Before we begin: ARTDOT provided these products to me for review, and set up an affiliate account for me, but I’m not being compensated for this review, and, as always, my opinions are my own!

Do you take time off over the holidays to relax and decompress? I love to stay home and do jigsaw puzzles or relaxing crafts while the TV plays in the background.

One of the crafts I’m still enjoying is diamond painting (see my posts from last year), and when ARTDOT approached me about a collaboration, I saw that some of their products looked like they’d be really useful, so I’ve been testing them out in preparation for my holiday crafting sessions!

These are multi-purpose products, so do take a look even if you aren’t into diamond painting – the storage products would also work for beading or other small craft supplies, and the light pad is perfect for tracing designs onto paper or fabric. And I have a special discount code for you at the end of this post!

Storage Case

This is the Diamond Painting Storage Case. I got the medium size – it also comes in smaller and larger sizes, and in a colourful pink patterned version if you don’t love the smart black and purple option.

It’s a nice sturdy zippered case, and I love that purple!

To test it out, I picked up a small diamond painting kit from amazon to play with and decanted all the diamonds using the provided silicone funnel.

Tip: Although I found the funnel useful for this initial step, once you’re working with your diamonds you can tip them straight back into their jar from the tray.

I’m really impressed with this case – it has a convenient screw-topped jar to store each colour, and they’re all mounted in a custom foam base so they don’t get mixed up and out of order!

You can store your pen, tray, spare wax and other accessories in the mesh pocket inside the case lid, so it’s a convenient and portable solution to keep all your accessories together.

Tip: Although the colours and symbols will be different for each kit you buy, the key should always have numbers, so by labelling your containers with the numbers you can reuse them for future kits without having to change the labels!

The storage bag also came with stickers to label the jars, and the above set of bonus diamond painting accessories – I don’t need all the included items, but I really like the extra-large tray!

Tip: I bought myself a couple of fancy resin diamond painting pens from amazon as I find the larger handle much more comfortable to use, but despite trying several fancy expensive tips, the best tips I’ve found are the ones that come on these cheap pink pens! So don’t throw those pens away when you get one with a kit or accessory – pop out the tip and you’ll have spares for your fancy pen handle!

Light Pad

This is the Light Pad For Diamond Painting (although it’s actually a multi-purpose crafting item – I’m also going to use it for tracing punchneedle patterns onto fabric, and I’m sure it has multiple other crafting uses!)

I got the A3 size (that’s ~17×13″, it’s massive!) – it’s also available in both smaller and larger sizes, and the smaller A4 one (~14×10″) would be fine for most needs.

The light pad comes with a stand and binder clips, so you can clip your work directly to it and use it in a more vertical position like an artist’s easel, if that works for you. It also comes with the same accessories (pens, trays, wax etc) as my storage bag above, and a diamond storage box with little flip-top containers.

I can’t believe how thin this light pad is – it just looks like a sheet of acrylic, and is barely thicker than the USB socket! The website says it’s over an inch thick, but that measurement must include the stand – I measured the pad and it’s only 3mm (1/16″) thick. But it really works – it uniformly lights up the surface and has three levels of brightness.

Storage Drawers

And finally, these are the Stackable Diamond Painting Storage (Square Bottle). I got 4 drawers, but you can buy them in smaller or larger quantities too, and each drawer clips to the others horizontally or vertically so you can build a custom storage system of any size.

I’ve had a large diamond painting in progress for a long time, and this (below) was my diamond-storage solution up till now – all the colours were in ziplock bags and arranged by number in a box (apart from the large bags, which wouldn’t fit). But the bags are starting to break after repeated opening and closings, and I’ve had to double up bags in some of the compartments because my box only has 30 spaces and I have 45 colours:

Before: not ideal! All these diamonds are now neatly organised in the storage drawers above.

These storage drawers make wrangling all those colours so much easier! You can choose to buy the drawers with either the round bottles I showed you in the storage case above, or these small rectangular tic-tac-style bottles:

I chose the rectangular bottles as they’re perfect for large kits with small quantities of many colours. Just be aware that the opening in the lid of the tic-tac box is so small that you have to pull off the entire lid of the box each time you fill it, so the flip-top lid is only useful for tipping out the diamonds into the tray, not replacing them after you use them.

UPDATE: The tic-tac boxes work perfectly without removing the lid if you use a standard-sized diamond tray! It’s just the extra large tray pictured above that they aren’t great with. Now I keep the extra large tray for the black diamonds (there are soooo many in my project!) and I’m completely satisfied with using the tic-tac boxes with a regular tray for all the other colours – this setup makes swapping between colours easy and fast.

If you don’t need that many bottles, I’d suggest getting the version with the round screw top bottles – you only get 32 bottles instead of 35 in each drawer, but I think I prefer the round ones.

Tip: Although this product also comes with a silicone funnel, I found it easier to fill the containers directly and skip the funnel.

My Experience

Part 1: Sofa Crafting

I clipped my small diamond painting directly to the light pad. The pad is thin and light, but perfectly sturdy, so I can easily work on my lap on the sofa without any additional support. It’s easy to see the canvas, even in low light when I’m watching TV at night.

I’m using the lowest of the 3 brightness settings, and I love how this is bright enough to clearly see what I’m doing without lighting up the whole room. There’s plenty more power available if you need brighter backlighting for your project.

Look how easy it is to see my project without straining, even at night:

This painting is just a cheap kit I picked up from Amazon – the picture reminded me of the best parts of my time in Africa…

And I unreservedly love this storage case! It’s so convenient to have all my tools to hand and be able to put everything away neatly in seconds when I’ve finished crafting.

I don’t really trust flip-top containers when I’m crafting on the sofa – if I got distracted and a lid popped open, I’d have diamonds everywhere. This is my perfect sofa-crafting solution: the screw-top jars feel very secure, and each jar is held securely by the foam base so they don’t roll around inside the case.

I think Maggie approves too!

That’s my cozy holiday evening crafting sorted – thumbs up all around.

Part 2: Desk Crafting

And now to my big diamond painting! For my birthday last year (well over a year ago now) I received a huge 2x3ft (60x90cm) diamond painting canvas. But I’d only finished a small fraction before it became impossible to work on while sitting on the sofa – you can’t roll up the parts you’ve already completed, so it was getting larger and more unwieldy as I unrolled more of the canvas.

I cleared a desk in my studio as a dedicated crafting space and laid out my canvas there, but I’ve struggled to tell some of the symbols apart when there wasn’t full daylight streaming into the room, so I have to admit that my beautiful painting has languished, mostly untouched, for months.

But now, all that is solved! Slipping the slim LED light pad underneath my canvas makes it so much easier to see the symbols I’m working with.

Light off. The symbols are the squares where I have yet to place a diamond.

Light on! And – bonus – look how easy it is to spot if you’ve missed a diamond (compare the individual symbols near the bottom right with the same area in the previous pic)!

The storage drawers are very handy if you want to keep lots of small materials you need regularly to hand, in a dedicated workspace. In general, I think the portable case is a more versatile choice, but these drawers let me store a lot of colours in a very small space on my diamond painting desk, so they’re perfect for a long-term project like this.

Tip: I’ve taped a printout of the key to my diamond painting just in front of the drawers, so it’s easy to grab the right diamond colour without needing to consult the key printed at one edge of the canvas.

As the tic-tac style bottles are so small, I’ve had to use multiple bottles for a few of the most numerous colours. But I have more bottles than I need, so that’s fine. It’ll be nice to just grab a spare bottle of #3 (black – there’s always so much black!) when I run out instead of having to decant more diamonds from the larger bag!

And oooh, look, my painting is starting to look like something (it’s only about 1/4 done!)…

In case you’re wondering, this is an officially licenced version of a painting I love, Farewell to Anger by Leonid Afremov.

I wanted it large so I could hang it on the wall when it was finished, and so the detail wouldn’t get lost, but I lost momentum when I couldn’t easily work on the project. Now I’m excited to get back to it and make some progress – I love seeing all the colours developing, and it’s so much easier to work now I have all my diamonds conveniently at hand and can see the symbols clearly without straining!

Buying Info – and a Special Discount!

I hope you found this review useful. I definitely recommend getting a light pad and a proper storage solution for your diamond paintings – it makes the world of difference. And I can recommend any of these ARTDOT products – the quality is good and they’re very reasonably priced (and are all currently on sale too!)

All the ARTDOT products I reviewed here are available (and highly-rated) on amazon, but for the best prices you can buy them directly from ARTDOT with free shipping & fast delivery within 2-5 business days to the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, Netherland, Spain, Belgium, and Australia.

You get reward points with every purchase, and ARTDOT are offering PlanetJune readers an additional 10% off your order – just go to ARTDOT and enter code JUNE at checkout. Enjoy! 🙂

Guess what? It’s time! The Temperature Snake CAL is now ready to launch, as well as my brand new Snake Collection pattern, and if you buy both the CAL pattern and the Snake Collection pattern together, you’ll get a special bundle deal! For the CAL details, see my Temperature Snake CAL blog post, and for links to both patterns and the bundle, go to the end of this post!

About the Snake Collection crochet pattern

My new Snake Collection pattern includes 4 different snake designs with markings loosely based on real-life non-venomous snakes:

Unmarked (single colour) e.g. Green Snake, Black Snake:

Dual-Banded (two-colour stripes) e.g. Ground Snake, Kingsnake:

Tri-Banded (three-colour stripes) e.g. Milk Snake, Kingsnake:

Spotted (diamond-shaped blotches or patches of colour) e.g. Corn Snake, Rat Snake:

Difficulty
Although the markings and colour patterns of my sample snakes are based on specific real-life snakes, I’ve kept the colour patterns simple so they’re easy to memorise and fun to crochet.

• The unmarked snake is a quick and easy project – try it with a variegated or self-striping yarn to easily add some fun colour.
• For the two striped snakes, I recommend my new Ultimate Stripes technique, but I offer additional alternatives in the pattern too.
• The spotted snake has frequent colour changes throughout, but I’ve included a colour chart as well as the written instructions for the body patterning, and I give instructions for how to manage the yarns with no cutting or tying yarn throughout the snake’s entire body!

I’m especially delighted with how the diamond-shaped markings turned out – the complication of the biased (slanted) stitches in amigurumi meant it was incredibly challenging to come up with a simple repeating pattern that would actually work, and another challenge to continue the spots while decreasing for the tapered tail… But I did it! And now I’ve worked it out for you, it’s a very effective and fairly easy pattern to crochet.

Customizing your Snakes:

• You can make dozens of different snakes by choosing different colours that match other real snakes, getting creative with fun colour choices, and/or mixing different marking patterns in a single snake!
• It’s easy to customize the length of your snake – each design has a repeating body section, and you can choose how long to make your snake by including more or fewer repeats of the body section before you continue to the tail instructions.
• I’ve made friendly PlanetJune-style snakes with solid black eyes, but you can make them look more realistic by using coloured eyes or cat eyes with a slit pupil.

Snake Fun Facts

• Snakes are reptiles that are found all over the world. They mostly eat small animals like rodents, birds, lizards and frogs.
• There are over 3000 species of snakes in the world, and less than 20% of them are venomous – most snakes are completely harmless to humans.
• Snakes have poor vision and hearing, so they see the world primarily through their sense of smell and taste, by flicking their tongue around to ‘taste’ the air.
• Just like your two ears let you tell which direction a sound is coming from, a snake’s forked tongue lets it detect which direction a scent is coming from.

Snake Collection or Temperature Snake?

There’s obviously quite a bit of overlap between these two patterns, so if you buy both, you’ll get a big bundle discount! But they each include plenty of unique features and loads of value, so here’s a rundown so you can decide which snake pattern(s) is/are for you:

Snake Collection:

• FOUR complete patterns for snakes with different markings based on real snakes
• ONE size of snake (it’s the same as the 3/4 size in the Temp Snake CAL)
• All the patterns have a repeating body section, so you can add more repeats before continuing to the tail instructions to make your snake as long as you want!
• Make a complete snake immediately

Temperature Snake CAL:

• Year-long crochet-along with the pattern and instructions released in parts as you need them throughout the year
• Online community group for sharing your progress along the way and asking any questions (it’ll be so much fun to see all our snakes growing in different colours!)
• TWO sizes of snake
• Detailed instructions for finding the temperature range in your area, choosing yarn colours, and creating your custom temperature scale
• Full assistance with getting set up, help selecting your colours, etc in the community groups (or directly from me if you don’t want to enjoy the community aspect of this CAL)
• Printable worksheets for filling in your custom temperature scale and colour code, and logging your temperatures and yarn colours throughout the year
• The worksheets are also fillable PDFs so you can log your temperatures digially if you prefer
• In early 2024, the final, complete, non-CAL Temperature Snake pattern will be released as a stand-alone pattern PDF, including any tips and FAQs that came up throughout 2023, and you’ll automatically receive a copy of that pattern too, in case you’d like to make more temperature snakes in the future!

I hope that’s all clear, and you know which (or both) patterns are right for you. If so, here are the links to buy:

• Temperature Snake CAL pattern
• Snake Collection pattern
• Multipack bundle of both Temp Snake & Snake Collection

But if you still have any questions about either of the patterns or how the CAL will work, please leave a comment below (or email me), and I’ll be happy to help!

Happy Snake-making 😉

No time to read this post? Jump straight to the new Ultimate Stripes for Amigurumi tutorial! >>

In 2012, I first presented the two amigurumi ‘Perfect Stripes’ techniques I’d developed (the Invisible Join and No-Cut Join), and they were vastly superior to any of the other techniques that existed at the time. But now, a decade later, it’s time to revisit my recommendations – can I improve on ‘perfect’? I believe I can!

I’ve spent a lot of time making amigurumi stripes this year – while working on the samples for my upcoming Snake Collection and Temperature Snake patterns (both coming next week – stay tuned!) – and all this practice has led to some innovations and a new recommended stripe method for you.

To compare my three perfect stripes techniques, I worked up each of my new striped snake designs using a different stripe method, so we can clearly see how each method looks in a real project.

L-R: No-Cut Join, Invisible Join (modified – see below), Ultimate Stripes

It turns out that neither of the old ‘Perfect Stripes’ methods was quite perfect – if you’re interested in seeing why, let’s take a close look at both, and then I’ll introduce you to my Ultimate Stripes technique!

(Or you can skip the rest of this explanation and jump straight to the Ultimate Stripes for Amigurumi tutorial – I won’t be offended…)

The No-Cut Join: Good (apart from the seam)

The No-Cut Join is still the best technique I’ve found to get the beginning and end of each stripe of colour to line up without cutting the yarn between rounds.

I’ve carried all three yarn colours all the way along the inside of this snake – there’s no need to cut the yarn at all!

It does give a perfect ring of colour every time, but if you look carefully you can see the seam line progressing along the length of the amigurumi.

Follow the line between the two arrows and you can see the ‘seam’ running along the body of this snake

The seam line is subtle, but it means you don’t get a truly perfect result.

The Invisible Join: Great (but only with a fix)

The Invisible Join can be truly invisible, but (as I discovered this year) that’s only the case if you make sure to insert your hook beneath both the duplicated stitch and the original loops beneath the duplicate stitch. If you fail to do this, you’ll end up with a visible horizontal bar above the first stitch of each round (it’s actually the front loop of the first stitch).

Look closely and you’ll see two horizontal bars (marked by arrows) visible at the location of the Invisible Joins from two rounds.

I didn’t notice this subtlety until earlier this year (so I didn’t mention it in the original tutorial) but once I’d seen it, I couldn’t unsee it (and then my perfectionism made me do some crochet magic to fix my entire temperature snake that suffered from this problem – ugh!)

Here’s the difference made by the Invisible Join ‘fix’:

L: Working into just the top loops (the duplicated stitch) leaves a visible horizontal bar in the round below (marked by arrow).
R: Working into both the duplicated stitch and the top loops of the original stitch just below makes a slightly bulkier stitch that covers that extra bar.

As with the No-Cut Join, the colour stripes do line up perfectly, and yes, there’s no seam with this method, but there is still that error if you’re looking for it, unless you remember to always catch that extra loop in your stitch when you get to the start of the previous round.

If you remember to crochet over the extra loop, it’s practically impossible to spot the join (although the stitch that’s worked over the extra loop may look slightly taller).

Both these methods are still very good, and far better than the jog you get with any of the traditional methods for striped amigurumi, so if you don’t want to change how you work, I’m still happy to recommend either of these methods.

But I still wasn’t satisfied, so I went back to the drawing board to come up with a new method that, in my opinion, is the best ever…

The Ultimate Stripes for Amigurumi: The Best!

After experiencing frustration with both my old methods this year, I’ve come up with a new ‘perfect stripes’ method that looks completely perfect!

• It’s slightly more invisible than the Invisible Join (and you don’t have to remember to catch that pesky extra loop with each round).
• It’s barely more trouble than the No-Cut Join (although it does still mean cutting the yarn with every round, even when you don’t change colour).

With Ultimate Stripes the joins are completely undetectable! Where are they in this pic? I honestly couldn’t tell you…

I’m calling this new method Ultimate Stripes for Amigurumi (as the ‘perfect’ and ‘invisible’ names were already taken with my previous techniques!) and this technique is the official PlanetJune-recommended stripe method from now on.

I believe this truly is the ultimate method for making perfect amigurumi stripes, and I hope you’ll give it a try with your next stripey amigurumi!

Go to the Ultimate Stripes for Amigurumi tutorial >>

I’m so excited to reveal the year-long 2023 crochetalong that I’ve been planning for over a year now! Click here to be notified as soon as this CAL is ready for signups… UPDATE: Sign up now! UPDATE: The CAL may be over, but the complete Temperature Snake pattern and workbook are now available! Click here for details >>

You’ve probably heard of temperature blankets or scarves, where you crochet or knit one row per day to represent the temperature that day. The Temperature Snake is an amigurumi-style riff on that concept!

After crocheting the amigurumi-style head for your snake, its body will progress throughout the year, with one stripe per day representing the maximum temperature of that day.

Choose Your Own Adventure

I’ll show you how to choose a temperature range that suits your climate, and design a colour scheme around your favourite amigurumi yarns. Use a traditional colour scheme, or one that suits your taste. I’ll give you guidance with each step as we create your personalized temperature/colour chart that you’ll use throughout the year as your snake progresses.

I’ve designed the Temperature Snake pattern with several options you can choose between to create a completely custom snake, and I’ve crocheted two samples over 2022 so you can get an idea of how all the options look:

• Two different snake sizes (full sized, or the faster 3/4 sized)
• Two different lengths (one round per day, or one every other day for a shorter snake)
• Two ideas to get you started for colour schemes (the classic rainbow, or red-hot to blue-cold)
• Two different tongues (the easier full-sized tongue, or the more realistic slender tongue)

You can get adventurous and mix-and-match any of these options to create your snake, or copy them all from your favourite of my sample snakes.

Getting Started

Head Start: Although the temperature logging can only begin on New Year’s Day 2023, the pre-CAL will start in early December, so you can get started early by choosing which snake pattern you’ll use, selecting your colour scheme, buying your yarn, and making your snake’s head, so you’ll be ready to get going with the temperature stripes as soon as 2023 arrives.

New Year Start: You can also start the CAL on the official start date of Jan 1st. This is the first day you’ll start logging the daily maximum temperature. (By the way, you don’t need to crochet every day, provided you either keep a note of the temperature, or use a website where you can look it up after the fact.)

Late Start: If you jump into the CAL later, you can either catch up on the days you missed, or choose your time range starting later than Jan 1st – it’s up to you!

Community Fun

The Temperature Snake CAL will be most fun for you if you join us in one of the PlanetJune groups on Ravelry or Discord. (If you’re new to the PJ Community, I’ve just made a new ‘Join the PlanetJune Community’ page with an intro to Rav and Discord, the benefits of each, and links to join the PJ groups – please look there for help and guidance on getting set up.)

At first, we’ll help you decide on your temperature range and colours while we’re all planning our snakes. And throughout 2023 we’ll all be checking in regularly to post photos of our snakes’ progress, giving you accountability and encouragement to keep going, and compare how your snake’s colours are changing compared with everyone else’s.

If you’d prefer to fly solo, you can do that too. As with all PlanetJune pattern licences, I’m available for help by email, so if you want me to advise on your colours or temperature range, I’ll help you get set up. The CAL pattern will be updated several times with the next set of instructions, and I’ll email you each time it’s been updated, so you can log back in and download the new instructions!

Your One-of-a Kind Masterpiece

By the end of the year, you’ll not only have your own unique and personal snake, but also a copy of the complete stand-alone pattern (coming in early January 2024), including all the tips and FAQs that have come up throughout this CAL.

And then I’ll make a glorious gallery of all our 2023 Temperature Snakes, so we can fully appreciate the colourful results of this year-long project. How will our snakes vary across the world? I can’t wait to find out! The great thing about this CAL is that, although we don’t know in advance exactly how our snakes will turn out (and that’s part of the fun) I guarantee that they’re all going to look fantastic!

Will You Join Us?

If you’d like me to email you as soon as the Temperature Snake CAL is ready for signups, click here! Otherwise keep an eye on the blog – I’ll post here when everything is ready for you.? UPDATE: You can sign up now!

I hope you’ll join me in the PlanetJune community throughout 2023 as, day by day and round by round, we mark the progress of the year together as we each create our own colourful Temperature Snake!

Have you heard of the new Twist + Lock crochet hook sets from Susan Bates?

Yarnspirations (the company behind the Susan Bates brand) say:

Crocheting just became easier with the Susan Bates Twist + Lock interchangeable crochet hook tool. Select the desired hook size and insert into the opening of the oversized soft touch handle. With a simple Twist and Lock, your crochet hook will fit snugly in place whether in action or in storage. Purchase additional sizes to build your custom crochet hook set.

But is this a helpful addition to our crochet toolset, or just a solution looking for a problem? Coats & Clark kindly sent me a set to test out and see what I think…

About the Set

The Twist + Lock kits are available in various configurations:

• 1 handle and 2 hook heads
• 1 handle, 1 hook head and a cutter
• 2 hooks and a cutter
• the Deluxe Set that includes 2 handles, 2 cutters, and all 6 hook heads (sizes F, G, H, I, J, K – that’s 3.75-6.5mm).

So you can choose your preferred hook sizes and add on additional pieces later, or jump straight in with the complete set.

First Impressions

The hook heads are standard Susan Bates in-line hooks (my favourites). A hook head or cutter can be inserted into each end of the spring-loaded handle, and twisted to lock it in place:

As there’s no thumbrest on the hooks (where the hook size is usually embossed), the size is printed on the back of each hook:

With a hook at each end, the handle becomes quite long:

You can also reverse any of the heads and insert them facing into the handle, for portability:

My Testing Process

For my test, I’ve been crocheting my Cozy Cables Earwarmer using Bernat Satin yarn and a J US/6mm hook. I crocheted a full 4-row repeat of the stitch pattern with my usual Susan Bates bamboo-handled hook and then another repeat with the Twist + Lock hook, so I could really feel the difference the hook makes to the process.

I also tested the cutter out. The blade is so well protected inside the plastic casing that I couldn’t get it to work at all at first, but once I figured out you have to loop the yarn over the cutter and then pull back fairly hard, it worked well enough:

The Importance of Honest Reviews

I’m a big fan of Susan Bates hooks and I really wanted to love this concept, but it didn’t really work for me. I’m uncomfortable writing this, a less-than-positive review, but I think it’s important for people to hear both good and bad points to help inform their purchases. That’s why I’m not an ‘influencer’ – I never accept payment for reviews; you’ll always hear what I truly think.

All the other reviews I’ve seen of this set have said nothing but positive things, and I don’t know if that’s because the reviewers didn’t actually use the hooks before they reviewed them, or whether they truly love them, and it’s just me that doesn’t! Either way, it’s important for me to tell you the truth as I see it, so here goes…

Pros

Let’s start out with the reasons I do like this set!

• It’s nicely made – the heads push and nicely into the spring-loaded body and twist securely closed.
• I really like the idea of always having a cutter to hand!
• You can store your hook head and cutter inside the handle, making it easy to throw into your project bag without worrying about snagging your yarn. Just push and twist and the head pops out, ready to re-attach facing outwards and start crocheting. This would be very convenient for travel.
• The handle is reversible so you can have a hook at either end, or a hook at one end and a cutter on the other, and just flip the handle around when you want to use the other end.
• As with all Susan Bates hooks, these hooks have the inline head shape I love. This shape head makes it far easier to form perfectly regular stitches.
• The soft touch handle is substantial and comfortable to hold in the palm of your hand, and I think it’d be especially useful for those with larger hands or who have grip difficulty.

Cons

Now for the downsides… I have two main problems with this hook that ruin the crocheting experience for me. To make a fair comparison, I got out all my Susan Bates J hooks so you can see what I’m talking about.

Susan Bates J hooks, top to bottom: Twist & Lock, bamboo-handled, Soft Touch, Quicksilver.

Firstly, the grip position. As with all interchangeable hooks I’ve seen (from any brand), there’s no thumbrest on these hooks, and because of the shape of the handle, you have to hold it below the section where the head is inserted.

The standard thumbrest position is between the dotted lines; the Twist + Lock hold is below the bulge in the handle, below the lower dotted line.

This is about an inch below my usual position, and it feels like I have less control of the hook as a result. If you have difficulties forming a tight grip and prefer to grip a larger comfort handle instead of a thin thumbrest, this may be a benefit to you, but personally I much prefer the control of holding the hook closer to the head.

Top: my usual hand position; bottom: my hand is much further away from the hook head.

Secondly, the weight. It was immediately noticeable to me how heavy this hook was in use. I tried taking the cutter out from the base of the handle and that helped slightly, but it still felt much heavier. In case I was biased, I weighed all my Susan Bates J hooks to compare:

It wasn’t my imagination – all my other J hooks weigh between 10 and 12g, and the Twist + Lock weighs 31-37g, depending on what you have installed in the other end. That’s around three times the weight of a standard hook, and if you do a lot of crocheting, you’ll definitely start to feel that difference!

Verdict

Susan Bates hooks are my all-time favourites, because of the head shape, and that’s the same with this new set as much as all their other hooks. But, while I love the concept of the ‘portable toolkit’, carrying your toolkit in the handle of your hook maybe isn’t the best thought-out idea…

There are some plus points: the handle material is comfortable, and the wide grip in the palm of your hand is an advantage for knife-grip crocheters, especially for those with larger hands. Being able to flip the head inside the handle for easy and safe transportation in your project bag is genius, and the idea of always having a safe cutter to hand is very appealing!

If you travel a lot with a crochet project at your side, or have large hands, or your top priority is a wide comfortable grip, and/or you don’t mind the added weight, the Twist + Lock set may be a good fit for you. But, for me, the hugely increased weight and the lack of a good thumbrest position for controlling the hook make this a miss.

If you’re looking for crochet hooks, I’d recommend instead any of the other Susan Bates aluminum hooks:

• The bamboo-handled hooks (if you can still find them), are my favourites.
• The Soft Touch handled hooks are also very nice – the grip isn’t as wide as the bamboo handle, but the material is very comfortable to hold, and the new-style pointier tip is growing on me too.
• The classic Silvalume hooks are just one-piece anodized aluminum, but you can always add a comfort grip if you need a wider handle.

All of these also have the same aluminium hook with the in-line head style as the Twist + Lock, and I’d guess that smaller-handed people like me would probably have a better crocheting experience with any of these than the Twist + Lock set.

(And I’ve reviewed all the other Susan Bates hooks here, if you’d like to know more about those options!)

What do you think? If you tend to like heavier hooks and larger handles with no thumbrest, or you’ve tried a Twist + Lock hook, I’d love to hear about your experience – especially if you disagree with me! Am I missing something here?!

My 2009 Christmas Trees pattern has been a bestseller for years, but this year I decided I wanted to design a more realistic crocheted conifer that you can mix-and-match with my classic bobble trees in a display, or use alone. And here’s what I came up with: Christmas Trees Set 2!

For this collection, I’ve designed trees with three different styles (Narrow, Standard and Wide) so you can choose your favourite shape and make multiples of the same type of tree, or create a display with lots of variety in shape, size and colour, like mine.

I love how detailed and realistic the foliage looks on these trees – you won’t believe how simple they are to make!

The three tree styles, L-R: Narrow, Standard, Wide

I’ve crocheted samples in 2 or 3 heights for each tree style (and the pattern includes the complete instructions for all 7 of the pictured trees, if you want to replicate them exactly), but these are any-height patterns: you can keep going with the base until the tree is as tall as you want it to be, and then stop to add the foliage.

I encourage you to experiment with different heights for each of your trees – they make a more realistic display when each tree is slightly different!

If you don’t want to use too much yarn, I recommend making your larger trees in the Narrow and Standard styles, and save the Wide style for your smaller trees (the Wide style is a bit yarn-hungry – my taller wide tree is only 5.5″ tall, but uses 120 yds of yarn!)

But there’s no need to worry that you’ll run out of yarn: I’ve included a very simple calculation in the pattern so, if you only have a certain amount of yarn, you’ll know how big you can make your tree without any danger of running out of yarn partway through adding the foliage. All you’ll need is a scale that weighs accurately in grams.

Mix-and-Match Patterns

As you can see, the new trees can mix nicely with my original Christmas Trees pattern (now renamed Christmas Trees Set 1!) – in this photo, the two decorated trees are from Set 1, and the others are all from the new Set 2.

I love the look of the new trees as a natural mini forest, but you can also use the star and decorating ideas from Set 1 with the new Set 2 trees to make them look more festive. 🙂

Purchasing Options

You can buy Christmas Trees Set 2 individually, or bundle it with Set 1 pattern for a special price:

• Christmas Trees Set 2 crochet pattern >>
• Christmas Trees Sets 1 & 2 multipack >>

And, until the end of November 2022, if you’ve already bought the original Christmas Trees pattern, email me with your order number and I’ll email you back with a $1 discount code to use towards Set 2! To find your order number:

1. Login to your PlanetJune account, then go to My Account > My Patterns
2. Look through the alphabetical list of your pattern purchases to find Christmas Trees and click it to go through to the order – your 5-digit order number will be right there!

Not ready to get started yet? Add it to your Ravelry queue or favourites so you don’t forget:

I hope you’ll enjoy making these cute trees as part of your holiday decorating this year, and if you’d like to make them along with the rest of the PJ community, please come and join us in the PlanetJune Ravelry group for our end-of-year Reindeer Games crochet-along.

I’ll be joining in with the CAL too – this pattern is so much fun, I have plans to make more of these trees, including a giant version! Just how big will my tree get? I’m not sure yet, but join me in the Ravelry group to keep up with my progress!

It’s book launch day! Today is the day that my new book, Everyday Crochet, is released – so exciting!

Thanks to your preorders, Everyday Crochet had been rising up the ranks in the amazon crochet category, and now it’s (temporarily) out of stock on amazon! ? So that’s an unexpected blow, but I hope it’ll climb higher once they restock, and as the preorderers start to leave reviews after they receive their copies.

UPDATE: Amazon (.com and .ca) completely underestimated the number of preorders they’d receive from all of you (thank you!) and it went out of stock as soon as it launched. It’s now back in stock in the US, but still temporarily out of stock in Canada.

If you haven’t bought Everyday Crochet yet, you can read about it here or order from amazon here (although you may have to wait for it to come back into stock!) – or find it in your favourite bookshop. And order a signed bookplate from me here 🙂

Now, if you’ve already bought Everyday Crochet – or are just about to – we’re starting a crochet-along (CAL) from today until the end of the year for all the patterns in the book in the PlanetJune group on Ravelry, and I hope you’ll join us!

I’ve rolled this CAL into the Reindeer Games – the annual PlanetJune end-of-year CAL and online community event that also starts today – and there’s a special bonus virtual medal waiting for you if you make a project from Everyday Crochet…

Reindeer Games 2022 CAL

Crochet anything PlanetJune as part of the PlanetJune Reindeer Games 2022 (Tuesday, Nov 1 – Saturday, Dec 31). This is a Team PlanetJune event, hosted in the PlanetJune Ravelry group, with a similar concept to the Ravellenic Games: the idea is to challenge yourself by starting and finishing crochet project(s) before the end of the year.

It’s just for fun, like a CAL but you get to choose your projects – anything PlanetJune, including projects from my books – and earn virtual awards! During the Games, we all cheer each other on to complete our chosen projects. Our team captains will award you with your Reindeer Village medals and Antlers as you complete your project(s).

Santa and all 9 reindeer have set up their stalls in the Reindeer Games Village:

• Santa’s Toy Shop – toys
• Rudolph’s Gingerbread House – home/décor
• Dasher’s Scarf Stand – scarves
• Dancer’s Winter Wear – hats and mitts
• Prancer’s WIPs Wrapping – any project started before the Games
• Vixen’s Shawl Stall – shawls and wraps
• Comet’s Closet – sweaters and other garments
• Cupid’s Cowl Corner – cowls and neckwarmers
• Donner’s Blanket Bazaar – blankets and afghans
• Blitzen’s Bag Bonanza – bags and purses

You’ll receive the medal for the stall you ‘visited’ once you’ve finish your project! And you can also receive bonus Antler awards for your projects:

• Cozy Reading – make a project from Everyday Crochet
• Secret Santa – make a project from the Buried Treasure pattern list
• Santa’s Helper – showing team spirit
• Angel – charity project
• Carolling – crochet in public
• Cookie Decorator – colourwork
• Deck the Halls – embellishments
• Heirloom – using a PJ pattern you’ve owned for more than a year
• Ice Sculptor – techniques: cables, lace, Tunisian, etc
• Snowman – modifying or combining patterns
• Ho! Ho! Ho! – completing a project in each of 3 different categories
• Master Wrapper – complete 3 WIP projects
• Super Elf – complete any 3 projects
• Bah! Humbug! – complete a project on Christmas Eve
• Fireworks – complete a project on New Year’s Eve
• Have a Cookie – a special antler for those of us who don’t quite get to the finish line

Whether you’re crocheting your favourite PlanetJune patterns as Christmas gifts, items to sell at craft fairs or online, toys for charity, or projects for yourself, we’re ready to encourage you to complete your goals and to celebrate your successes with you!

And, even if you think you may not have time to complete a project, you’re very welcome to join the team for the community spirit and friendly chat. There’s something about PlanetJune that attracts the kindest and most supportive people, and, if you enjoy PlanetJune patterns, you’re already part of our community – do come over to our Ravelry group and say hello! (And if you’d join if this event was hosted elsewhere instead of Ravelry, please email me or leave me a comment to let me know, so I can take that into account for next year.)

Whether you join the CAL or not, I really hope you’ll enjoy Everyday Crochet, and that you’ll email me (june@planetjune.com) or tag me (@planetjune) on your social media so I can see what you’re making from my book! (And, if you love it, please recommend it to everyone you know who might like it too, and a 5-star review on Amazon would be very much appreciated…) ?

Only 4 days to go until my new book, Everyday Crochet, launches! There’s no way I can sell signed copies of this book (the shipping costs would be far too high – it’s almost 300 pages and weighs 2lb/900g!), so please order it directly from amazon or your local bookstore.

But, if you’d like me to sign your book for you, I’ve commissioned a professionally printed high quality bookplate sticker with easy-peel backing, perfectly sized at 2×4″ (~5x10cm) to fit in the empty space on the first page of any of my books.

Each bookplate sticker will be signed personally to you by me, June Gilbank, so you can get a ‘signed’ copy of any (or all!) of my books by sticking a bookplate directly into your copy.

Or, if you’re giving my book as a gift, why not give a ‘signed’ copy by sticking a bookplate – signed personally to your recipient – into the book before you gift it?

The easy-peel sticker backing is split on the back, so you can gently bend the bookplate to peel off each section of the backing from the middle – there’s no struggling to peel the sticker from a corner and potentially ruining the corner!

Get your author-signed bookplates now >>

Crochet Tools – Flash Sale!

For this weekend only, I’m also re-opening the Crochet Tools shop, so you can combine shipping if there’s anything else you need. I have very limited quantities this time around, and the shop won’t be open again for the best part of a year, so if you need a Detail Stuffing Tool, an exclusive PJ enamel pin, or anything else, now’s your chance!

Browse my collection of essential crochet tools & pins now >>

Note: If you’re reading this after Oct 30th and missed the flash sale, sign up here and I’ll notify you when the Crochet Tools shop next opens.

Bookplate Availability

The logistics of having to batch-ship via my cross-border shipping company means I can only open the Crochet Tools shop once or twice a year – as my items are so inexpensive, it’s the only way to keep international shipping costs reasonable for you.

But, as the bookplates (and vinyl stickers, while stocks last) can ship as lettermail, I can just drop them at the post office once a week, so I intend for the bookplates to always be available in the shop, so you can get a ‘signed’ copy of Everyday Crochet at any time 🙂