PlanetJune Blog: Latest News, Patterns and Tutorials

Dear Readers, this is my Christmas present to you: a super-fast free crochet pattern that might just be the solution to all the last-minute gifts still remaining on your list! Just look at all the variety you can create using this one simple pattern:

Based on a Möbius strip, the Chunky Moebius Cowl is worked in one continuous spiral from the centre outwards – an ingenious construction that makes it very fast and simple to crochet once you’ve made and joined the foundation row.

Although I didn’t have anyone else available to model for my photos, this pattern is most definitely suitable for men too (in a suitably non-fluffy yarn; see the green version below for an example) – the stitch pattern has a simple but bold texture and the cowl is easily customized to fit any size – men, women, or children.

My top 3 reasons to love this unisex pattern:

1. Quick and easy: With simple stitches and no turning or seaming, this pattern is amazingly fast to work up using a large crochet hook and bulky yarn. I can make one in under half an hour, so I’m pretty sure even the slowest crocheter can whip one up in couple of hours or less!
2. Infinitely versatile: I’m calling this pattern a cowl, but I could just as easily have called it a neckwarmer, infinity scarf, headband, earwarmer… The pattern is easy to customize to any length and width.
3. Stashbusting: One cowl only takes one skein of yarn or less, so it’s a perfect way to use a single skein of bulky yarn or to use up some of that novelty or textured yarn you have lurking about! Or, hold 2 strands of a finer yarn together to make your own custom colour-blend (as I did in my red/purple version below).

Looks good in any yarn! L-R: fluffy #6 super-bulky yarn; normal plied #5 bulky yarn; 2 strands of #3 light (DK) yarn held together; soft textured #5 bulky yarn.

I hope you’ll enjoy this pattern!

Go to Chunky Moebius Cowl pattern >>

Crochet-Along with us…

If you’d like to make one (or more – it’s pretty addictive once you’ve made one and seen how easily it comes together!) please join the PlanetJune Accessories Crochet-Along and show us what you make, by posting to the Accessory-Along CAL thread in the PlanetJune Ravelry group.

The CAL runs until the end of the month, so perfect timing for those mad-dash-to-the-finish gifts you may or may not need to make – and if, for some reason, this cowl doesn’t grab you, you might like one of my other donationware scarf patterns that are also pretty fast to work up (although nothing beats this cowl for speed!):

Frosty Windows Scarf and Scalloped Scarf

Christmas CAL and Contest

I can’t believe it’s that time again already! I hope you’ll take part in this year’s PlanetJune Christmas CAL; it’s turned into an annual tradition. I now have 9 seasonal patterns to choose from (several of which are free/donationware), there’ll be prizes for all participants, and you can browse through the lovely roundup post on Christmas Day when you’re stuffed full of food and feeling too lazy to do anything else!

You’ll find all these patterns in the Holiday & Seasonal category in my shop.

• First prize: a $10 gift certificate to spend on anything in the PlanetJune store.
• Second prize: a free pattern of your choice from the PlanetJune store.
• Runner-up prizes: I’ll send a discount code to all participants, to use against their next order from the PlanetJune store.

Whip up some of the popular new pine cones – or any other of my seasonal designs – snap a quick photo, and join in by posting it to the Christmas CAL 2012 thread in my Ravelry group – I hope we’ll see you there!

Review and Win contest

November’s ‘Review and Win’ winner is Diane G, with her review of my Farmyard Pigs:

If you are wondering if you’ll be able to do this, you can. I’ve been crocheting for less than a week, and he turned out amazing.
The directions are simple, straight forward, and for someone very new to crocheting, I had no questions at all.

What I really like about him is how closely he resembles an actual farm pig. Most of the crochet patterns you find are for a more cartoon-y look. Personally, I prefer realistic.

The price is great and I’m looking forward to trying alternate colors on him next. I think he’d make a great gift for any pig lover!

Congrats Diane – I’ll email you to find out which pattern you’d like as your prize 🙂

Other News

My crochet video tutorials are on hold until next year, as my hands are currently in no state to be filmed in HD (or at all) after my recent eczema fiacso. I was also hoping to take most of December off, as I did last year (to rest and rejuvenate, and plan for the coming year), but I lost a lot of November to illness so I need to keep going just a little bit longer so I can get one last quick-to-crochet pattern to you in time for your last-minute Christmas gift-making. I can feel myself slowing down though – my batteries are going to need some serious recharging after this last push!

It’s time to present another commissioned design: Giant Panda!

This pattern is a little later than scheduled, both because I’ve been sick and because I wanted to take some extra time to really perfect this design. Some designs come easily, and some take extra time and care to get just right. With an animal as iconic and well-known as the Giant Panda, there were a few criteria I knew I had to include in my design; every crocheted panda I’ve ever seen is just a basic toy bear shape with black circular patches added around the eyes, and that’s not the way I wanted to go.

My panda needed realistic shaping – the sloped back of head and neck, the iconic comfy seated pose – as well as some clever colourwork to give the shaped markings around the shoulders and realistic, symmetrical eye patches. I also had to strike the right balance between including all the features I wanted and making a pattern that isn’t ridiculously complicated to follow. With all those factors to juggle, I ended up making three complete pandas before everything came together perfectly!

In the final design, there are only 8 rounds of follow-carefully colour changes, and the pattern includes lots of tips – specific to this pattern – to make the colour changing easier and ensure you’ll get a beautifully tidy result. I’ve introduced a few new simple but effective shaping techniques too that are built right into the crocheting – I think you’ll enjoy how easily they come together when you make your own panda…

I should mention that the bamboo my panda is holding is not included in the Giant Panda pattern – it’s taken from my Lucky Bamboo pattern, which you can buy separately. However, the Giant Panda pattern does include the modifications for turning the standard Lucky Bamboo pattern into the freestanding panda-sized bamboo stalk you see pictured above with my panda. 🙂

(Btw, my newsletter is going out later today with an exclusive discount coupon for the Lucky Bamboo pattern. I’ll be re-sending that update to new subscribers on Monday, so sign up this weekend and you won’t miss out!)

If you pledged towards the Giant Panda commission, you should have already received your copy of the pattern, and the panda’s bamboo as a special commissioning bonus. Otherwise, if you’d like to make a panda of your own, you can now pick up the Giant Panda crochet pattern from the PlanetJune shop!

If you’re not quite ready to buy though, how about queuing Giant Panda on ravelry so you don’t forget about it?

Wet blocking is a process used to finish articles made from yarn. It basically involves soaking your finished piece of knitting or crochet to wet it thoroughly then shaping it to the final dimensions, pinning it into place, and leaving it to dry. When dry, the piece will hold its new dimensions (until you wash it, in which case it’ll need to be blocked again while it dries).

Why Wet Block?

Pretty much everything can benefit from blocking, to even up your stitches and square up the edges. But, for lacy projects, blocking is essential for opening up the stitches and showing off the stitch pattern.

My Rippled Lace Rectangular Shawl before and after blocking – there’s no comparison!

You’ll find wet blocking instructions in all my crocheted lace PlanetJune Accessories patterns, but I thought it might be helpful to go into a bit more detail here – I’ll explain how to wet block, the best tools for blocking, and some clever money-saving substitutions (also useful if you don’t have a local shop that sells the specialised blocking tools).

Basic Wet Blocking Instructions

1. Soak your piece in lukewarm water until thoroughly saturated.
2. Gently squeeze without wringing, to remove most of the water.
3. Lay out on a clean towel and roll the towel up to remove excess moisture.
4. Lay out onto your blocking surface (foam floor tiles, or a large dry towel on a flat surface).
5. Gently ease into shape, using a tape measure to make sure the piece is shaped symmetrically or achieves the required dimensions.
6. Use blocking wires and/or pins to keep in position while it dries.
7. When completely dry (typically about 24 hours), remove the pins and/or wires.

Wet Blocking Tools

The minimum requirements for blocking are:

• A towel to remove excess moisture
• Towel(s) large enough to lay out your project onto
• A surface you can pin into (a bed, carpet)
• Rustproof pins

But, with a couple more purchases, your blocking will be much easier and more successful. The magic tools are:

• Blocking wires
• Foam floor tiles

Blocking wires are a revelation! Any time you need to wet block a crocheted (or knit) piece with straight edges, they save so much time and make a straight edge much easier to achieve. When you stretch a wet piece to block it and pin it into shape while it dries, the fabric between each pin tends to be stretched less, and you end up with a slightly scalloped edge, where each pinned point is stretched out more than the area between pins. You can minimise this by increasing the number of pins you use, but that takes a lot of pins, and a lot of time. If you weave a blocking wire along an entire straight edge of a piece, you need only a few pins to keep the wire in position, and the final edge will be perfectly straight. This is especially crucial for lace projects.

The blocking wire keeps the entire edge perfectly straight with very few pins

Foam floor tiles are waterproof and make a perfect surface for pinning into – especially if you don’t have a spare bed or carpeted floor to leave your work pinned to for 24-48 hours! The interlocking edges allow you to create a surface as large as you like, anywhere you have room for them.

Foam floor tiles are the perfect waterproof surface to pin into

Money-saving Tips

You can buy all these from yarn shops, for example KnitPicks sell reasonably-priced foam Blocking Mats ($25), Lace Blocking Wires ($20), and T Pins ($3). But you can save even more money by looking for the same products in everyday shops (this is also helpful if you don’t have access to a yarn store that sells dedicated blocking supplies). Here are my top tips:

Blocking wires (welding wires) and T pins

Stainless steel welding wires are identical to blocking wires, and you get over twice as many for about the same cost – so split a pack with a friend! Look in a hardware store for 4ft welding wires, and make sure they are marked as stainless steel so they won’t rust.

T pins. Okay, you can’t beat the KnitPicks price on these, but, for those outside their shipping range, you can also find T pins with dressmaking supplies in sewing shops. Just make sure you get rustproof pins – they’ll be touching your wet yarn and you don’t want to leave rust-coloured stains on your beautiful handiwork!

Foam floor mats (play mats)

Foam floor tiles or play mats for kids are identical to blocking mats. You can buy 2ft or 1ft square tiles in bright colours or serious grey, but I prefer the set of 12″ letter mats pictured above: with 26 interlocking mats I can arrange them into the shape of any crocheted piece I’m ever likely to make. Wait for a sale and you can pick up a set for under $10 – they may look a bit unprofessional, but you get far more blocking area than in an ‘official’ set of blocking mats, for far less money.
UPDATED 22 Mar 2013: Please read my warning about colour transfer if you use these mats!

Blocking is Key

Next time you’re crocheting lace, don’t worry if it looks less than encouraging while you’re crocheting – that is just part of the magic of lace! You can stretch it out between your hands to give you a temporary idea of how the finished stitch pattern will look after blocking. It’s always worth blocking your finished work to make it look its best, even if you use an acrylic yarn:

My Climbing Eyelets Triangular Shawl is 100% acrylic fingering weight, and, although the effect isn’t as dramatic as with the laceweight alpaca, blocking it still made a big difference. And, a year and a lot of use later, my shawl still looks just as good as the ‘after’ photo.

After all the effort you’ve put into crocheting a beautiful lacy piece, don’t skimp on that one last day waiting for your blocked piece to dry – it’s well worth it to turn your work from okay-looking to spectacular!

Ready to try making and blocking some crocheted lace? How about joining the PlanetJune Accessories Crochet-Along (on Ravelry)? The CAL runs until the end of the year, so you still have plenty of time 🙂

Crochet Tutorials

In case you haven’t seen it yet, I’ve revamped my crochet tutorials pages and collected them all together into one convenient master list. Now you can easily find instructions for whatever you’re looking for! Just remember www.planetjune.com/help 🙂

Technical Difficulties

Heavy server loads caused some intermittent problems at PlanetJune last week. My site was migrated to a new server at the weekend, which improved matters somewhat, but I’ve just bitten the bullet and paid for a massive upgrade – business continues to grow and my server has to grow along with it! (You shouldn’t see any difference in speed at normal load, but hopefully in future there won’t be any slowdowns or error messages when things get too busy.)

Bonus Discounts: In case the downtime stopped you from taking advantage of last week’s special offers, I’ve extended both the Dinosaur Expansion Pack Sets launch sale and the Pine Cone Collection discount code until this coming Sunday. The dinosaur sets are already discounted in the shop, and you’ll find the pine cones code in my last newsletter!

I’ve also just discontinued my Affiliate Program – the code developed a glitch a week or so ago, and, as the program isn’t aligned with my primary PlanetJune goals (to design amazing new crochet patterns, to make clear and helpful tutorials, and to provide stellar customer service) it didn’t seem worth the time to fix it. The idea of paying people to recommend me seems a bit icky, anyway, now I think about it – I want people to say nice things about me because they want to, not because they’re being paid, so maybe this is all for the best…

Review and Win contest

October’s ‘Review and Win’ winner is Jamie S, with her review of my Climbing Eyelets Triangular Shawl:

This is the loveliest item I’ve ever made! What makes this pattern wonderful is, first, it’s an incredibly fast stitch pattern, once you get the initial set-up rows stitched. A large shawl in less than 3 days! Second, after a few rows into the pattern, I no longer had to look at the instructions. In my opinion, it becomes so easy to remember as a result of its intuitive construction. Third, because it’s very open, it mitigates the inherent characteristics of crochet (heavy, thick), producing a light fabric that I can easily see myself wearing on cooler evenings/mornings in the hot and humid climate zone where I live, and I say this whilst using worsted weight yarn! On a final note, when I had a question about the pattern, June answered it promptly and in a cordial manner 🙂

Congrats Jamie – I’ll email you to find out which pattern you’d like as your prize 🙂

It’s so rewarding for me to see people enjoying my Accessories designs. They’re a great introduction to new crochet techniques that you may think would be intimidating or too advanced, but they really aren’t! If you’d like to try crocheting one too, you’ll find extra support in the Accessories CAL thread on Ravelry.

I know, you’re probably saying “Huh? What’s a narrow pointed tube?” Well, that’s the best generic term I could think of to describe thin pointy bits on amigurumi, such as spikes, legs, horns and tails.

I know that the trickiest parts of my reptile and amphibian patterns (pictured above) are those really thin pieces that make the legs (and chameleon toes and tail). With many of my new dinosaur patterns (see a few examples below) featuring spikes and horns, I thought it was time to give you a demonstration of the way I crochet the tiniest thin tubes without difficulty. I hope you’ll find my tips useful!

Here’s the video tutorial (in right- and left-handed versions, of course):

Narrow Pointed Tubes for Amigurumi (right-handed)

Click to watch this video on YouTube.

Narrow Pointed Tubes for Amigurumi (left-handed)

Click to watch this video on YouTube.

Note: The videos may look a little small embedded in the blog: if so, you can fullscreen them or click through to YouTube to watch them full-sized 🙂

Written Instructions

1. At the end of Round 1, pull the magic ring gently closed (but not too tight, or it’ll be difficult to begin Round 2).
2. At the end of Round 2, pull the magic ring tightly closed, then, before you begin Round 3, turn the piece right-side out. This is a little tricky, and it’s much easier to understand if you watch the video, but, in case you can’t do that, here’s my description from the video:
   

   To turn a narrow piece inside out, gently peel the stitches back, starting from the last stitch you made, and working backwards around the circle. It’s a slow process, so just keep pulling back around the edges gently, and the stitches will gradually reverse, until the magic ring pops through to the front, and you can see all the ‘V’ shapes around the edge of the piece. Once you’ve got it right-side out, roll the piece between your fingers to help set the stitches the right way out.

3. Now you can begin Round 3, with the piece right-side out. Continue to crochet around the tube, and you’ll find it’s all relatively easy from here, even with a tiny 4-stitch tube. Just keep rotating the work, and single crocheting into the next stitch.

If you enjoy my crochet tutorial videos, please help to spread the word about them, and/or subscribe to the PlanetJune YouTube channel. And let me know if you have any requests for crochet techniques you’d like me to explain in a future video tutorial!

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

Boost your amigurumi skills with my latest book, The Essential Guide to Amigurumi, your comprehensive guide to amigurumi techniques and tips.

Do you find my tutorials helpful? If so, please consider making a contribution towards my time so I can continue to create clear and concise tutorials for you:

Thank you so much for your support! Now click below for loads more crochet video and photo tutorials (and do let me know what else you’d like me to cover in future tutorials…)

Just a mini-CAL roundup this month, as the main Accessory-Along is in full swing for the rest of the year, so a few people decided to whip up some Halloweeny amigurumi in the meantime as a bonus October CAL.

For November, we’ll be continuing the Accessory-Along, and also having an amazing Dino-Mania CAL! I hope you’ll join us – it’s going to be fun. (If you’d like to take part in one – or both! – see the end of this post for more details.)

And now for the Halloween roundup!
(For speed, I just give credit with participants’ Ravelry usernames.)

CraftinMama & CrochetChrisie

MagicalAmigurumi & CrochetChrisie

Fatals-attraction & klopferli

aaBrink & daveslady

nakedorangie, AKmtnnymph, & MagicalAmigurumi

It’s a case of quality, not quantity, for this roundup 🙂 I do love seeing everyone’s creative spin on my patterns.

November CAL: it’s going to be Dino-Mania!

I have high hopes for this month’s Dino-Mania CAL – it should be so much fun! Join us making Dinosaurs galore – with 18 designs to choose from now, I can’t wait to see all the dinosaurs that’ll be made, and what colours people will choose…

And the Accessory-Along runs until the end of December and is going strong so far – my new Frosty Windows scarf is proving especially popular! Take a look at all the pretty scarves (and shawls, cowls, etc) that have already been finished and posted in the CAL thread and maybe you’ll be inspired to join in and make one too…

We’d love to welcome you to the PlanetJune ravelry group for the CALs, as well as for pattern support, new pattern suggestions, and chat – we have over 1000 members now, and it’s a fun, friendly and supportive place to hang out 🙂

What could be better than my 9 amigurumi dinosaurs? How about 18 amigurumi dinosaurs?!

Click image to enlarge! The 9 new dinos are on the left in this picture, with the original 9 on the right.

This project has been a long time in the making; I kept getting requests for more dinosaur designs, but a lot of dinosaurs look fairly similar and I didn’t feel comfortable with the idea of changing a few parts and calling it a whole new pattern – that doesn’t seem fair to my customers! – so my Expansion Pack (EP) idea was born.

What’s an Expansion Pack?

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

I put on my research hat and investigated all kinds of dinosaurs to find the most interesting types to add to the collection, and now I’d like to introduce them to you…

Meet the New Dinosaurs

Dinosaurs Set 1X, L-R: Amargasaurus, Kentrosaurus, Pentaceratops

• Amargasaurus was small for a sauropod, at only 33 ft long. It could easily be recognised by its impressive neck and back spines. It was a herbivore and lived in the early Cretaceous period.
• Kentrosaurus was 17 ft long – only half the size of its better-known relative, Stegosaurus. It was well-armoured with a spiked tail and shoulders. Kentrosaurus was a herbivore and lived in the late Jurassic period.
• Pentaceratops was a 28-ft long relative of the Triceratops. Its name means ‘five-horned head’, but its large elongated neck frill was even more impressive than its horns. It was a herbivore and lived in the late Cretaceous period.

Dinosaurs Set 2X, L-R: Dimorphodon, Kronosaurus, Spinosaurus

• Dimorphodon was a member of the Pterosaur family. (Pterosaurs aren’t actually true dinosaurs, but flying reptiles that lived in the same time period.) Dimorphodon was a small pterosaur, with only a 4 ft wingspan, but had a large head, a puffin-shaped beak and a long tail with a diamond-shaped tip. It ate fish and lived in the Jurassic period.
• Kronosaurus was a huge 30-ft long member of the Plesiosaur family. (Plesiosaurs aren’t actually true dinosaurs, but aquatic reptiles that lived in the same time period.) Kronosaurus was a short-necked plesiosaur from the early Cretaceous period. It lived in the sea and ate cephalopods.
• Spinosaurus was 40-50 ft long – even larger than a Tyrannosaurus Rex! A long crocodile-like skull and the spines which formed a sail on its back made Spinosaurus instantly recognisable. It was a carnivore from the middle Cretaceous period.

Dinosaurs Set 3X, L-R: Protoceratops, Iguanodon, Panoplosaurus

• Protoceratops was a small herbivorous dinosaur, at only 6-8 ft long. Unlike its relatives (including Triceratops and Pentaceratops), it had no horns, only its ridged neck frill. It lived in the late Cretaceous period.
• Iguanodon was a herbivorous dinosaur from the early Cretaceous period. It was 30 ft long and weighed 4-5 tons. It could walk on all four legs or run on its back legs. Its name means ‘iguana tooth’ (as its teeth resemble those of modern iguanas).
• Panoplosaurus was a 23-ft long ankylosaur from the late Cretaceous period. It was a herbivore with a heavily armoured back, a row of spikes along each side, and extra-long shoulder spikes. Unlike the related Ankylosaurus, it did not have a tail club.

EP Pricing Info

These expansion pack designs keep about half of the original pattern, and the other half is new, so I’m charging only $2.50 apiece – half the price of the original. And it gets even better if you buy a multipack set: only $6.50 for a set of 3.

The multipack EP sets correspond to Dinosaurs Sets 1, 2 and 3, so I’ve called them Dinosaurs Sets 1X, 2X and 3X to make it clear which EPs match up with which original set. And, for this launch week, you’ll only pay $6 each for any (or all!) of the three 3-pack expansion packs – a real bargain for 3 new dinosaur patterns! (No code required – the additional discounts are already set up in the shop, for this week only.)

Original Dinosaur Re-releases

All 9 of the original dinosaur patterns have now been given their makeover. If you log into your PlanetJune account, you can download the new versions of any dinosaur patterns you’ve already purchased, for no additional cost, for the next 2 weeks. (If you order any dinosaur patterns from today onwards, you’ll automatically get the updated versions.)

18 dinosaur patterns – all in the new and improved format!

Future Plans

As I moved further into designing the Expansion Packs, I realised that the dinosaur I’ve had most requests for – Velociraptor – wouldn’t be possible here: in order to make a raptor, every component of the closest pattern (T rex) would have to be rewritten, which means it’s not an EP; it’s a whole new pattern! So, although 18 dinos is already an impressive collection, if these EPs sell well, it may not be a completely crazy idea for me to design Dinosaurs Set 4 (and maybe even Set 4X?) before I call this range complete 😀

Handy Links

• If you’ve already bought the original Dinosaur patterns, you can pick up the new Expansion Packs (individually or in sets) from the Expansion Packs section of my shop.
• If you’d like to pick up any original Dinosaurs + EPs, you’ll find each relevant EP as an add-on for the original patterns and sets, in the Prehistoric & Mythical section.
• If you’d like to add any of the 9 new dinosaurs to your Ravelry queue and/or favourites, there’s a link from each individual pattern page in my shop.
• If you’re admiring the colours of my dinosaurs, they are all made from Lion Brand Vanna’s Choice yarn – it has the best range of beautiful colours, and nothing in the range clashes with anything else, so you can’t go wrong.

Oh, and if you’re intimidated by the thought of crocheting the thin spikes on some of the dinos, don’t worry – those will be the subject of my next video tutorial, coming later this week! And then I may just need to collapse for a little while and recover from this mammoth project…

I really hope you love my new (and improved) dinosaur collection!