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:

Are you unsure about taking the plunge into full-scale Giant Amigurumi? Then Mini Giant Amigurumi might be just what you’re looking for!

Allow me to demonstrate with my cute purple whale:

Front: Standard (worsted weight) whale (silver)
Middle: Mini Giant whale (purple)
Back: Giant Whale (blue)

As you can see, the Mini Giant whale bridges the gap between a standard amigurumi and a giant – it isn’t close to the size of a full giant ami, but is still over twice the size of a standard amigurumi.

Why Mini Giant Amigurumi?

There are lots of reasons why Mini Giant Amigurumi might appeal to you vs Giant Amigurumi:

• You don’t have a 15mm hook
• You want to ease yourself gradually into sizing up
• You don’t have the strength or mobility for the larger hand/arm motions
• You’re short on funds for all that yarn and stuffing
• You don’t have the space for giant ami!

Don’t let that be a reason to stop you trying to size up some amigurumi – you can still join in the supersizing fun and use all the techniques from The Complete Guide to Giant Amigurumi to great effect by making mini giant amis.

How to Make Mini Giant Amigurumi

To make a Mini Giant Amigurumi, instead of worsted weight yarn and an E US/3.5mm hook, you’ll need:

• 1 strand of a super bulky (#6) yarn – I recommend a chenille-type yarn such as Bernat Blanket
• an L US/8mm crochet hook

Then use the techniques from The Complete Guide to Giant Amigurumi (especially my Secure Magic Ring, which works beautifully on this chenille-type yarn) to make and stuff your Mini Giant Amigurumi!

To finish, you can either use one of my crocheted ‘glinting’ eye patterns from the ebook, or you may find that you have plastic animal eyes large enough. For my whale, 15mm plastic eyes were just about large enough; for a larger amigurumi, the Small Eye pattern from the book would work perfectly.

Your Guidebook to Giant Amigurumi

Now, between standard amigurumi, mini giant amigurumi, and full giant amigurumi, you have the choice of sizing up your amigurumi as much as you like!

And if you haven’t bought my new ebook, The Complete Guide to Giant Amigurumi yet, check out the reviews (here) to see what people are saying about it – I think you’ll love it too 🙂

Usually in amigurumi, the goal is to join pieces with an invisible, seamless join, so you can barely tell where one part ends and the next begins. But sometimes, especially with a piece of a different colour, you can get a neater finish by not smoothing the join, and instead making invisible stitches so it looks like the pieces are magically holding themselves together without any stitching at all:

You can use this technique to attach something where you want there to be a clear defined edge between pieces, for example, attaching a beak to a face, or (as I’ll show in this demo) attaching a cactus to the soil of its pot.

Continue to the Amigurumi Clean Edge Join tutorial:

• Right-handed version >>
• Left-handed version >>

Spoiler alert: in doing this jog-minimising back loop only round amigurumi experiment, I have a recommendation for a simple modification to make to your amigurumi that will minimise the jog with those back loop only rounds! If you’re not interested in my experiments, jump straight to the Jogless Back Loop Only Round for Amigurumi video tutorial 🙂

Crocheting a round of back loop only (BLO) stitches is a standard method for creating a sharp corner in amigurumi. The biggest problem is that, when you work in a continuous spiral, you end up with a noticeable jog between the first and last unworked loops of the round.

I’ve had several requests to develop a method for minimising that jog, so you know what that means: it’s time for another PlanetJune crochet investigation!

Method

For this experiment, I tested a few candidates that I thought may improve the look of that jog. Modifying one or other of my Perfect Stripes methods seemed like a promising idea, as well as changing the height of the end stitches to bring them closer together.

I crocheted the same small sample for each method so we can compare the effectiveness of each one. Each sample was crocheted in a spiral with a flat circular base, a round of BLO stitches to turn the corner, and then a few more rounds worked straight.

So, here are the candidates:

A. The control sample, as described above, with no attempt to minimise the jog
B. Sample using the No-Cut Join technique for the round before the BLO round and the BLO round
C. Sample using the Invisible Join technique for the round before the BLO round and the BLO round
D. Sample modifying the height of the stitch before the BLO round with a slip stitch

The photos below show each sample from two angles, and, if you’d like to play along, you can compare the appearance of the line of unworked loops around the edge of each sample and see what you think of my ‘improvements’…

Results

I compared each candidate with the control sample (A) to see how much it improved the appearance of the jog, judging on two criteria:

1. How continuous the line of unworked loops appears between the first and last stitch of the round (left photo)
2. How circular the entire round of unworked loops appears (right photo) – note that this effect is more noticeable because the samples are quite small; it wouldn’t be as obvious for a larger piece such as the base of an ami plant pot

Here are my observations:

B. The No-Cut Join gives the worst result of all the test pieces. Although the jog is reduced, extra mess is introduced to the surrounding stitches, and I think the overall effect is actually worse than doing nothing.

C. The Invisible Join gives a flawless result – the join is completely invisible and the round of unworked loops is almost completely circular. However, it’s slow, and leaves a lot of extra yarn ends, so it’s quite an investment in time and effort.

D. The height modifying method is very quick and simple to execute and gives a pretty good result. As the spiral is almost uninterrupted, the unworked loops don’t quite form a perfect circle, but the jog is almost invisible.

My Recommendations

If you want the best-looking back loop only round possible and don’t care how long it takes, switching to joined rounds (for both the round before the BLO round and the BLO round) and using the Invisible Join method from my Perfect Stripes tutorial will give you the most perfect result.

But, my recommendation is: for the best balance of a good result with a quick and easy method, use my height modifying method – now called my Jogless Back Loop Only Round method – for minimising the jog. (And, to give an even better result, combine it with my Better BLO technique – between the two, you’ll end up with a very neat and practically jogless back loop only round, as you can see below.)

Impressed? Now learn how to do it, with my new video tutorial:

Continue to A Jogless Back Loop Only Round for Amigurumi video tutorial >>

Thanks to a long-lasting thumb injury and a intercontinental move, it’s been a frustratingly long time since I’ve been able to make any new crochet tutorial videos. But all that’s about to change!

To commemorate my return to YouTube, I’ve updated my video template with a fresh new look and animated logo, and, to ease myself back into the video-making saddle, I’ve re-edited my last-published video to add some additional info (as well as the new look). Want to see?

Better Back Loop Only Details for Amigurumi (right-handed)

Better Back Loop Only Details for Amigurumi (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 (links: right-handed; left-handed) to watch them full-sized 🙂

You can also find more detailed information on this topic, including a discussion of when to use it in my accompanying tutorial post.

And here’s a topical bonus: if you’re taking part in our BotaniCAL crochet-along, the technique I demonstrate here is perfect for the edge around the bottom of your crocheted plant pots!

New Tutorials Coming Soon!

Now I’m back up to speed with editing with my new software and I have my new template set up, you can expect regular new crochet videos from me again! All my tutorials are clear, concise and in close-up, and come in right- and left-handed versions, with full closed captions (in case you find it easier to read my words than listen to them).

Subscribe to my YouTube channel here and you’ll never miss a new PlanetJune video. 🙂

Your Video Requests?

I already have a long list of tutorials I’d like to make, but I’d also like to hear your video requests. Are there any crochet techniques I use in my patterns that I haven’t explained on video yet and you’d like to see? Let me know by email, or in the comments below, and I’ll make note of all your requests.

I hope you’ll enjoy my crochet videos – both the library of existing tutorials, and the new videos to come!