, and Cuttlefish & Nautilus. A perfect use for yarn scraps, these mini amigurumi take only 25-30m of yarn apiece, and work perfectly in any colour.

Cephalopod Fun Facts:

• Cephalopods are a type of mollusc, which means they have no skeleton and are related to snails.
• Cephalopod means ‘head-foot’, referring to the fact that their arms and tentacles are attached to their heads, not their bodies.
• There are only 4 types of cephalopod, so you can crochet a complete collection if you buy my patterns!
• Only the nautilus has a visible shell; squids and cuttlefish have an internal shell, and octopuses have no shell at all.
• In real life, each cephalopod has a different pupil shape: Nautilus (tiny pinhole), Squid (large and round), Cuttlefish (‘W’ shape), Octopus (horizontal slit). In amigurumi world, big black eyes are just fine though 😉

Meet the Cephalopods:

Baby Octopus has long curling arms and a realistic body shape:

Fun Fact: Octopuses are completely soft, with no bones or shell, so they can squeeze themselves through tiny gaps barely larger than their eye!

Baby Squid has two long tentacles and swimming fins at the back:

Fun Fact: There are about 300 species of squid, ranging in size from a only few centimetres to over 10m long!

Baby Cuttlefish has an undulating fin all the way around its body.

Fun Fact: Cuttlefish squirt a brown ink called sepia – this is the source of the name of the colour sepia!

Baby Nautilus has a mass of tentacles and a shell with a hood.

Fun Fact: Nautiluses are ancient cephalopods known as ‘living fossils’ because they’ve remained virtually unchanged for 500 million years!

About the Patterns:

Baby Cephalopods are between 5 and 6.5″ long, including tentacles. Each design is crocheted in only 2 or 3 pieces, so there’s minimal finishing to do when you’ve finished crocheting. And, although each has different arms/tentacles, they all use the same basic method, so, once you’ve made your first cephalopod, you’ll be able to fly through crocheting the tentacles for the others.

I think the few pieces and fast assembly would make these designs perfect candidates for those of you who enjoy selling your crocheted items…

All the designs are very simple to crochet, except the Nautilus, which is slightly more advanced as the body and shell look like two separate pieces, but they are actually one piece – the hood is the only separate part. (I think you’ll enjoy my special technique though – it’s very clever! I’ve included lots of extra photos with it to make sure everyone will able to create the clever two-piece shell/body effect.)

As well as my usual step-by-step photos, any pieces that are crocheted in non-amigurumi style include crochet stitch diagrams in addition to full written instructions, so you can follow whichever method you prefer. (I’m hoping you’ll find the stitch diagrams to be a useful addition to my patterns; one diagram is clearer than a whole series of round-by-round photos.)

These designs are available as two sets of 2 patterns:

Left: Baby Cephalopods 1: Octopus & Squid
Right: Baby Cephalopods 2: Cuttlefish & Nautilus

But, because these baby best friends can’t bear to be apart, I’ve put together a multipack deal for you when you buy both sets: Baby Cephalopods 1 & 2 includes all four patterns for a bargain price.

Not ready to buy yet? Queue/heart them on Ravelry!
Set 1: Set 2:

I first sketched out these designs and picked out the yarn colours two years ago, before I left Canada. It’s taken all this time to simplify and perfect them. I think I’ll make a second set in more realistic colours, because, now I’ve finally finished the patterns, they’re irresistibly quick and fun to crochet! I hope you’ll enjoy making them as much as I do…