PlanetJune by June Gilbank

or, Why I Love Twitter…

Yesterday I had a thought about the “tr” abbreviation in crochet. I know that some people call it a triple crochet stitch, and others call it a treble crochet stitch, but I haven’t seen any clear differentiation for why or when you should use one or the other.

This is one of those occasions when I really wish there were universal crochet standards! In this internet age, it seems so arbitrary and confusing that what I call a ‘single crochet’ stitch is known as a ‘double crochet’ stitch in the UK and Australia (and similarly for almost every other crochet stitch).

My initial guess was that ‘treble’ was the UK name, and ‘triple’ the US name, but my go-to site for these questions, YarnStandards.com (a US site) states that tr is the abbreviation for treble crochet, so that can’t be right…

Time to turn to Twitter to poll my network of crocheting friends! I tweeted:

and within seconds the replies started flooding in (here’s a sample):

Thank you to everyone who responded! With all the votes counted (37 total), my results were 22 votes for triple vs 15 for treble. From what I can tell, UK folks say treble, and everyone else seemed split between the two options. @ThingsBright said that vintage US patterns use treble, and the new US convention is triple – which sounds right to me (although YarnStandards.com hasn’t made the change to triple).

So, should you use triple crochet or treble crochet in your crochet patterns? Apparently, unless you’re writing in US/Aus crochet terminology, the choice is yours!

I’ve decided I’m going to cast my vote in the triple camp, but write triple (treble) crochet in my patterns, to avoid confusion.

I’ve been planning a cactus collection for a few months now – I know I’m not exactly the first person to come up with the idea to make a crocheted cactus, but my idea was to make my designs more realistic than the cartoonish cacti I’ve seen before.

I always like to base my patterns on solid research so they look as realistic as possible, and when I started to investigate, I found a huge number of really interesting-looking cacti to crochetify: I started out sketching 8 different types, and then had so many great ideas for how to create them, I couldn’t decide which to cut!

I spent a lot of time developing different techniques and effects for each cactus, so I hope you can see that it’s not the same basic pattern with tweaks for size and shape here: each cactus is completely different from all the others.

8 plant designs plus 2 pots seemed a bit excessive for one pattern – that’s almost a book, not a pattern! – so my solution was to split the patterns over two cactus collections: you can buy your favourite collection without breaking the bank, or buy both (at a huge discount!) and mix-and-match cacti from each collection to create your perfect cactus garden.

Cactus Collection 1

Cactus Collection 1

Each collection comes with both the individual-sized pot pattern and the larger cactus garden pot pattern:

• An individual cactus makes a quick and sweet gift – or you can anthropomorphize it with some eyes and a smiley mouth to make a super-cute version!
• Two or three (or more) individual cactus pots look great arranged in a line along your windowsill.
• The larger cactus garden makes a beautiful decoration – and you’ll never have that problem where one of the collection dies and you’re left with a big empty space in the pot!

Cactus Collection 2

Cactus Collection 2

If you’d like to buy either or both of the Cactus Collection patterns, you can find them all in my shop. Don’t forget that there’s huge savings to be had if you buy the set of both collections.

As a special bonus for my newsletter subscribers, Twitter followers and Facebook fans, I’ll be giving out a special discount code to use with these patterns this week – so look out for that too!

Collection 1 includes (clockwise, from top left): Notocactus, Moon Cactus, Mammillaria, Echinocereus.

Collection 2 includes (clockwise, from top left): Micranthocereus, Cephalocereus, Opuntia (Paddle Cactus), Ferocactus (Barrel Cactus).

Which is your favourite?

UPDATE: adding some clearer links to where you can find the patterns:
Buy Cactus Collection 1
Buy Cactus Collection 2
Buy Cactus Collections 1 & 2 (at a bargain price!)

The blog is a little quiet because I’m playing a waiting game at the moment, so I don’t have a lot I can blog about yet:

• Waiting for my new book to be released (less than 6 weeks to go!)
• Waiting to see an advance copy – they should be printed by now and I can’t describe just how nervously excited I am that I’ll soon be able to hold a copy in my hands… (And then I’ll be able to finally share some details with you!)
• Waiting to announce my new secret project that I’m busying away at behind the scenes…
• Waiting to finally complete my 2 new crochet patterns that I’ve been working on for weeks – they expanded in scope far beyond what I originally imagined, so it’s taking much longer than I’d anticipated to write and photograph the instructions.

These yarns have morphed into something special – I hope you’ll agree when I reveal my new designs early next week!

In the meantime, I’m working on so many projects at once, it feels like nothing is getting finished, and I miss that satisfied feeling of having completed a project. It’s made doubly scary as August is always a quiet month for sales (if you have a business, do you find that too, or is it just me?!), so I’m working hard with nothing to show for it yet and not that much money coming in either.

Ah, the perils of self-employment…

Normal service will resume shortly, I’m sure

Here’s a realistic amigurumi apple: it’s not just a ball with a stalk attached, it’s actually the shape and size of a real apple!

Can you spot which is the real apple? Haha!

Give one to your (or your child’s!) favourite teacher, make a bowlful in red and green as a decorative centrepiece, or add a pair of safety eyes and an embroidered smile to make a sweet-as-apple-pie toy.

It’s so realistic I almost want to take a bite

The apples crochet pattern is free for you to use. If you’d like to thank me with a donation, you’ll get a handy printable PDF version of the pattern as a thank you

Enjoy!

Go to Amigurumi Apples pattern >>

I just returned from the summer Tent Sale at the Yarn Factory Outlet in Listowel, ON. Twice a year, they have a big sale, and I’ve been to the past two winter sales, but never to the summer sale before.

It’s about an hour’s drive from my house, through farmland and Mennonite country, and today I had an added surprise: the highway was closed for a stretch, and I got to take a scenic diversion through even more of the countryside. It turns out that the drive is so much nicer in August than in February: I saw 2 hawks perched on a signpost, skipping lambs following their mothers, countless cows with calves, and big horses with adorably fragile-looking foals. If the sun had only been shining, it would have been a perfect drive!

And then when I got there, I discovered that the yarn sale is also better than their winter sale! They put up a huge tent in the parking lot, filled with huge boxes of bagged yarn, 3, 4 or 6 balls per bag (same shade and dye lot in each bag) with crazy prices on the bags and then, on top of that, if you buy 3 bags of the same yarn, you get the 4th for free!

Despite the gloomy day, it was stuffy and humid outside, so you can just imagine what it was like inside the crowded tent. But it was worth it. Everyone was handed an extra-strong black garbage bag on the way in, to use as a shopping bag, which I thought was overkill until I started shopping. 24 balls of yarn is large and heavy, and the deals were too good to stop at only 24!

I managed to restrain myself and only bought 4 bags (24 balls) each of Patons Grace and Bernat Satin. And that took some serious willpower – seeing yarn that usually costs $4-5 per skein being sold at $4 for a bag of 3 skeins… Ah, the temptation!

My haul!

The only downside was that I didn’t have any cash with me – the cash-only till had no queue at it, but the two debit/credit tills moved very slowly. I ended up spending about half an hour shopping, and another hour standing in the stuffy tent waiting to pay. But when I finally got back outside, there was a little refreshments tent, selling hot and cold drinks and fresh baked goods, so I got myself a little energy boost before the drive home

Today was the first day of the sale, and it runs through to August 21st. If you live in driving distance of Listowel, Ontario, I highly recommend you take a trip to the Yarn Factory Outlet this week or next. You won’t regret it!