I worked so hard all day yesterday (on the secret project) that I was begging myself to do something relaxing and unrelated to work last night, so I got out the polymer clay and started mixing colours to make a Strawberry Poison-Dart Frog like the one that captured my imagination on Life. While we watched a movie on TV, I played with the FIMO and, 2 hours later, this is what I ended up with:

Strawberry poison-dart frogs (Dendrobates pumilio) are found in several colour morphs, but the most common (the one I made) is called Blue Jeans for its blue legs – isn’t that adorable?!

I was aiming for a life-sized sculpture – David Attenborough had said that they are only 1 inch long and I’d written that down in my ‘ideas’ notebook along with my sketch – but I didn’t quite manage that. My frog’s body is 1 1/4″ long and including the legs sticking out to front and back, the finished sculpture is 1 3/4″ long (I have small hands, so it’s probably smaller than these photos make it look).

I’ve surprised myself – I didn’t know I could do this! Yes, it did take me 2 hours, but most of that was spent on the legs. I hadn’t really considered that I’d have to make 16 teeny tiny frog toes until I got to them – not an easy task! I’m happiest with the shaping of the red clay around the eyes – it turned out exactly how I’d hoped.

I think my crafting ’style’ may be to make things so cleanly that they look like they’d be really easy to make, even though they aren’t. I see it in my crochet designs too – I simplify the shapes and colours to make my patterns easy to follow, but it’s finding a way to simplify them but to keep the most important features of whatever I’m trying to make where this ’style’ comes into play.

There seems to be a crossover between the different crafts that I do: I don’t think I could have made this frog without my years of examining the shapes of animals for my crochet patterns. I suppose you could call it an “artist’s eye”, although that sounds a bit pretentious so I won’t do that! But it’s definitely interesting how my experience in one medium is indirectly improving my skill and confidence in a completely different medium.

Maybe I should make a matching frog in crochet and compare the two! What do you think?

My Airedale pattern comes with instructions to give it a fluffy beard, and instructions to make one with just the square muzzle shape and no additional beard (it looks more like an adorable Airedale puppy this way!) so you can take your pick and choose the look you prefer. The AmiDogs Airedale Terrier amigurumi crochet pattern is now available in the PlanetJune shop!

If you're tempted by my AmiDogs patterns (the Airedale is the 14th in the series!) don't forget that when you pick a custom set of your favourite three breeds, you get the third pattern for half price! To take advantage of this, choose the AmiDogs Custom Set listing in the shop (you won’t get the discount if you add three patterns individually to your cart).

Have I missed your favourite breed(s)? I’ll be designing more AmiDogs patterns this year, and I’d love to know in advance which breeds might be popular (although I have a few on my ‘must do’ list already!). If you don’t see your favourites in the little pics above, please leave me a comment with your suggestions and I’ll take them into account when I’m picking new breeds to add to my kennel

First, let’s cover the all-important prognostication: will we have 6 more weeks of winter? Punxsutawney Phil, Shubenacadie Sam and Wiarton Willie all saw their shadows this morning, forecasting 6 more weeks of winter. But, in my totally overcast Waterloo garden, my amigurumi ‘hog had a different story to tell, saying “I see no shadow. Please can I get out of this snow and get back in the warm? My tail is all wet!” (He’s a little spoilt from living in the lap of luxury on my desk all month). So that’s one vote for an early spring!

Now let’s take a look at some of the other amigurumi groundhogs! (All the following photos are copyright their respective owners.)

Other ‘no shadow’ votes come from mallallory’s Japanese groundhog and IdaDown’s tiny Aussie Bruce (a mini-hog at only 2″ tall!), although as they are clearly enjoying non-wintery weather already, I’m not sure how much stock to put in their predictions!

Refashionology’s Gretchen (note the cute embroidered eyes) and sarahwww’s little guy both wrapped up warm in knitted scarves!

SparklyShiny made 2 sizes of groundhog using different sized hooks, and Craftygal1965 made a cool albino groundhog!

AnnetePetavy’s Marmotte says hello from France, and MissieZee’s groundhog was a destashing project (yay!)

DragonYady’s Shane and Mortaine’s Gordon’s Groundhog.

Silverlotus’s groundhog and kpwerker’s aptly-named Ned Ryerson – BING!

Hattalahutta’s groundhog reports no shadow = early spring for Norway! Veggie’s little guy looks like he might not have enough light to see his shadow either way, but he’s still cute

SisterDiane’s hog says “Sure, I saw my shadow. But I chose to ignore it.” And kitchensinkdye’s Desmond is crocheted from two shades of her own gorgeous hand-dyed yarn! Very cool.

Kingscrown’s groundhog has a lovely variegated colouring, and futuregirl’s ‘Hog Along Cassidy has a ginger topknot!

xo-sonja’s Big G is fashionably late to the Groundhog Day party in his red scarf!

Aren’t they all great? It’s been so much fun seeing everyone working on them all at once, using different yarns and their own special touches. There are still loads of unfinished projects on the Ravelry group, so I’ll keep updating this post when more finished pics are posted – check back later for more groundhog goodness (Have I missed your hog? Email me with a pic and I’ll add it!)

And now for the all-important question: did your groundhog see his shadow this morning?!

Awww, handsome cat!

The actual subject of this post is making toys for your cat, and whether it’s worth the effort. I’d like to demonstrate with a couple of toys that I made for Maui three years ago (please excuse the photos - my photographic skills have clearly improved since 2007!)…

First up, when I made my Fuzzballs crochet pattern, I made a cat-safe version with stitched-on felt eyes and a black yarn smile, and of course the secret ingredient of a little catnip inside with the stuffing.

Maui’s fuzzball is top right in this photo

Yep, it’s safe to say that he liked this one! Groovy catnip-induced motion blur is purely intentional

And secondly, I spent an entire evening stitching up this lovely little mouse as Maui’s third birthday present. This was the one that made everyone think I was crazy for spending all that effort on ‘just’ a cat toy:

Yes, I know it’s a lot of detail for a cat toy!

Maui with his favourite toy

Fast forward three years. Both of these toys were hugely successful with Maui, and he still plays with both! So now for the big question: how have they fared after three years of serious mauling by a miniature tiger?

• The fuzzball lost its felt eyes and mouth some time last year, but the crocheted stitches have all held up, and the stuffing is still in place inside (although it does show through the stitches in places).
• As for the lovely mousey, those felt ears lasted for over a year before falling off - and they were only made of acrylic craft felt! I tied a knot in the end of the tail before the string had unravelled too much, and the tail is still intact and firmly attached to the body. And the eyes are still fine too, which is quite surprising given that this is Maui’s absolute favourite toy and has seen a lot of play over the past three years!

So, is it worth the time to make toys for your cat? YES. Absolutely. Maui by far prefers the toys I’ve made for him to almost all of the many toys we’ve bought from pet shops, and they’ve certainly held up better. Plus it still makes me happy to see him enjoying the results of my work, years later.

The birthday boy today, with his handmade toys

Happy birthday, Maui!

It’s entirely my own fault: I wanted to keep the design in line with the other AquaAmi (who are all about the shaping and have no features other than eyes), so I didn’t give my polar bear a black nose.

Although it was an intentional design decision, I’m pretty sure that was a mistake from the point of view of selling patterns; most people couldn’t see the implied (invisible) nose and so overlooked the pattern, which is actually a really nicely-shaped realistic polar bear design.

So, let’s try an experiment to see if I’m right… Today I am proud to (re-)introduce the AquaAmi Polar Bear crochet pattern!

Beautiful realistic shaping and a classic black bear nose make this a must-have pattern! Worked in a bulky weight yarn, he stands at about 8″ long and  5″ tall. You can easily resize the design down by simply using a worsted weight yarn and E hook to make a more compact bear, or a couple of baby bears to follow the mama bear around (oh, wouldn’t that be cute?!)

So, why not pick up a copy of the Polar Bear pattern today?

For those of you who’ve already purchased the pattern, don’t worry, this is essentially the exact same pattern you bought! But if you’d like a copy of the new version, please contact me and I’ll happily email it to you!

I’ll be very interested to see what (if any) effect this has on sales of the Polar Bear pattern. As my business evolves, I’ve been learning to focus more on what my customers want rather than arbitrary decisions that only make sense to me. For example, my patterns were originally categorized by ranges: AmiDogs, AquaAmi, AfricAmi, PocketAmi, etc, but the ranges were beginning to dictate which animal designs I could make, and navigating through those categories was not at all clear to anyone except me! Last year, I changed my shop categories to make it easier to find the type of pattern you’re looking for (Wild Animals, Farm Animals, Pets, etc etc) and I think that’s much more intuitive.

There are other things about PlanetJune.com that aren’t as user-friendly as I’d like. I’ve been compiling a list of things that could be better, and I plan to work my way through the improvements as the year progresses, so if you have any suggestions for other changes that would improve the whole ‘PlanetJune experience’ (LOL), please feel free to let me know so that I can add them to my list! Gentle and/or constructive criticism only, please – don’t make me cry

What a lovely surprise! Out of tens of thousands of projects posted on Craftster in 2009, my amigurumi Lemmings were chosen as one of the 5 best crochet projects of the year. Yay!

I’m a Craftster Best of 2009 Winner!

In other news, posts may be a little scarce for the next few weeks, as I’m entering the home stretch of the biggest, most exciting secret project I’ve ever been involved with!

Join in and crochet your amigurumi groundhog by Feb 2nd. You can join  the Groundhog-along 2010 Ravelry group and/or grab the above button image (created by Kim from my photo) for your blog. (Save the button image and upload it to your own server, please.)

If you don’t already use Ravelry, it’s free to join and a wonderful resource for all crocheters and knitters. But if you don’t want to join, send me a pic of your amigurumi groundhog before Feb 2nd and I’ll include it in my Groundhog-along wrap-up post on Groundhog Day!

(Don’t forget to get the Groundhog crochet pattern so you can add to our army of adorable crocheted groundhogs!)

I’m so excited that in one evening we’re up to 25 Groundhog-along group members already – this is going to be so much fun!

For those of you unfamiliar with Groundhog Day, go out and buy the movie Groundhog Day, starring Bill Murray and Andie MacDowell. RIGHT NOW. Seriously, you won’t regret it. It’s one of my favourite movies of all time

But the concept of Groundhog Day (the day, as opposed to the movie) is that the groundhog is a talented weather forecaster… On February 2nd, the groundhog wakes up from his winter hibernation, comes out of his burrow and looks around. If he sees his shadow, there’ll be 6 more weeks of winter; if he doesn’t see his shadow, we’ll have an early spring. There are several famous annual Groundhog Day ceremonies around North America, each with their own famous groundhog, including Punxsutawney Phil (yep, he’s the one in the movie!) in Pennsylvania, Wiarton Willie (an albino groundhog) in Ontario, and Shubenacadie Sam in Nova Scotia. Of course, the chance of spring starting in early February is fairly non-existent in these parts, and the groundhogs correctly predict that by seeing their shadows most years

I took this photo of a pair of baby groundhogs last spring

But a groundhog is for life, not just for Groundhog Day… The groundhog, also known as a woodchuck, is a member of the marmot family. Here in Waterloo, Ontario, we see a lot of groundhogs throughout the year (except winter), sitting in fields and grazing on grass verges, and they are really cute. I love how fat they look (I made sure to build that into my design!) and when they stand up on their back legs to look around, they are just adorable! They aren’t greedy – they build up all that fat for a reason: so they can survive through the harsh winter by hibernating in their burrows.

And now you can make a cute and chubby little groundhog of your own, with my latest amigurumi crochet pattern! I made mine from Bernat Satin which is quite fine as worsted weight yarns go, and he stands at around 6.5″ tall. If you used a thicker worsted weight yarn (confusing, I know) like Vanna’s Choice, your groundhog would be even larger. If you’d like to make your own, the Groundhog crochet pattern is now available in the PlanetJune shop

I’m hoping my little guy will not see his shadow this February 2nd, so we can all look forward to an early spring!

I don’t think I’ve ever been up for an award before! My Discworld is nominated in three categories: Geekiest Pattern, Coolest Toy and Best Personal Pattern Project. If you have a Ravelry account, and (of course) if you think my Discworld is worthy of the awards, please consider voting for me in any or all of the three categories

It would be lovely to win, of course, but right now I feel so honoured to even be nominated and be recognised as an artist and designer. Thanks, of course, to Terry Pratchett, for inspiring me to recreate his wonderful Discworld in crochet. And thank you, Ravelers, for nominating (and voting for!) one of my all-time favourite designs!

Many years ago, I used to love making teeny tiny things with polymer clay – I once made a complete set of Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles (and Splinter the rat) that were each about 1cm tall! I thought it would be fun to try something more like that again – something quick and fun and colourful; almost the antithesis of my 3-years-in-the-making R2-D2 sculpture.

A bit of background for the non-gamers: in the late 1990s, there was a series of multiplayer games called Worms (Worms 2, Worms Armageddon, etc etc). Each player controlled a team of cute worms and took turns to try to annihilate each other by arming their own worms with a selection of outlandish and hilarious weapons. Crazy cartoon carnage ensued. Worms has recently made a comeback with new releases for consoles and iPhone, but 1999’s Worms Armageddon on PC is still a great game too.

Okay, enough talk! Here’s the action shot as the Worms go into battle on my computer keyboard:

Click through for the bigger pic at Flickr!

And because some of the details don’t show up too well against the black keys, here’s a posed shot of all the pieces:

Click through for the bigger pic at Flickr!
Worms L-R: no weapon, shotgun, dynamite, bazooka, grenade, no weapon
Back: health crate, mystery crate, oil barrel, super sheep (it’s a weapon!), homing missile, bazooka, mine

A couple of hours well-spent, I think – they just crack me up, especially their little expressions, and the super sheep with his billowing cape