PlanetJune

I’m so glad you guys like my tiny designs! I unfortunately don’t have the time to reply to every blog comment I receive, but I always reply to any questions you ask in the comments (either by e-mail or on the blog, if I think it’s something others may want to know the answer to as well). And want to assure you that I read and appreciate every comment I receive. Thank you, and please keep on commenting!

Thanks to your feedback, I’ve decided these tiny crocheted animals will be a new range of patterns, and I have a new theme in mind (although no name yet - I’m working on it). Here’s the latest mini ami: a teeny tiny mouse. I’m keeping him away from my cat, as I think, especially with a little catnip inside, this would make a very tempting cat toy (with yarn or felt eyes for safety, of course)!

Like the others, he’s only about 3″ long (plus tail) and he is super simple to make.

I’ll let on what the pattern theme for these little ones will be when I’ve come up with a couple more designs. Any preference over whether you’d like them to be released individually or as value-priced sets (or both)? Let me know - I love to get your feedback!

Yesterday’s amigurumi piglet needed a friend. Here is the smallest, simplest bunny I could dream up:

If you’re interested, there will be patterns for the pig and the bunny - sign up for my mailing list if you’d like to know when they are available

And now I have a question for you. I could keep designing these simple tiny ami for just about every variety of animal out there. They are a joy to make because they are so small and easy to whip up. Would you like to see some more (a whole new mini pattern range), or is two enough? Help me to decide!

PS - Catherine Andrews: please contact me with an alternate e-mail address. I keep getting a delivery failure when I try to send your patterns to the e-mail address you use for PayPal!

Sometimes a quick project is the most satisfying. He was quick to design and easy to crochet, but my amigurumi piglet does make me smile:

He may be small (about 3″ long) but he has big ambitions! This little piggy is hoping for a grand adventure - I’ll have to see what I can do about that…

One of my personal challenges for my other blog, Crochet Along, is to come up with a banner design to reflect the new blog theme every two months. I try not to be influenced by my personal preferences for colour, style, etc and I think it’s helping to improve my graphic design skills.

I thought I’d share how I came up with my design for the new Summer Crochet theme.

First, find source graphics. I looked through stock photography sites for royalty-free photos that matched my design concept (’orange’ in this case), and made sure to only save images that had no copyright restrictions or required credit to use - no copyright infringements here!

When I had saved about 20 images, I looked at them all together on the screen and eliminated them one by one until I had narrowed them down to my final source images (I took the crochet hooks photo myself):

After that, it’s time to cut, paste, resize, arrange, change colours, erase unwanted backgrounds, and add some text. Here’s the end result:

If you’d like to see the full sized banner, or you’d like some Summer-themed crocheting fun, head over and join the Crochet Along!

Reporting back after day two of the show. Sunday was a lot quieter than Saturday, although I still had a lot of interest in my patterns. In the quiet periods, I managed to sneak away to wander around the show for a while, and pick up some new toys - some quilling paper, a bias tape maker, and a new light-up crochet hook, so now I have my three favourite sizes: E, G and H.

Best of all, the owner of Bears and Bedtime gave me a quick demo in needlefelting, which I’ve been wanting to try for months, and I found that, despite my wool sensitivity, my hands seemed okay with it - yay! So I bought some felting needles and a bag of mixed colours of wool roving (and aren’t these colours perfect for my animals?). Now I just have to find some time to try out all my new craft purchases…

To the eagle-eyed commenters on my last post, yes, you’ve spotted my hidden projects:

1) Looks like the cat is out of the bag with my ice cream bear! He is going to appear in the Summer issue of A Needle Pulling Thread magazine, together with an article about my crocheting. ANPT is a wonderful magazine featuring Canadian designers and artists and it covers the full spectrum of needle arts in every issue, with each artist contributing an article and a project. My ice cream bear is the reason I got to set up my display at their booth and work on my crochet throughout the show - thank you, Carla and John, for sharing your space with me!

2) I chose to finally make a start on my crocheted orang utan (I bought the yarn for it way back last August). As a break from pattern designing, I’m doing this one freeform. This gives me more freedom to experiment and figure out some new techniques, which may then find their way into future pattern designs!

So far, I’ve just made the arms. Each finger is individually wired, so the hands are completely poseable. A lot of people wanted to look at them, although one girl let out a little shriek when she saw the disembodied arm!

Now on to the subject you’ll be most interested in if you are a crafter thinking about doing a show: the festival itself…

This was my first real offline experience of putting myself out there as a crochet designer, and it was amazing! Watching people’s reactions to my designs, hearing them call their friends over to come and see, and being able to interact face to face with the public are things you really miss out on as an online seller. I think people appreciated being able to actually pick up my work and take a closer look - no matter how good your photography is, it’s never quite the same as letting people actually touch your work. And getting to see small things, like the little girl who picked up and cuddled every animal I’d brought, and then refused to move on until she had kissed every single one goodbye… there’s no way you can get that kind of feedback through e-mail.

Another thing that was interesting was seeing the kind of people who were interested in my work - I never usually get to find out that kind of demographic information. I met people ranging from 8 year olds who were just learning to crochet and teenagers who wanted to know how to get started, right through to 80 year olds with decades of experience, and women of just about every age in between. I met lots of amazing creative people, made some new friends (hi Rose!), and even met a few people who already knew me from the online world or were previous customers, which was surreal but very cool!

I can’t tell you about how the financial side of it worked out, since I didn’t have my own booth, and I wasn’t actually selling anything at the show… I displayed some finished pieces, worked on my orang utan, and answered people’s questions, but I also brought a portfolio with the cover pages of all my patterns for people to flip through, and I gave out over 200 PlanetJune business cards and postcards, so I hope a lot of the people I met will be visiting my site once they get back home.

Oh, and my PlanetJune t-shirt was a hit - several people even asked where I got it printed! Maybe I should start up a side business

Overall, the show experience was fantastic. It’s a bit daunting to jump in without the protection and anonymity of the internet, and by the end of the weekend I was totally exhausted, but I’m so pleased to have had this experience. I would definitely encourage other online-only crafty businesspeople to consider getting out there and introducing people to your craft in person once in a while!

I found some interesting yarn while I was in the UK last week - it’s actually the same yarn that wibit uses for a lot of her lovely designs. I decided to try it out with one of my AmiDogs patterns and see what happened…

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It’s like magic, really. Any guesses which AmiDog this originally was? You’ve got at least a 1/9 chance of getting it right I kept the pattern exactly the same (except for hook size and colour changes) and assembled it a bit differently, so this dog is sitting down instead of standing. The fluffy yarn makes a huge difference to the dog’s appearance:

I thought I might end up with some sort of terrier, but once I’d trimmed the fluff around the beard area, my little dog was unquestionably a Miniature Schnauzer pup:

This experiment has given me some ideas for some longer-haired AmiDogs. I just need to find a suitable yarn that’s readily available in North America.

It’s still winter here. The snow hasn’t melted yet, and it feels like it’s been winter forever! I can’t wait any longer for spring to arrive, so I decided to create some spring for myself…

Here’s my vase of crocheted daffodils - a bit of instant springtime!

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I’ve written up the pattern for you - it’s another Donationware pattern, so it’s free to view and, if you like it, you can send me a thank you payment. I hope you enjoy it!

>> Continue to the Daffodils free pattern instructions >>

I’ve tried something a bit different for my latest design for the AquaAmi range. My sea turtle is made with two colours of yarn, but is still all worked in single crochet in the round (apart from a few rogue hdcs). He is one of my largest and most ambitious designs to date, at 11″ (28cm) long from nose to tail, with a 12.5″ (32cm) flipper-span!

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I’ve designed him so his head and limbs appear to stick out of holes in his shell. The top and bottom of his shell are each formed from 10 hexagons. Yes, that is a lot of stitching together, but I think it was worth it!

Some fun sea turtle facts I discovered while researching for this design:

• Sea turtles, unlike other turtles, cannot retract their heads and limbs into their shells
• Sea turtles have evolved streamlined shells and large front flippers so they can ‘fly’ through the water
• Sea turtles spend almost their whole lives at sea, but females return to the same beach they were born to lay their eggs
• You can tell females from males as the females have a very short tail

Here’s his belly:

Once I have finished writing up and illustrating all the steps that go into making him, you’ll be able to make your own Sea Turtle! Join my mailing list if you’d like to know when the pattern is available.

What do you think of him? I hope you love him as much as I do!

I decided I was being unfair by making my corgi design only apply to tailless Pembroke Welsh Corgis, so here is a Cardigan Welsh Corgi modification:

(The corgi pattern will include both versions!)

For everyone who is waiting, the AmiDogs Set 3 patterns will be available very shortly…

By popular demand, I finally designed a german shepherd (also known as an Alsatian, for any Brits reading this):

A big thanks to Kris and Kassie for your design feedback!

It’s difficult to see his nose (black on black) but you can see it’s there from the profile of the face. I also just realised that the angle of these pictures don’t really show it, but the black from the dog’s back carries over into the base of the tail.

Now to finish the patterns… AmiDogs Set 3 (Husky, Corgi & German Shepherd) should be ready to purchase (individually or as a set) within the next few days; please sign up for my mailing list if you’d like to be notified when the set is available.