PlanetJune by June Gilbank

A Personal Note

I’m not telling you my current woe-is-me story to ask for sympathy (not that it wouldn’t be welcome!) but to explain what’s going on with PlanetJune, why I’m so quiet lately, why I’ve fallen behind with my design commissions, and why the situation should be improving very soon!

Last week, we suffered a burst pipe leaking through an electrical outlet at home, which threw off my plans for the whole week while the house was filled with first water (well, a flooded kitchen) and then plumbers and electricians, and we had no hot water, shower or stove for the best part of a week.

This couldn’t have come at a worse time, as I now have only one week left on my visa and it’s going to be a mad scramble for the finish to apply for the new one in time. All this stress and worry is affecting me badly, with crippling tension headaches, eczema, and insomnia.

My Red Panda design was actually finished a couple of weeks ago, but I can’t muster the focus I need to complete the pattern to the PlanetJune level of detail and clarity, so the only option I have is to delay – a sub-standard pattern is not an option!

I’ve decided to stop trying to work on the Red Panda until the immigration stuff is out of the way – the added pressure just makes me feel even worse, and I’m really not making any progress on the pattern. Instead, I’m working on several simpler patterns, and making gradual progress on some longer-term design ideas, so there will be more good stuff coming

And, once the visa applications are in, I won’t have to do anything else except wait, so I should be able to rest and rejuvenate very soon and then get back to business as usual – and a lovely Red Panda pattern! In the meantime, thank you so much for your continued patience.

Review and Win contest

May’s ‘Review and Win’ winner is Kathryn P, with her review of my Baby Cephalopods:

I love how quick these work up! I made all four in an evening while watching tv, and they are so cute! Patterns are straightforward and do not require sewing together a crazy number of pieces, plus the end product is cute and realistic. I definitely recommend this set!

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

Reptiles & Amphibians CAL

The June CAL is an extended 6-week CAL to take us through to mid-July and give you plenty of time to complete one or more patterns. The Reptiles & Amphibians theme includes all my dinosaur, lizard, turtle and frog designs:

For easy browsing, you can find all these patterns in one place in my shop by clicking this special link: all PlanetJune Reptile & Amphibian patterns.

Please join us in the PlanetJune group on Ravelry for this 6-week CAL – I think it’s going to be a colourful one!

A Personal Note

I’ve been trying to put on a brave face, but I’m really struggling at the moment: my life, especially this immigration-related stuff, has got insanely stressful. I’m still doing what I can for PlanetJune, but stress and creativity don’t mix well, and my progress is frustratingly slow.

This situation won’t last forever (and I have lots of ideas waiting in the wings for when my mojo returns!) – I just wanted to explain why I’ll be unusually quiet for a while, especially on Twitter and Facebook.

Okay, enough about that!

Review and Win contest

April’s ‘Review and Win’ winner is Kim W, with her review of my Orca (Killer Whale):

This pattern is very detailed. The many color changes were very time consuming, but not difficult and the finished product was worth the effort. I appreciated the the tips on exactly where to sew on the flippers. I was able to get them to look right the fist time.

I’m glad you enjoyed it, Kim! Congrats – I’ll email you to find out which pattern you’d like as your prize

May Flowers CAL

Which of my botanical patterns (flowers, plants and fruit) do you like best? Why not make it for the May Flowers CAL this month? You’ll find all the details in the PlanetJune Ravelry group.

NB: All the patterns are available in the Flowers & Plants section of my shop, except the Mushroom and Toadstool, which are exclusively available in my book: The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Amigurumi. And if you’re short on cash, 10 of the patterns are donationware, so you can use them for free (or pay what you can)!

It’s all go for me at the moment: we have to renew our visas so we can stay in South Africa, and we’re applying for permanent residency too. As much as I’d like PlanetJune to be my top priority at all times, I have to renew my passport from abroad, get police clearances from various countries, get X-rays and medical reports, liaise with a lawyer, and all the rest of the rigamarole that goes along with immigration stuff. That’s all quite stressful and time-consuming – bureaucracy here is never fast, cheap or easy – but I have to believe it will, eventually, all get sorted out.

As a result, you may notice I’m also a little quieter on social media at the moment – I don’t want to be that person who tweets about every trial and tribulation, so that means there may be days/weeks where I have nothing to say. If I’m quiet, just assume I’m still working hard, dividing my time between my business and all this other stuff, and inching closer to the point where this new stress is nothing more than a memory and I’m free to devote 100% of my attention to PlanetJune again!

Review and Win contest

March’s ‘Review and Win’ winner is Susan S, with her review of my Sea Otter:

Made the sea otter and his clam shells recently, and everyone who sees him is amazed. Has far more personality and is more “realistic” than other sea otter patterns I considered. The pattern is clear and easy to follow, and contains excellent tips.

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

Forgotten Gems CAL

Every month, in my monthly newsletter, I give a discount code for a ‘Forgotten Gem’ of a pattern – one that, for some reason, hasn’t enjoyed as much popularity as it deserves. All 17 of the previously featured Forgotten Gems patterns are included in the April crochet-along, so there’s a lot of variety including both amigurumi and accessories:

From the chatter in the CAL thread, it seems like the Chunky Elegance Rug Trio and Aardvark patterns are going to be popular CAL choices this month! If you’d like to join in too, we’d love to welcome you in the PlanetJune group on Ravelry.

PocketAmi Re-releases

My pattern re-release project is making progress, and today the PocketAmi (individual Sets 1-6 and the multipack deal of Sets 1 & 2) are all available in the new format, and any you’ve previously purchased are ready for you to download! Log back into your PlanetJune account at any time in the next 2 weeks and you’ll see the download buttons for all your past PocketAmi pattern purchases have been re-enabled, so you can click and download the new versions.

If you have any questions about the pattern reformat project, or you received the patterns through a different mechanism (and so don’t have an order for them in the PlanetJune shop) but you’d still like the new versions, I’ve set up a Pattern Re-Release FAQ that should answer all your questions. I’ll keep it updated throughout this project and add any further questions that arise.

Craft Business Help

I’ve amassed quite a collection of helpful information posts on various aspects of running a craft business, but I just realised they aren’t too easy for you to find, as my Craft Business category also included posts about my own business. To solve this, I’ve separated the old Craft Business category into My Craft Business and Craft Business Help. Now you’ll easily be able to find my helpful articles! Craft Business Help includes my advice on:

• Selling crafts and patterns online
• Beating craft business overwhelm
• The secret of my success
• Pricing amigurumi
• PayPal and rights for digital sellers
• 3 tips for aspiring designers
• Inspiration/influence vs copying: drawing the line

…and more! So if you’d like my advice that may help you with your craft business, check out the Craft Business Help category from the Categories menu in the right sidebar, or the Blog > View by Category menu at the top of this page

Stash Replenishment!

You may have guessed that one of the hardest things for me about living in South Africa is the lack of access to the craft supplies I’m accustomed to. So I took full advantage of my husband’s business trip to the US and restocked my stash a little – two years with no shopping is a very long time, so I had some catching up to do (within the limitation of suitcase size)!

Now I have new needles, hooks and notions to play with…

New yarn shades for future amigurumi designs…

And some yarn for new accessories…

Actually, the KnitPicks Reverie yarn (fluffy baby alpaca!) on the right is destined to become my next knitted sweater, but I don’t have any specific plans for the rest as yet. The funny thing is that I ordered my non-amigurumi yarn over several weeks from several different online shops, and I had no idea until I unpacked Dave’s suitcase that I seem to have something of a teal obsession going on – I picked all my yarn from the same colour family without realising it! I guess that means you can expect to see several new teal-coloured PlanetJune Accessories popping up over the coming months/years…

Review and Win contest

February’s ‘Review and Win’ winner is Sara T, with her review of my Baby Cephalopods 1: Octopus & Squid:

Baby Octopus & Squid are on the left in these photos.

These are so much fun!! Directions are clear with lots of pictures, and the finished products are adorable. They worked up for me in about an hour and a half, and they are the cutest cephalopods I’ve ever seen! I am very satisfied with these patterns.

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

February CALs

The Baby Cephalopods and other AquaAmi are already starting to multiply in the Ceph-Along (& friends) CAL thread on ravelry. There’s still plenty of time to join in – the CAL runs all month and you can make a cephalopod in an hour or so! One thing I love about these patterns is how few pieces they have; there’s almost no sewing to do (bliss when you’re used to having to stitch head, muzzle, body, 2 ears, 4 legs, and a tail for one animal…)

It’s rare that I’m still excited enough about a new pattern to want to make more immediately, but I really can’t resist the cephalopods – they’re just so quick and fun to make. I’ve just bought this insanely-coloured yarn that I think will make wonderful colour-changing cephalopods (I can’t imagine any other uses for it – no wonder the shop had only this colourway left):

I’ll be joining in the CAL myself, to see if my gut feeling is correct and I can turn this exuberance of colour into a set of amazing cephalopods….

And if you’re making hearts and roses from my free patterns, don’t forget to share them in the Valentine’s CAL thread before the 14th and I’ll include your photos in the roundup here!

Review and Win contest

January’s ‘Review and Win’ winner is Emily W, with her review of my ever-popular Baby Bunnies:

I ABSOLUTELY ADORE THIS PATTERN!!! As soon as I saw the bunny pictures on June’s blog, I was absolutely ecstatic!!! I had previously looked everywhere for a realistic bunny pattern, but hadn’t found anything that looked promising.

As soon as I bought the pattern, I was immediately swept up in a colony of bunnies – I just couldn’t stop making them! The pattern is SUPER easy, even with the odd increases and decreases needed for the shaping. June explains the concepts needed so well, such as the entire page devoted to explaining angora bunny-brushing techniques! I’m also really glad that, unlike some other designers, June always pays great attention to important details, such as: where to put the eyes and ears, and where to put the feet so the bunny doesn’t flop forward or look like it’s pregnant (I speak from experience from my own attempts at designing a bunny pattern… did NOT turn out well ) Most of all, I love the fact that the bunny pattern is so easy to customize to look like your own bunny.

Everyone I make bunnies from this pattern for loves the results. This pattern will DEFINITELY become my last-minute birthday present pattern! Thank you SO MUCH for yet another wonderful pattern, June!!!!

You’re welcome, Emily, and thanks for the lovely review – I’ll email you to find out which pattern you’d like as your prize

And for everyone else, Baby Bunnies will be part of the next PlanetJune CAL (Spring/Easter theme), starting Feb 15th, so get ready for BunnyFest 2013, coming soon to a ravelry group near you…

This post isn’t PlanetJune-related but I do love a bargain and I’ve found some crafty deals you might like too, so I wanted to share them! If you’re waiting for a crochet post, I’ll have a brand new pattern collection to reveal, next week…

MOO card winners and discount codes

Thanks to everyone who entered my MOO giveaway! I wish you could all win – it was great to hear about your small businesses, crafty ventures and good ideas that could benefit from some MOO cards.

But there can only be 3 winners, and random.org tells me they are Kati, Diana Mullins-Atkinson, and Katie. Congratulations to you all!

I’ll email you to notify you of this too, but I’ll be passing your names and email addresses along to Dan at MOO and he’ll contact you to arrange your prize – your choice of 50 Classic Business Cards or 100 MiniCards

Now, if you didn’t win, but thinking about what you’d do with your MOO cards has got you all excited, I have another offer for you! With my order, I received 5 discount codes each worth 15% off your first order at MOO, and I’d like to share them with people who can make use of them. Here’s what I have:

• 3x 15% off your entire order
• 1x 15% off any 1 product (the cheapest, if you order more than one item)
• 1x 15% off 1 pack of MiniCards

As I don’t know how many people may want them, and people read my blog at different times of day, I think the fairest thing would be to give you a 24-hour window to let me know if you want a code.

• If you haven’t ordered from MOO before and would like to now, please leave a comment below to let me know. (If you could also say if you’d be happy with any of the codes or you need one in particular, I’ll try to match the winners with their requests so the codes will do the most good!)
• If there are more than 5 requests, 24 hours from now, I’ll randomly draw 5 to get the codes.
• If there are less than 5 requests in 24 hours, I’ll keep this offer going until I’ve received 5 requests and given out all the codes!

UPDATE 27 Jan: All the codes have now been claimed! I’m glad they’ve found good homes. Chrisie, Aimee, Amanda W, milla1222, Karina – I’ll email your codes to you tomorrow. Hope you enjoy your discounted MOO orders

Try Zinio for free

I must confess I’m quite addicted to Zinio now – it’s made buying magazines so easy that I’ve bought digital subscriptions to crochet magazines, and also to some knitting titles (for clothing inspiration and techniques), and Ideas magazine (for some local South African crafty flavour). It also makes it really easy to pick up a one-off back issue of a magazine that has a pattern or article you want, which is very handy!

Anyway, I found an amazing offer to try $50 of Zinio managzines for free – you have to activate it by January 31st, so hurry and get on it if you’d like to take advantage of this deal too! There’s a wide selection of magazines to choose from and, although there aren’t any crochet mags included, there are two knitting titles and a nice selection of other crafty magazines, as well as food, home, lifestyle, computers, photography, music, sports, etc etc.

Here’s what you need to do:

1. Click here and then click ‘Claim Coupon’ to get started.
2. Once you get your code, copy and paste it somewhere safe (so you can log back in again later and choose more magazines).
3. Login here to redeem your voucher.
4. Don’t worry if nothing happens when you’ve selected your magazines – you’ll be emailed the links in a couple of days. I’ve tried it and it does work; it just takes a while!

Now, here’s how I made the deal even better for myself. You don’t have to order all 18 magazines at once, and you have 90 days to redeem them. So:

1. Keep a note of your voucher code – you’ll need it to log back in later.
2. Select single issues, not subscription, to get the latest issue and be able to choose 18 different magazines.
3. Some magazines only have a 1-issue subscription available, but if you log back into the redemption page in a month (or whenever the next issue comes out), you’ll be able to get the next issue of the same magazine free too! A handy tip: you’ll receive whichever issue has its cover pictured on the page at the time you redeem your voucher.

I hope you enjoy these deals. Don’t forget to leave a comment requesting a MOO code, if you’d like one!

Review: e-magazines

I’ve only bought 2 or 3 crochet magazines over the past few years; to me they are expensive to buy, hard to find, and awkward to store. Now I know about digital magazines, though, I’ve changed my mind. I can read the latest magazines on my tablet and PC without the problem of storing years of back issues or having to throw out old issues to make room for new ones. Availability is a huge plus too: you can buy e-magazines from anywhere in the world for the same price, whereas finding the printed magazines outside North America is difficult and expensive, and you can download the latest issues as soon as they are released.

I hadn’t even heard of Zinio, a digital magazine provider, until they offered me some subscriptions to give away last month. My concern about e-magazines was that my magazines may be tied to one device, but, I can log into my Zinio account from all my devices (I have a desktop PC, laptop and Nexus 7 tablet) and download my subscriptions to any/all of them at no additional cost. That also means if I lose or replace a device, I won’t have lost my magazines, as they’ll all still be available from my account.

Now I can enjoy an e-mag while I crochet

I’ve really been enjoying the subscriptions Zinio gave me, and I wanted to let you know that, if you didn’t win my contest (or even if you did!), today (January 7th) is the last day to take advantage of their holiday sale. These are such great deals I couldn’t resist, so I just treated myself to another year’s subscription each of Crochet Today! and Interweave Crochet – only $10 for a whole year of one of these crochet magazines is a real bargain:

Update: As of today (Jan 14), Crochet Today! is still only $10 for an annual subscription

If you’re interested, click on the magazine cover photos above, and they’ll take you straight through so you can buy a subscription at Zinio. These are affiliate links, so I’ll make a few cents from your purchase, but this is a genuine recommendation – $10 for a year of each of these magazines seems like too good a deal to pass up, and I didn’t want you to miss out if you’d like to take advantage before this crazy sale ends today!

Pet-Along CAL

The January crochet-along is going well: we’re making pet animals this month, and we already have amigurumi dogs, hamsters, bunnies, an alpaca, and a gecko entered! Most of the pattern options are below – they’re all available from my shop except the Hamsters, which you’ll find in my book.

You can find the CAL details, and a bonus CAL discount on the PocketAmi Pets pattern, in the PlanetJune Ravelry group…
 

Review and Win contest

December’s ‘Review and Win’ winner is Nicole D, with her review of my Fuzzy Guinea Pig:

Perfection! A true embodiment of a guinea pig. Your little guy will come to life under your fingers, his shape forming readily with each stitch. He has bumps in all the right places and the loveable guinea bottom all owners come to adore.

I made one of these for my sister in law after her guinea pig passed and he elicited a squeal of excitement, a cuddle and easily an hour laminating on how lifelike he looks.

June’s pattern is remarkably easy to follow and contains everything you need to know to craft yourself a new friend.

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

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!

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.

Earn more with the PlanetJune Affiliate program

Did you know you can join the PlanetJune Affiliate program, and make 5% of the total of any orders that come when you refer people to my shop?

When I sent out the third-quarter payments to members, I noticed that some affiliates hadn’t reached the $2 minimum for payout, and a few hadn’t made any sales through their affiliate links. I want you to succeed – larger affiliate payments to you means more new customers for me, so we all win!

I’ve come up with some Top Earning Tips to help you earn more through the program. If you’re a new affiliate, or would like to earn more through the program, read on for my top 3 tips for success…

Go to PlanetJune Affiliates: Top Earning Tips >>

Review and Win contest

October’s ‘Review and Win’ winner is Brigitta W, with her review of the pattern that launched my PlanetJune business, Fuzzy Bear:

Just finished my first bear and it looks just like the pictures! (which is not always the case, lol) The pattern is written so well and was so easy to follow I completed the bear in only a couple of hours. As it was for a baby I used a soft baby yarn with very little fuzz. (I didn’t want alot of fuzz for the baby to suck on) Although the stiches could be seen it did not take away fron the cuteness of the bear. I also stictched on the eyes and nose with yarn (and thanks to Junes recent post on eye placement, went very smoothly) I did have a little trouble with attaching the pieces but nothing that caused a great problem and I figured out some tricks to help me the next time. This will be a pattern I will use again and again. I highly recomend it!

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

To be entered into this month’s draw for a free pattern of your choice, just write a review of any product in my shop – thank you!

New Donationware

With Christmas approaching, I wanted to make sure I had all my seasonal craft tutorials available as easy-to-print donationware for you. Now you can find all 5 Poinsettias (made with crochet, punchneedle, beaded, felt, and polymer clay) and my Pom-Pom Christmas Tree instructions available as PDFs in the shop for a minimum donation of $1 apiece:

You can easily find them all – and my other seasonal patterns – by searching for Christmas in my shop.

And my new Christmas crochet pattern is on its way too – all being well, I hope to launch it later this week…