PlanetJune by June Gilbank

Today I’d like to show you my favourite technique for making a decorative crocheted edging. Reverse single crochet (also known as crab stitch) makes a twisted cord edging, and it’s very easy to achieve – it’s no more than a single crochet stitch, but you work in the opposite direction to usual (left to right for right-handers; right to left for left-handers). Provided you don’t work too fast and tangle up your stitches (which is easy to do when you’re working backwards) it’s an easy technique to master.

As it’s easier to show than to tell, I’ve put together a new video to demonstrate. I hope you’ll find it useful, if you haven’t already mastered this stitch.

(If you want to practice the technique, it’ll be featured in both of my next two patterns, and you’ll get a peek at one of them in the video – another new donationware pattern to be released later this week!)

Reverse Single Crochet (right-handed)

Reverse Single Crochet (left-handed)

Note: The videos may look a little small embedded in the blog: if so, you can fullscreen them or click through to YouTube to watch them in full HD resolution

I’ve been compiling a list of crochet technique videos that I plan to create over the coming months. If you have any suggestions you’d like me to add to my list, please let me know.

If you enjoy my crochet tutorial videos, please help to spread the word about them, and/or subscribe to the PlanetJune YouTube channel.

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There’s been much talk lately about how to share on Pinterest properly: giving credit to the source of your image, and making sure the pin actually links back to the source correctly before you re-pin it. I have an excellent example of why this is so important. Yesterday, I suddenly got a massive traffic spike on my blog and lots of new comments on my shrinkydinks ring tutorial.

When I investigated the source, they were all coming from Pinterest and Tumblr – nothing weird about that. But then I clicked through to see the source, and here’s what I found:

Lovely! Except… not only is this not one of my shrinky rings, but a quick glance made me seriously doubt that it was a shrinky ring at all – there’s no way to make a seamless join with a shrink plastic ring, and this looked smooth and perfect. So why is it being linked to my tutorial?

I clicked through from Pinterest to see the source, and found this:

A tumblr site, with no attribution for the image at all. This is very common with tumblr – people ‘blog’ photos they’ve found online and there’s no link back to where they found the photo, or any information about it. This is why I avoid tumblr: it’s too frustrating to not be given any information about what you’re looking at.

But all is not lost! Thanks to Google’s new Search by Image function, you can enter the URL of a photo and it’ll show you where else that picture appears online. (It’s very useful if you want to see if anyone has been stealing your photos, as well as letting you track down the source for a creditless photo.)

To use the Search by Image feature, go to Google Images and click the little camera icon at the right of the search box:

Go back to your source picture* and grab its URL (right click on the picture; the exact wording of the option varies between browsers but in Chrome it says ‘Copy image URL’), then paste it into the search box:

* Edited to add: you can do this directly from its Pinterest page: don’t click the pin to go to the (supposed) source, just right click the image in Pinterest to get its URL.

After you click ‘Search’, you’ll see links from all over the internet, wherever a webpage uses the same photo. In this case, there are lots of results, and almost all of them are social bookmarking sites:

I ignored all those and looked through until I found one that sounded like it may be the original:

Bingo! And clicking through to Keri’s Autumn Bangle page informs me that this image is, in fact, nothing to do with either shrinky dinks or rings: it’s a bangle, “Designed as a one complete vector image then screened onto thin acetate. Next step, encase in resin for eternity. Sand, buff, wear. This bangle is for sale. If you’d like one, just ask!”

Now, just think how much business Keri may have received as a result of all this exposure, if only the first person to share her photo on Tumblr had credited this page, or her Etsy shop, as the source.

But instead, the anonymous image propagated, and, at some point, someone added the ‘information’ that it was a shrinkydinks ring, and someone else added the link to my tutorial… And, while I’m very happy to see my tutorial reach more eyes, I can’t and won’t take the credit for Keri’s lovely resin bangles! (If you’d like to order a bangle from Keri, her Etsy shop is Par Amour Design.)

A side note: in case you’re thinking of giving up on Pinterest as a source of inspiration, here’s an encouraging sign. Plenty of people are doing it right: a search for “shrinky ring” brings this:

Yep, 14 of those first 15 results are links to my tutorial – and there are many, many more if you scroll down.

So, three points to take away from this:

• Don’t believe everything you read online without question.
• Think before you share a link (whether on your blog, pinterest, twitter, facebook, or anywhere else) and make sure you’re actually linking to the most useful page for your readers!
• If a link doesn’t lead where you expect, a little sleuthing with Google can often turn up what you’re looking for.

Happy browsing…

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After winning the 2011 Flamie Award for Best Crochet Video (Amateur), I feel a little pressure to make my next videos even better, to live up to that honour, especially as I only started the channel last year and have very few videos as yet. So, from now on, my crochet tutorial videos will all be in HD quality, and I hope you’ll be able to see my demonstrations even more clearly. My first HD video is below; I hope you’ll leave me a comment if you liked it!

Amigurumi Seamless Join

Stitching the pieces of an amigurumi together has always been my least favourite part of making amigurumi, as it’s so time-consuming – you have to be extremeley neat and careful to stop your stitches from showing and spoiling the look of the ami. That irk led me to develop and refine this new method that will easily create a practically seamless join between your pieces.

My Amigurumi Seamless Join technique allows you to create an almost invisible join in amigurumi when you stitch an open-ended piece to a closed piece. This is the type of join you’ll use for almost all amigurumi joining, for example: joining a muzzle and ears to a head; or joining a head, legs, and a tail to a body. (The only time you can’t use this method is when a pattern calls for you to join two open pieces together; in that case, whipstitching makes the best join.)

I hope you’ll watch the video and then give my Seamless Join method a try on your next amigurumi: I guarantee that your joins will look smoother and neater, with much less time and effort on your part.

Amigurumi Seamless Join (right-handed)

Amigurumi Seamless Join (left-handed)

Note: The videos may look a little small embedded in the blog: if so, you can fullscreen them or click through to YouTube to watch them full-sized

If you enjoy my crochet tutorial videos, please help to spread the word about them, and/or subscribe to the PlanetJune YouTube channel.

And, in case you missed my announcement last week, the crochet pattern for the Dimetrodon dino featured in this video is now available in my shop, both individually, and as part of my new pattern set: Dinosaurs Set 3.

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I somehow stumbled into a personal holiday tradition of crafting a different poinsettia every year. With the exception of my first poinsettia (because I was a novice blogger back then and the idea hadn’t occurred to me, so I only have a quick guide that I wrote in the comments of that post) I have a full (free) pattern available for each of my holiday poinsettias – see the links below the pics if you’d like to make your own!

Top (L-R): 2006 kanzashi poinsettia; 2007 crocheted poinsettia 
Bottom (L-R) 2008 polymer clay poinsettia; 2009 punchneedle poinsettia

So similar, and yet each has its own style. I love this tradition I created! I wonder how long I can keep thinking of new poinsettias to add to the collection…

The 2010 PlanetJune Poinsettia is almost a return to that very first kanzashi poinsettia, but with a twist: to keep it fast and simple, it’s made from felt. It would make a beautiful gift topper or table decoration, and you can increase the size to make it as big as you want – just cut the green squares slightly larger than the red, and you’ll be fine!

I had intended to make a fancy-schmancy version too, in purple and white, with embroidered petals and leaves, but you’ll have to imagine how lovely that would have been (in my head, at least, it’s stunningly beautiful) – sadly, it’s already too close to Christmas and I just don’t have any more time to spare. Maybe that can be my next year’s holiday poinsettia

Anyway, I hope you’ll enjoy my 2010 poinsettia design!

Go to the Felt Poinsettia tutorial >>

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I’m going through a bit of a rough time at the moment, trying to sort through all my stuff to sell/donate/pack so we can make the house look uncluttered and get it on the market before we make the big move to South Africa. Although I have about 10 blog posts’ worth of tutorials and information inside my head, it’s proving difficult to find the time to actually write any of them! If anyone tells you that moving to another country (that uses a different voltage, so everything electrical will have to be sold and re-bought at the other end) is easy and non-stressful, they are lying…

But anyway. I’ve managed to squeeze in the time to make an easy Christmas craft: a Pom-pom Christmas tree!

A few weeks ago, I picked up some Clover Pom-Pom Makers, for no reason at all except they look like fun and I doubt I’d be able to find them in South Africa. They are very clever, by the way: very fast and so much easier than having to pass the yarn through the centre of a ring each time! I’ll review them properly in another post when I have more time…

And now to the Pom-Pom Christmas tree tutorial:

__(‘Read the rest of this entry »’)

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