PlanetJune by June Gilbank

I’m running low on business cards again, so I thought it might be time to try out another new design. I’ve put a few together and I’d love to hear your opinion: Which do you like best? Which (if any) do a good job of representing me and my crochet patterns?

In case you’re wondering why there’s no information on the card, the back of all my cards looks like this:

Here are the three potential designs for your viewing pleasure:

Dinosaurs

Bears

PocketAmi

Please cast your vote in the poll below (check as many options as you like!):

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Anything else to add? Please feel free to leave me a comment too. Don’t worry, I’m not emotionally tied to any of the designs, so criticism won’t upset me. Thank you so much – I really appreciate your opinions!

Edited to add: Please, if you vote ‘None of them!’, let me know in the comments what I could do better! If I don’t know what you don’t like, I won’t know how to fix it…

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I’ve been upgrading the PlanetJune shop to make things a bit clearer. There’s a new tabbed interface for each product, so you can quickly find the information you need without having to scroll down the page:

I’ve also added a review capability, so you can see what other people thought of my products before you buy. I only launched this yesterday, so I only have 9 reviews as I write this post. A review system is no help to anyone unless there are actually some reviews for potential customers to read, so I’d like to ask for your help…

Have you bought any of my patterns, eyes, noses, stitch markers or stuffing tools? Is there anything about them that you’d like to share with the world? Please write a review! It’s easy to do – just browse to the item you want to review, click the Reviews tab and then click write a review.

As a small incentive (and this will be an ongoing thing, not a one-off promotion), all reviews will automatically be entered into a monthly draw to win a free pattern of your choice. So review 10 of my products and you’ll get 10 entries into the draw!

I hope these reviews will be useful to other people, and I encourage you to be honest – I will only moderate them for profanity or other inappropriate comments. Although I hope you won’t feel the need to leave a 1 star review, if that’s what you truly think of a product, that’s okay with me. And you’ll still be entered into the draw

Thanks very much for your help – I really appreciate it – and good luck in the monthly draws!

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A quick aside first: have you noticed I’ve made a favicon for PlanetJune? It was a challenge coming up with something recognisable at such a small size, so I just made a little bear in my site colours:

I think it’s cute! I hope it’ll help people to spot PlanetJune in the vast sea of websites out there. That’s one more task I can cross off my to-do list

The real point of this post is to let you know about the blog tour for Amy O’Neill Houck’s new book, Crochet for Bears to Wear. The tour starts today at Craftzine, where you can download a free pattern from the book!

Amy has a list of all the daily stops on her blog tour. There are some fantastic crochet bloggers represented here, so visit all the stops and, as an added bonus, you might find some new blogs to follow!

My stop is next Monday, when I’ll be reviewing the book and testing one of the patterns. As you can see from the photos below, my Fuzzy Bear loves accessories, so I’ll be crocheting him his own custom-sized piece of clothing…

Fuzzy Bear loves to play dress-up

I’ll also have a copy of Crochet for Bears to Wear to give away to one of my lovely readers, so don’t forget to check back here on Monday for a chance to win!

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I bet many of you (unless you saw my tweets last weekend) are thinking ‘huh?’ right about now… But if you’re like me (a crocheter who doesn’t knit) you’re going to love this craft: knooking is knitting with a crochet hook. No, it’s not tunisian crochet, or any other type of crochet; when you knook you form genuine knitted stitches. The finished product is indistinguishable from a knit piece. Isn’t that cool?

I just don’t get along with the pointy sticks and I’ve often wished I could just put a hook on the end of a knitting needle so I could snag those stitches more easily, so the idea of knooking was very appealing. You do need to use a special hook to knook with – it has to be straight all the way down the length (i.e. no wider thumb grip) and have some way to attach a cord to the non-hooked end. You can modify a regular crochet hook, or a locker hook makes the perfect starter tool – you can find it in most craft stores, and it’s approximately equivalent in size to a G hook.

This weekend I had some time on my hands and thought I’d finally give knooking a try. I must be a bit of a masochist – I didn’t want to start with a boring swatch or dishcloth pattern; I wanted something that I could actually use once I’d finished it. I’d seen a free knitting pattern a few weeks ago for a Shaun the Sheep DS case and it seemed like it may be a feasible (and cute!) first project. Luckily it starts with the back, which is plain, before moving to the colourwork on the front, so I figured I’d have time to get used to the knit and purl stitches before introducing another element of difficulty.

First knooking attempt in progress

Here it is after getting 2/3 through the back. (The hole at the top right is a buttonhole, not a mistake.) You can see my white cord running through the active stitches at the bottom of the picture. Each time you complete a row, you slide the stitches down off the bottom of the hook onto the cord, and then work into them again for the next row.

I think I may have wrapped the yarn wrongly a couple of times, because there are a couple of flubs in my beautiful knitted fabric. Also, my yarn was a bit splitty, which didn’t help when trying to form those awkward purl stitches. I was surprised that my stitches looked so even, considering this was my first ever attempt at knooking.

The colourwork was easier than I’d anticipated. I worked the design backwards (mirror image) because I’m left-handed and wasn’t 100% sure if knit stitches are symmetrical (although I think they are) so I thought I’d play it safe. I left yarn ends dangling on the inside while I knooked, and wove them all in later. My only difficulty was my choice of a bouclé yarn for the ‘wool’: it turns out that bouclé is just as challenging to knook with as it is to crochet with!

Before blocking

My finished piece was curling up a lot at the edges, so I used makeshift blocking wires (actually floral wire – I don’t have much need for real blocking wires in my daily life) and some steam blocking to straighten it out (yes, you can steam block acrylic!).

Blocking wires in place

When it was dry, I seamed the sides and attached some buttons to the top. I wasn’t sure how to make the eyes, but in the end I made some from black and white felt strengthened with embroidered buttonhole stitches around the edges. The whole project cost me nothing: all the materials came from my stash (yay!) – even the buttons!

Front

I could see by the end (the top border) that I’d really got the hang of it: my stitches were much more consistent than they had been on the back of the piece, although they really hadn’t been bad to start with. I think I can say that I’ve conquered the basics of knooking, and I’m looking forward to trying out another knitting pattern with my hook!

Back

Have I captured your interest? If you’d like to try knooking, I recommend you check out the Knooking blog (I learnt how to knook from Jen’s excellent how-to videos) and Knooking Ravelry group

Maui insisted on ‘helping’ with the photoshoot!

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I’ve written before about how there are several ways you can finish off a closed piece in amigurumi, and there’s no one ‘best’ method for closing that remaining hole to give the neatest finish. I’d like to officially change my opinion on that point! Here are my previous results:

Since I wrote that post, I’ve been doing more experimenting, and I think I’ve finally found the definitive method to give the best possible finish to a closed piece in amigurumi. It works almost like a Magic Ring (and we all know how good that is!) so that’s why I’ve named this technique the Ultimate Finish for amigurumi:

Where’s the hole? This is the beauty of the Ultimate Finish

(Of course, to get the best finish, you’ll also want to use the Invisible Decrease instead of sc2tog for all your decreases – but that goes without saying, right?)

Ultimate Finish for Amigurumi

The almost-finished stuffed piece, with 6 sc remaining:

Cut the yarn, leaving a long yarn end. Draw the end through the final loop on the hook and thread it onto a yarn needle.

You’ll be using the front loops only for the next stage; those are the loops that are furthest from the hole:

Working in the same direction as you crochet (anticlockwise for right-handers; clockwise for left-handers), insert your needle under the front loop of the next stitch, so the needle goes from the centre of the hole to the outside (below, left). Draw the yarn taut.

Move to the next stitch and repeat: insert the hook under the front loop of the stitch, again going from the middle of the hole to the outside (below, right). Draw the yarn taut, but don’t tighten it fully yet.

Repeat for the remaining stitches until you have woven the needle through all 6 stitches, going from the middle to the outside each time (below, left). Now pull the yarn tight (below, right). The hole will close up just like a magic ring! It does leave a small bump on the outside though…

To get rid of the bump, insert the needle through the middle of the ring you’ve created, going into the piece, and bring it out an inch or two away. Pull the yarn tight and the bump at the closed end will disappear, leaving a nice smooth finish.

Finally, snip the end close to the surface, and the cut end will retract back inside the piece.

It’s nothing revolutionary, but weaving through the loops in this way (always going from middle to outside) and then pulling it closed like a magic ring really does give the best finish I’ve found. Give it a go and let me know what you think of my Ultimate Finish!

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