The 2012 Olympic Games, and the yarny Ravellenic Games, have now drawn to a close. I’d like to salute all the members of Team PlanetJune, for participating through competing and/or cheerleading.

Team PlanetJune roll call: abjCrochet, AKmtnnymph, AliciaLee418, anda76, arbitrarily, BanuyeGharbi, BettyH553, BiologyJAP, BryansMummy, camaharet, celloulee, CrochetChrisie, CrochtColorJunkie, Emzibee, Enphra, esmerelda33, Fatals-attraction, Foxtrot400, Grendy05, haleysuzanne, hattalahutta, Heidi, HotPinkCrayola, JennHanus, jukatca, JRPautos, klopferli, Luna1130, MintSauce, MorganAdel, petrOlly, planetjune, PinkytheLizard, PixyKayte, rastakt, robinandersen9, saudistitcher, SugarAngel, taliasparkle, theMarkofSMB, themegababe, tripleb, Veggie, vshopmeyer, yaney, yasminlangley

Team PlanetJune Medals:

Overall, we attained 90 medals in 16 different events – an amazing achievement!

Photo Gallery

I’ll show you my entries first so I can explain them quickly. The Kingfisher is a replacement for my original that was lost after I sent it to be photographed by a magazine. I’m so glad to have finally had a chance to remake him:

And my other entries were new designs: the (as yet unnamed) scarf will be a new PlanetJune Accessories donationware pattern next month, and the Sea Otter is a commissioned design (pattern coming very soon!):

Here are all the other team entries – notice how people have challenged themselves through quantity of projects, making more advanced accessories, completing old WIPs, or modifying my patterns to include beading, felting, miniaturising, and more…

Luna1130 & hattalahutta

PinkytheLizard & theMarkofSMB

hattalahutta & theMarkofSMB

CrochetChrisie & HotPinkCrayola

Fatals-attraction & CrochetChrisie

theMarkofSMB & petrOlly

CrochetChrisie & AKmtnnymph

Fatals-attraction & CrochetChrisie

theMarkofSMB & abjCrochet

arbitrarily & Enphra

CrochetChrisie & hattalahutta

arbitrarily & tripleb

tripleb & Fatals-attraction

PinkytheLizard & theMarkofSMB

rastakt & theMarkofSMB

theMarkofSMB & SugarAngel

CrochetChrisie & BettyH553

theMarkofSMB & themegababe

petrOlly & petrOlly

Fatals-attraction & theMarkofSMB

CrochetChrisie & Fatals-attraction

CrochetChrisie & klopferli

camaharet & PinkytheLizard

petrOlly & theMarkofSMB

yaney & petrOlly

petrOlly & jukatca

theMarkofSMB & Fatals-attraction

themegababe & BettyH553

Veggie, CrochetChrisie & PinkytheLizard

BanuyeGharbi, MorganAdel & Luna1130

yaney, BiologyJAP & CrochetChrisie

Isn’t that an impressive collection? (Both in terms of quality and quantity: remember, these were all made within the just over 2 week timeframe…) Excellent work, team! 🙂

Prizes!

Thanks to Michelle of Suncatcher Eyes for sponsoring Team PlanetJune! In addition to her beautiful handpainted eyes, Michelle carries a full range of high quality black and clear animal eyes for your amigurumi.

All eligible projects were entered in the draw, and the six winners are:

• $10 gift certificate for the PlanetJune shop: PinkyTheLizard
• A free pattern of your choice from PlanetJune: hattalahutta, klopferli
• 10 pairs of eyes (your choice of colours and sizes) from Suncatcher Eyes: theMarkofSMB
• 5 pairs of eyes (your choice of colours and sizes) from Suncatcher Eyes: petrOlly, SugarAngel

Congratulations to the winners – I’ll rav PM you to sort out your prizes!

All other Team PJ members with projects pictured above will receive the runner-up prize of a PlanetJune discount coupon (I’ll send it as a rav PM, so look out for it there!)

I’m sure the whole team would also like to extend a special thanks to our co-Captain, CrochetChrisie, who helped answer everyone’s questions about the Ravellenic Games rules and took the pressure off me – there’s no way I could have managed the admin for this by myself! To show my gratitude, I’m awarding Chrisie with a surprise gift – Chrisie, it’ll be in the mail shortly 🙂

Competing for medals in the Ravellenic Games was fun, but a little stressful too! If you’d like to participate in a more relaxed no-pressure crochet-along, join us in the PlanetJune Ravelry group for the BotaniCAL from now until the end of September – we’re crocheting beautiful flowers, plants and fruit…

This extended 6-week CAL was a Free-For-All, so participants had free choice to make any PlanetJune patterns they wanted (amigurumi, accessories, free patterns, patterns from my book). It’s interesting that with 120 patterns to choose from, you can see some definite trends in what people chose to crochet, but also loads of variety.

Now it’s time for me to take a short break while I visit my parents.

The next CAL will be the Ravellenic Games, from July 27th to August 12th. I’d like to invite you to join Team PlanetJune! (See the end of this post for more details.)

This month’s CAL was a Wildlife-Along, so there were lots of patterns to choose from:

…which led to a lovely variety of FOs (Finished Objects) from the CAL participants this month.

Don’t forget to keep reading to the end of this post for details of the next CAL – starting tomorrow!

Ready to visit the amigurumi zoo? Let’s see the roundup…

The challenge with the Pocket-Along CAL was to either crochet animals from my pocket-sized patterns, or to miniaturize any of my other patterns by using fine yarn and a tiny hook. What I wasn’t expecting was how many people would do both – take the pocket-sized patterns and shrink them even further! You’ll see a lot of photos here with the crocheter’s hand for scale – most of the entries are keyring-sized, and in fact, you’ll see several with keychains attached.

For the first time this month, I’ve asked participants to follow my new guidelines for CAL photo submissions. By having all the photos supplied at a standard 4:3 ratio, I was able to write some code that will automatically generate all the photos and participant credits below – you can’t imagine how much time this will save me over time, with one of these roundup posts to write every month! (I should mention that my code orders the entries randomly, so don’t look for any patterns here.)

Don’t forget to keep reading to the end of this post for details of the May CAL – starting tomorrow!

Now onto the roundup…

Welcome to BunnyFest 2012! Okay, this is actually the Easter CAL roundup, but I’ve never seen a pattern catch the imagination of so many people so quickly the way my Baby Bunnies design has – as you’ll see from this roundup, crocheted bunnies are taking over the world this year.

It’s so much fun to see how people are putting their own twists on my pattern to create all kinds of different bunnies. But let’s look at the other CAL entries first, and I’ll save the bunny gallery for the end! Here goes…

As there were 2 simultaneous Crochet-Alongs running for the first half of this month, and the Valentine’s CAL was so popular, I wasn’t sure we’d get many entries in the Plant-Along. I’m happy to have been proved wrong! Here’s the spectacular roundup for February’s Plant-Along CAL – and keep reading to the end to find the March theme…

(For speed, I just give credit with participants’ Ravelry usernames.)

Get ready for a floral explosion – you’re about to enter a virtual nursery or garden centre! Here we go…

Single cacti and succulents:

Fatals-attraction & CrochetChrisie

Veggie & CrochtColorJunkie (yet to be ‘planted’ in a pot!)

CrochetChrisie & Fatals-attraction

Other singles:

rastakt (water lily) and klopferli (plumeria)

Plumeria and roses by ChefTerror

Daffodil and rose hair clip by CranberryAmi

African Violets:

Fatals-attraction & PixyKayte

Fatals-attraction & saudistitcher

both by CrochetChrisie (those are 2 separate, but matching, plants)

Lucky Bamboo

CrochetChrisie & rchlsrsly (still to be potted)

Cactus and Succulent groups

Fatals-attraction & CrochetChrisie

esmerelda62 & CrochetChrisie

rawrjaimee & Soprefon

Some clever modifications:

Teeny tiny miniature succulents by Luna1130

Water Lily coaster set by petrOlly (such a clever idea!) – with a Poison Dart Frog made in green to make him into a regular frog!

And some mega-groups to finish with!

jukatca fitted all 8 succulents into a giant pot (ingeniously made from the large Gift Box pattern)

Luna1130 made both pot sizes for her succulent collections…

… and did the same for her cacti too!

And theMarkofSMB made almost everything on offer – wow!

Looking at all these beautiful plants just makes me smile – I hope it’s done the same for you! (If you’d like to make any of the patterns featured in this CAL, you’ll find them all under Flowers & Plants in my shop.)

Are you tempted to join in the March CAL? The theme is spring/Easter, and we have a lovely selection of patterns for you to choose from (including the new Baby Bunnies – which is still on special for the rest of today if you haven’t picked up a copy yet):

Because of the Easter theme, this CAL will run March 1st – April 8th (Easter Sunday). If you’d like to join in, you can find all the patterns in the Holiday & Seasonal section of my shop, and you’ll find the Easter CAL thread in the PlanetJune Ravelry group – I hope you’ll join us there! 🙂

We had a little bonus crochet-along this month, for V-day. The Valentine’s CAL used my free Love Hearts and Basic Rose patterns:

So here are some beautiful crocheted hearts and flowers for you, courtesy of the PlanetJune Ravelry group members!

(For speed, I just give credit with participants’ Ravelry usernames.)

Veggie & camaharet

Lightblue & BiologyJAP

CraftinMama05 & rchlsrsly

sweetiii2 & CrochtColorJunkie

both by CrochtColorJunkie

both by Foxtrot400

both by JennHanus

CrochetChrisie & yaney (heart fridge magnets)

Luna1130 & petrOlly (heart-embellished rug)

heart-embellished headband by ChefTerror

Valentine’s Dachshund (it’s a PlanetJune pattern, so it counts!) by AliciaLee418

rose ring by klopferli

both by AKmtnnymph

both by AKmtnnymph (I especially love the thread heart earrings)

all by theMarkofSMB

all by CranberryAmi

all by Fatals-attraction (and the white roses are felted – beautiful!)

both by saudistitcher – with close-up of embroidery-floss-crocheted edging

Fabulous work by everyone! I wasn’t expecting such a great response to this mini-CAL. I’m sure the recipients of all these handmade hearts and flowers will really know they are appreciated today – a handmade gift says so much more than a store-bought card.

If this has tempted you to make some roses (or any of my other plant/flower designs), the Plant-Along runs until the end of the month, so you still have plenty of time to make some crocheted greenery to brighten up your windowsills…

If you’d like to join in, click through to the PlanetJune Ravelry group and you’ll be given a warm welcome!

Every month, the PlanetJune CALs get more and more fun, as our Ravelry group grows and our little community strengthens. It’s so nice to see! Let’s look at the roundup for January’s AquaAmi Crochet-Along – and keep reading to the end to find the February themes (Maybe you’d like to join in, if you haven’t before? All welcome!)

(For speed, I’m just giving credit with participants’ Ravelry usernames.) Here’s what happened in the January CAL!

My Sea Turtle pattern is a big time commitment, with 26 separate pieces that make up the turtle, so I’m especially pleased to see how many people tackled it this month. It was really fun to see people’s photos of their piles of pre-assembled pieces, and seeing the lovely colours everyone chose:

PixyKayte & CrochetChrisie

camaharet & klopferli

AKmtnnymph & SunnyStrings (who made a car seat blanket to match her turtle)

theMarkofSMB & arbitrarily (whose turtle was made with a 1.25mm hook and is only 8cm long!)

I have to give a special mention to Monica (theMarkofSMB) who, after making her sea turtle above, managed to put together another five sea turtles, in assorted colours:

all 5 by theMarkofSMB – an amazing achievement!

And then we have my Adult and Baby Emperor Penguin patterns:

CrochetChrisie & Fatals-attraction

Enphra & CranberryAmi

rastakt & Fatals-attraction (who made Valentine’s penguins in 2 shades of pink!)

All the non-tiny aquatic mammals:

adult and baby Beluga Whales, and Dolphin, both by petrOlly

Sea Lion and a clever mod of my Dolphin into a shark, both by petrOlly

CrochetChrisie made sweet adult and baby pairs of both my Polar Bear and Sea Lion patterns, by changing the yarn thickness and hook size

And the only person brave enough to attempt a ‘fuzzy’ pattern this time around was jukatca, with her cute Fuzzy Seal!

And finally, Tiny Whale was very popular this month, as nobody can possibly be too busy to find the time to make this little no-sew pattern. But we didn’t just see plain Tiny Whales: we have colourful whales, catnip-stuffed whales (cat toys), keychain whales, sets of counting whales (for kids), baby toy whales on rings, giant mega-whales, teeny-tiny miniature whales, and even whales modified into Humpbacks and Orcas! This is such a great example of how you can use your creativity to take a pattern, even one as simple as Tiny Whale, and make it your own:

PixyKayte & yasminlangley

both by CranberryAmi

knitwhy & kathykoo

sunshine1127 & yaney

CrochetChrisie & theMarkofSMB

both by petrOlly

CrochtColorJunkie

Fatals-attraction

theMarkofSMB

both by theMarkofSMB

theMarkofSMB and AKmtnnymph

the first 4 of 10 counting whales by saudistitcher

Another amazing roundup! Well done to everyone – they all look great 🙂 (If you’d like to make any of the patterns featured in this CAL, you’ll find them all under Aquatic Animals in my shop.)

If you missed out on the CAL fun, we have two CALs starting on February 1st (tomorrow!):

Firstly, a Valentine’s CAL (using my free Love Hearts and Basic Rose patterns) from Feb 1-14th…

And secondly, a Plant-Along, which includes all my plant and flower patterns (including the new succulents!) from Feb 1-29th.

We’d love it if you’d join in with one or both at the PlanetJune Ravelry group!