Since leaving the warmth of Africa for the Great White North, one thing I really miss is being able to see lizards all the time – both when out exploring nature, and in my own garden. I grew to love lizards after observing them in the wild for so long, and I’m considering getting a pet bearded dragon one day.

Until then, I now have the next best thing with my new addition to my amigurumi menagerie – a life-sized Bearded Dragon crochet pattern:

She’s such a cutie!

Bearded Dragon Fun Facts

• Bearded dragons, aka ‘beardies’, are one of the most popular reptiles to keep as pets.
• These lizards are docile and friendly, and eat insects and vegetables.
• In the wild, bearded dragons can be found in the Australian deserts.
• Beardies can flatten their bodies and change colour when they bask in the sun, so they can absorb more heat.
• When threatened, they puff out their spiky ‘beard’ throat skin and open their mouth wide so they appear larger.

About the Design

My bearded dragon is roughly life-sized and realistically shaped, at about 12″ (30cm) long. It has an alert stance, a wide body and wedge-shaped head, and tiny spines along the sides of its head and body, just like a real beardy!

I made my sample in a heathered yarn (Lion Brand Heartland) which adds a subtle variegated effect which I love, but you can use a solid colour of yarn instead if you prefer. Fancy bearded dragons come in a wide range of colours (orange, yellow, brown, grey, and even red or white) so you have lots of scope for making life-like beardies in all sorts of colours.

About the Pattern

As with my other lizard patterns, the realistic legs are wired with pipe cleaners, but the pattern also includes tips for omitting the pipe cleaners if you want your beardy to be baby-safe.

The pattern includes stitch diagrams for the spines in addition to the written instructions, so you can use whichever instructions work best for your learning style.

And, as always, close-up photos aid with every step of the assembly, so you can be confident you’ll be able to make a perfect bearded dragon too.

Buy Now & Launch Discount

Ready to get started? Pick up my Bearded Dragon crochet pattern from my shop right now. Or, if you’re not ready to make it just yet, add it to your Ravelry queue or favourites so you don’t forget about it:

And for one week only, you can take an extra 50c off the price: add the Bearded Dragon pattern to your shopping cart, and enter the discount code BEARDY at checkout! (Offer ends Wednesday 8 May, 2019.)

This bearded dragon design has been over a year in the making, but I’m really happy with the end result – I think I got the alert beardy pose just right, and the tiny spines don’t overwhelm the design, even in worsted weight yarn.

I hope you agree, and that you’ll enjoy my Bearded Dragon pattern 🙂

PlanetJune Herps

With this new pattern, my herp (reptiles and amphibians) pattern collection is now up to 10 designs: 5 lizards, 3 turtles and 2 frogs! You can find all the PlanetJune reptile and amphibian crochet patterns here 🙂

Do you have any other herp pattern requests? Let me know in the comments!

Here’s a new addition to my stemmed flower patterns: a beautiful realistic tulip flower with a clever one-piece construction. You’ll love how it comes together!

Don’t they look gloriously spring-like in their distinctive tulip colours? (I had so much fun picking the colours for these!)

I’ve also completed a new video (the first of many!) using my new audio/video equipment to accompany this pattern, and all my other stemmed flowers: Easy Yarn-Wrapped Stems for Crochet Flowers. As always, my videos are available in right- and left-handed versions, so you can see exactly what to do.

I hope you can see/hear the quality improvement in this new video, but if you don’t even notice because you’re concentrating on the content, that’s fine too. Clear, close-up and well explained techniques are always my top priority. Please subscribe to my YouTube channel so you’ll always see my latest videos – I have lots more in store!

Here are all my stemmed flowers together: Basic Rose, Daffodils, Carnations and the new Tulips. I hope they all brighten your day!

As I like to reward people who chose to donate for my donationware patterns, the PDF version of the Tulips pattern includes additional assembly photos (including left-handed photos) and my special technique for fastening off the yarn neatly at the base of the stem. As always, the pattern is free for you to use, and you need only donate if you’d like to thank me for my time in creating it, or if you’d like the easy-to-print PDF version.

Go to the free Tulips pattern >>

Or jump straight to donate:

Order the Tulips pattern >>

Not ready to make it yet? Add it to your Ravelry queue:

You might think I’d be running out of animal ideas to recreate in crochet, but there are lots of really obvious choices that I haven’t had a chance to make yet. Case in point: the national animal of Canada – how could I have not designed a beaver pattern yet?! Well, let’s rectify that right now…

When I stopped my pattern commissions program, the beaver was almost fully pledged, so I’m really happy to have finally had the chance to fulfill the wish of those would-be commissioners (and other Canadians, nature lovers, people who just like cute amigurumi animals…) with my PlanetJune Beaver crochet pattern! (And – bonus for the commissioners – now you don’t have to pay the full cost of your pledge, just the regular pattern price!)

Beaver Fun Facts

• The beaver is the largest rodent in North America. It lives in ponds and lakes and on riverbanks.
• Beavers can see underwater as well as they can on land, and can close their ears and nostrils when swimming. They swim using their webbed back feet as paddles and their flat tails as a rudder.
• Each beaver uses its chisel-sharp teeth to cut down over 200 trees a year, to use both as food and building materials.
• Beavers are one of nature’s builders, using mud, twigs and bark to build a lodge to live in. They contruct the lodge on a platform in a pond, with all the entrances underwater.
• Beavers remain active in the winter, beneath the ice of their pond. If their water source isn’t deep enough, they build a dam to create a deeper pond so it won’t freeze all the way through.

If you’ve ever heard the phrase “busy as a beaver”, now you know why – beavers are always busy, building and repairing their constructions!

About the Design

I love how beavers sit up on their back feet, using their tail for balance, and that’s the distinctive pose I tried to capture in my design.

I think you’ll love how it all comes together – the body shaping, the cute little arms and big webbed back feet, and of course the iconic tail.

Buy Now & Launch Discount

What are you waiting for? Pick up my Beaver crochet pattern from my shop right now. Or, if you’re not ready to make it just yet, add it to your Ravelry queue or favourites so you don’t forget about it:

And for one week only, you can take an extra 50c off the price: add the Beaver pattern to your shopping cart, and enter the discount code BEAVERTAIL at checkout! (Offer ends Tuesday 5 March, 2019.)

I hope you love this beaver design as much as I do!

Don’t forget to tag me (I’m @planetjune everywhere) when you’ve made yours 🙂

After my fun but challenging experiments with extreme amigurumi last year, I set out to see if there was a way to make super-sized amigurumi that was easy and fun to do, and develop instructions I could pass on to you. After lots of experimentation, I developed the technique of Giant Amigurumi. Look!

About Giant Amigurumi

Giant Amigurumi retains the joyous side of being able to scale up a small amigurumi pattern to an impressive and extra-cuddly scale, but it’s much, much simpler to crochet, and the materials you’ll need are far easier and less expensive to acquire.

Giant Amigurumi are big, squishy, and cuddly. You’ll be amazed how quickly you can crochet such a large toy! Giant amis are perfect as nursery decorations, super-snuggly toys, or decorations everyone will be talking about. Add a spark of life to your amigurumi animals with my giant dimensional crocheted eye patterns, or whip up a super-sized plant.

About The eBook

You can upsize almost any amigurumi pattern with the techniques in The Complete Guide to Giant Amigurumi and get an irresistibly cuddly, adorable result. You’ll learn how to take a normal amigurumi pattern and enlarge it by 3 to 4 times to make a giant huggable amigurumi! All you need is your favourite pattern, a 15mm hook, and a super-bulky yarn, and you’ll be ready to start.

As examples, I’ve crocheted up several PlanetJune classic patterns using the techniques from this book, so you can see how they compare with the standard-sized amis. 

Much bigger! Just as cute! And (you’ll have to take my word for this until you make your own…) exceptionally huggable.

With The Complete Guide to Giant Amigurumi, I’ll guide you through every step along the way, from choosing your materials and learning how to work giant stitches, to stuffing, assembly and embellishment, and more. Everything is explained in my usual detail, with clear, close-up photos and instructions.

I’ve discovered lots of tips and tricks that will make your giant amigurumi easy to make and assemble, and many of them will also be useful for non-giant amigurumi, such as:

• A better way to make a secure magic ring for bulky, textured or weak yarns
• How to add more stiffness to floppy/curling pieces

…Having these tools in your back pocket will improve your everyday amigurumi projects too!

You might think there’s nothing more to giant amigurumi crochet than choosing a large enough hook to go with your extra thick yarn, but every stage of making a giant amigurumi is slightly different from what you might expect, and I’ve designed this book as a comprehensive reference guide that covers everything from the absolute basics to tips for fixing problems and making complex amigurumi.

I encourage you to use the book as a reference – whenever you get stuck, or move onto a new stage of your pattern, check back with the book and see what I advise! (Check the full contents here.)

The Complete Guide to Giant Amigurumi also includes patterns and assembly instructions to make my realistic ‘shiny’ crocheted eyes in all sizes – the perfect finishing touch to your giant amigurumi. They look just as round, shiny and appealing as plastic eyes, but are child-friendly and easy to stitch into place.

And the ebook also includes my Tiny Whale pattern as a bonus, so you can get started right away with a simple introduction to giant amigurumi crochet. 

To keep it relevant to you, this ebook is available in two versions, for right-handers and left-handers. Choose your version knowing that all the photos will show you exactly what you need to do from your perspective for every technique! 

And, as with all PlanetJune patterns and ebooks, your licence includes access to any future updates if there’s a new edition of this book in the future. 

Links and Launch Discount

You can buy The Complete Guide to Giant Amigurumi right now from my shop, and download the ebook immediately as a PDF file. (It’s 50 pages long and about 9MB.)

Click here to buy The Complete Guide to Giant Amigurumi now >>

And, for this week only, use code GIANTAMI at checkout to save $2 on the purchase price. (Valid until next Tuesday: Feb 5th, 2019)

Ready to Get Started?

I’m sure you’ll find giant amigurumi-making just as fun and appealing as I do – I just love these big squishy amis 🙂

Don’t forget to share photos of your giant amigurumi projects using the #giantamigurumi hashtag, and please also tag me @planetjune so I can see what you’re making!

I’ve just updated my sweet Heart Cactus Collection pattern to add a new cactus option, so now the collection includes three different heart-shaped cacti (plus matching large and small 3-dimensional hearts).

These cacti make a quick little crochet project, with their perfect heart shapes, rounded pots, pretty flowers, and minimal sewing required. If you haven’t picked up the pattern yet, now’s a great time – Valentine’s Day is only a month away, so now’s the time to start making your heart-themed gifts. And the best part is that a potted heart cactus looks cute all year round 🙂

(If you’ve already bought the Heart Cactus Collection pattern, your PlanetJune pattern licences always include all future pattern updates. I’ve updated the pattern now with the additional cactus pattern and new photos, so please feel free to download it again from your PlanetJune account!)

The cuddly hearts are also included in the pattern!

And here’s an extra bonus: did you know the heart cacti are sized to be part of my mix-and-match Cactus and Succulent collections? You can add a heart cactus to your next succulent garden, or mix and match the pots between any of the patterns!

Can you spot the 3 heart cacti?

Buy the Heart Cactus Collection pattern here in my shop. Or, if you’re not ready to buy just yet, please heart or queue it on Ravelry so you don’t forget about it:

I hope you’ll enjoy the updated Heart Cactus Collection! When you make one, please remember to tag me @planetjune if you share it on social media, so I can enjoy seeing your creation too 🙂

What could make a better gift than an amigurumi animal for Christmas? How about an amigurumi animal wearing a Santa hat?!

Get in the seasonal spirit with my charming Santa hat pattern, designed especially to fit most amigurumi! You can whip up a hat in mere minutes, and add a festive touch to amigurumi or other small toys.

The basic online version of the pattern includes the largest pictured size for the hat, and is designed for an eyelash yarn trim. As I like to reward people who chose to donate for my donationware patterns, the PDF version of this pattern also includes special bonus content:

• specifics for making the other sizes of hat
• additional photos
• alternate patterns for the trim/bobble that are optimised for regular yarn and bouclé/textured yarns

As always though, the basic pattern is free for you to use, and you need only donate if you’d like to thank me for my time in creating it, or if you’d like the easy-to-print PDF version.

L-R: small (with bouclé trim), medium (with worsted weight trim), large (with eyelash trim)

Have fun with my Santa Hat pattern! Don’t forget to share photos of your amigurumi/toys/pets wearing their Santa Hats, and tag me @planetjune so I’ll get to enjoy them too 🙂

Go to the Amigurumi Santa Hat pattern >>

I was planning to use my Maple Leaf pattern as the basis for a crocheted Canadian flag in time for next Canada Day, but, well, I couldn’t wait that long, so here it is!

I designed my flag background to exactly fit the large Maple Leaf pattern as part of a perfectly proportioned Canadian flag.

It’s made with linked stitches so the background is smooth and has no holes, and you can either stitch or glue the Maple Leaf in place. It works up as about 9.5″ (24cm) wide by 4.75″ (12cm) tall using worsted weight yarn, but you can resize both leaf and flag if you want to make a larger or smaller flag.

The flag is perfect to hang as decoration as it is, or you can also use it as a component, for example:

• Make several flags and string them together into bunting or a garland
• Make a second single-coloured flag and crochet the two together around the edges, adding stuffing before you close the last side, to make a mini decorative pillow
• Combine multiple flags, offset between single-coloured flag-shaped rectangles, into an afghan, cushion cover, or anything else you want to make!

And here’s the best news: the Canadian Flag (Background) pattern is now an absolutely free bonus PDF with the purchase of the Maple Leaf Collection pattern! (If you’ve already bought the Maple Leaf Collection, log back into your PlanetJune account and you’ll see the new PDF file available in your order for you to download too.)

If you haven’t bought it yet, you can pick up the Maple Leaf Collection (with free bonus Canadian Flag) pattern from my shop here 🙂

If you don’t have a Canadian connection, the maple leaves (in autumnal shades) make perfect Thanksgiving decorations.

And, if you are Canadian, I hope you’ll enjoy the bonus flag pattern too!

Note: Don’t miss the launch discounts, at the end of this post!

I’m delighted to reveal my 2018 PlanetJune Accessories shawls and wraps crochet pattern collection – it’s been over a year in the making!

My 2018 collection comprises three different shawl shapes, all very versatile: as well as making them in the same size and similar yarn to my samples, you can use pretty much any yarn weight and customize them to any size, if you prefer.

To demonstrate this, I’ve made two very different samples for each pattern, so you can see what I’m talking about! Let’s take a look…

Half-Hexagon Shawl

The Half-Hexagon shawl wraps you in a crocheted hug without any excess fabric, and drapes almost like an elegant cardigan. The lacy pattern is simple enough to take advantage of a yarn with long colour changes, or use the optional contrast-colour version of the border to give a standout finish if you’re working in a single colour. Worked from the centre top, you can just keep crocheting until the shawl is the size you want and then add the decorative border.

For the main sample above, I used Loops & Threads Woolike (acrylic/nylon super fine) yarn in Teal Lake, with the contrast-colour border in Gray, which I think makes such an elegant finishing touch.

For my second sample, I used Lion Brand’s Shawl in a Ball (cotton/acrylic light DKish) yarn – as the name suggests, you really can make an entire shawl from one ball of this yarn, which comes in some lovely colourways! I used the delicious Community Coral colourway, and I think it turned out beautifully:

Diamond Lace Wrap

Wear this lovely wrap as a rectangular shawl to show off the stunning diamond pattern to the full, or as a lacy scarf. Choose your favourite solid or semi-solid colour and watch the alternating solid and lacy diamonds appear as you crochet. The pattern includes full instructions to make a shawl as deep as you want, or whip up a narrower scarf/wrap in a fraction of the time with equally eye-catching results!

For the main sample above, I used most of a 100g hank of Natural Dye Studio Angel 2-ply lace (baby alpaca with a touch of silk and cahmere) in Heather, and it’s so light and floaty.

For my second sample, I was lucky enough to try a new test colourway for up-and-coming indie dyer Incyanity (her shop will be opening for business soon, but you can follow her on Instagram in the meantime!) This wonderful tonal teal shade in merino/nylon fingering weight really made the stitch pattern in my scarf-sized version pop:

Sweetheart Lace Shawl

Sweetheart Lace Shawl is a triangular shawl with an elegant curve along the top edge so it hugs your neck and won’t fall off your shoulders. Using only basic stitches, the lace grows from the centre top so you can keep crocheting until the shawl is the size you want, then add the picot border as the finishing touch.

For the main sample above, I used Carlton Silky Aran yarn (DK acrylic microfibre) in a delicious raspberry shade.

For my second sample, I used Incyanity’s Amethyst Sky colourway in merino/silk fingering – isn’t this just gorgeous? The stitch pattern in this shawl is lacy enough to take advantage of those ever-changing sky blues and purples without being obscured.

So, what do you think of my new designs? Do you have a favourite in the collection? I truly can’t decide! If you can’t either, I’ll make your choice easier with some discount prices…

Links and Launch Discounts

Links to buy: You can buy the new shawl patterns individually from my shop:

• Half-Hexagon Shawl
• Diamond Lace Wrap
• Sweetheart Lace Shawl

…or as part of a Custom Set of any 3 PlanetJune Accessories patterns for a special price.

But, to celebrate the launch, I have three special offers, for one week only:

• Buy one of the new shawl patterns and save 10% (code: SHAWL1)
• Buy two and save 17% on each (code: SHAWL2)
• Buy all three and save 25% on each (code: SHAWL3)

Just add the shawl(s) to your shopping cart, and enter the appropriate code in the Discount box at checkout to receive your automatic discount! Valid until next Tuesday, 6 November 2018.

(Please note: you must have all the shawls you’ve chosen in your shopping cart at once for the discount codes to work. Not valid on the Custom Set – but the SHAWL3 code gives you a better discount than the Custom Set anyway!)

Crochet-Along

If you’re making one of these shawls this year, please join us for the Accessories CAL in the PlanetJune Ravelry group and let us know right away which shawl you’re planning to make first and what yarn you’ll be using! I can’t wait to see which colours you choose…