PlanetJune Blog: Latest News, Patterns and Tutorials

Can you believe it’s almost December already? I’m sure time is moving more quickly this year, don’t you think? The snow has arrived already here in Ontario, so it seems like a good time to start thinking about Christmas preparations.

To get you in the mood, I’ve designed a crocheted candy cane tree decoration. This crochet pattern is so fast and simple, it’ll take no time to whip up enough to decorate your Christmas tree!

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas…

If you’d like to find out how to crochet some candy canes (and I promise they are sooo simple you won’t believe it!) click through to the free pattern 🙂

It sounds like many of you are wondering about the ergonomic crochet hooks I bought a few weeks ago, so I’ll give you my opinions so far. Please bear in mind that this is only based on my personal experience with it (the Eleggant Hooks ergonomic crochet hook set).

First impressions

The wooden egg feels good in my hand. It picks up some heat and is warm and comfortable to hold. I’m not entirely sure where my forefinger and thumb are supposed to rest on the hook – is there a preferred way to hold it? My fingers would naturally rest on the textured area used to open and close the mechanism, but that is heavily textured and not comfortable. I shifted my grip to hold further along the shaft, and that was more comfortable.

The initial problem I see is that this hook design is very dependent on your hand size. My hands are small, and, with the egg in the palm of my hand, I wanted to hold the hook too low down (a crocheter with very large hands may find the opposite). The amount of hook shaft that extends from the mechanism is quite short too, which, once I have my fingertip resting on the shaft, makes it really short. That’s not a problem – it’s just something different to get used to.

When I first received the hooks, some of them had quite a sharp ridge over the head, which was catching and snagging on the yarn. I filed the ridge down to smooth it and it was much improved, although it still seems more pointy than what I am used to, and so more prone to split the yarn.

Hook shape

My main difficulty is with the ‘hook’ part. I am very loyal to the Susan Bates hook shape, but this shape is completely different. It’s thin, pointy, and the shaft is narrower than the size of the hook, which makes it more difficult for me to maintain my usual tension.

For each picture above, L: 3.5mm ergonomic hook, R: 3.5mm Susan Bates hook

If you like this style of hook (closer to a Boye hook) you shouldn’t have a problem with that though. However, the combination of narrow shaft and very pointy tip of the hook meant that the tip would split my yarn every time I tried to draw back up through a loop. In consequence it took at least twice as long as usual to complete a stitch, trying not to snag the yarn as I drew the hook up through each loop, and my tension was much tighter than normal. You can see the result of this clearly with my Christmas PocketAmi: I made the entire snowman with the new hook, and then gave up and used a regular Susan Bates hook for the other two. See how small the snowman’s body is in comparison (even though they all have the same number of rounds)?

I just want to reiterate at this point that this is not a design flaw with the hook – it’s just the style of hook that I am used to. If you like the Boye hook style, you may love this hook shape….

Ergonomics

My main hand problem when I crochet is actually with my non-crocheting hand; the hand that holds the work in place rigidly grips the work without moving for long periods of time, and that is the main cause of my (crochet-related) pain. So, unfortunately, no hook would address my main concern. If you experience pain in your hooking hand or problems gripping a regular hook, I definitely think the egg shape would help you – it is comfortable to hold and lets you control more of the positioning with the palm of your hand, so there is less pressure on your forefinger and thumb.

One point I should note: either because of the hook shape or the egg, I found myself making more exaggerated twisting motions with my wrist than I normally do when I crochet. I wonder if this could lead to a wrist problem in the long term? I really don’t know.

Overall

The kit itself is small and convenient, and I do like the support of the wooden egg. I’m considering buying a new Susan Bates E hook and trying to hack it into the mechanism (the shaft is slightly too wide to fit without modifications) – if that works I would have a fair test to see if my difficulties were caused by the shape and style of the hook attachments, or the design of the system itself. I have a feeling I would really like it with my favourite hook attached, and it may also solve the extra twisting motions I experienced.

If I can get my preferred hook to work with the egg, I will definitely report back – I don’t want to put people off buying one just because I don’t get along with the narrow Boye-style hooks!

I can’t recommend you buy or avoid this hook set – I really think so much depends on the user. If you like the hook style it’s supplied with, you may love it. If your hand is not abnormally large or small, you may love it. If you are lucky enough to have a chance to do so, I’d suggest you try crocheting with one before you buy. I had held mine in my hand, but I didn’t try actually crocheting with it.

Crocheting is a repetitive activity, and as such can lead to repetitive strain injuries. The most important thing to remember – whatever hook you use – is to take regular breaks, and stretch your hands (and probably your arms and back too, if you are like me and end up hunched up over your work). Your body will thank you for it!

Over to you…

Do you have any experience with ergonomic crochet hooks, or solutions for crochet-related hand/wrist pain? Please share in the comments!

I’ve been waiting for days for the clouds to clear so I have decent lighting for my photos, but it looks like that’s not going to happen any time soon – and can you believe we have a few inches of snow already?! Seems like winter has come early this year.

My giant sea turtle is finished – yay! He is waaay too big to fit inside my light tent, so it’s been quite a challenge to get these photos for you, but here he is in all his massive glory:

You can’t really tell from the pictures, but he’s seriously large: 18″ (46cm) long from nose to tail, with an immense 21″ (54cm) flipper-span! Here’s his pale belly, with subtle pale green hexagonal patterning:

And meeting the standard-sized sea turtle:

Yep, who’d have thought… this sea turtle makes Great A’tuin the world turtle look like a little baby!

He’s made with 2 strands of Bernat Softee Chunky yarn held together, and a size L (8mm!) hook, but aside from that and a few additional colour changes (5 colours instead of 2) he’s made following the AquaAmi Sea Turtle pattern instructions exactly.

Now my only problem is where to keep a giant turtle?! One thing’s for sure – he’s not going to fit on my toy shelves…

It may seem early to some, but I know for a fact that some of you are already preparing for the holiday season. So with that in mind, I’ve created another seasonal set of PocketAmi, with a Christmas theme!

This time around, we have a tiny Snowman, a Christmas Elf, and a Reindeer for your crocheting pleasure. As with all the PocketAmi patterns, they are all under 3″ tall and super quick to crochet. The added bonus of this set is that, by adding a loop of yarn to the back of their heads, you have instant cute tree decorations!

PocketAmi Set 4: Christmas is now available in the PlanetJune shop for the bargain price of $5, and includes the patterns for all 3 seasonal ami.

Today, I bought some yarn. Not just any yarn: lovely 100% alpaca yarn. And not just any alpaca yarn either: I met the very alpacas whose fleece had been spun into my yarn! This was my special (belated) birthday treat, and it was worth the wait. Alpaca Acres is a small local alpaca farm, and they had an Open House this afternoon. It was a glorious day for it – the sun was shining and it was perfect autumn weather.

The owners were very welcoming and answered all my hundreds of questions. We saw the breeding male (front) strutting for the benefit of the lady alpacas (the females were already pregnant, so they rejected his advances by spitting at him – apparently the alpaca version of a pregnancy test!):

This year’s babies were so adorably soft and had beautiful big dark eyes – this little guy was only 6 weeks old:

And as for the yarn, I bought some light brown yarn courtesy of Vixen:

We also got to hand-feed her and some of the others! Their mouths are very delicate and feel velvety when they touch your hand to take the food. Here she is in close-up:

And here I am with Harvey, my other yarn donor:

What a cutie, with his lovely dark brown fleece:

I don’t know what I’m going to make with the yarn yet (I only have 50g of each colour so it won’t be anything big), but when I do crochet it into something I’ll be able to think of Vixen and Harvey whenever I use it. What an amazing experience to have met the actual animals who produced my yarn!

Happy Halloween! I thought I’d celebrate by showing off some of the wonderful pumpkins that ravelry and flickr users have made from my free Pumpkin crochet pattern:

Aren’t they cute? Credit for these pumpkin pics go to the following ravelers: Yorpy, ines-chan, Calophi, Taya, dr-evi, joliet, Jain, craftygamergrl, ohthatashley, suzette100, Annkari, arpelia, LilGrape, salohlee, leelersinc, ShayeDKnits, BekahJan, sunnydaze, zsyrinx, mickeygurl2. Great job, all!

This post was originally published on my old papercraft site, Folding Trees.

Tea bag folding is a paper craft that originated in Holland, where many tea bags come wrapped individually in paper packets. By cutting each bag down to a square, the bags can be folded and then combined into a geometric shape, just like in 2D modular origami. But don’t let the name ‘tea bag folding’ put you off – you can perform this craft with any small squares of coloured paper. The resulting medallions can be used to decorate handmade greeting cards, embellish your wrapped gifts, or you could try adding a hanging loop (glue the units together first!) to make an unusual Christmas decoration.

In this tutorial, to give you an idea of the techniques, I’ll demonstrate a simple fold pattern and its assembly into a medallion. I’ll also show you an interesting variant on the basic fold, and two ways to combine the variant units to make different medallions.

Introduction

To give a more authentic result, your paper squares should be patterned, and each square should have the same pattern. There are many online resources that provide printable sheets of repeating patterns to cut into squares, and fold diagrams to produce different shapes; Google ‘tea bag folding’ to find more links.

Instructions

You will need 8 squares of paper per medallion. If you’re printing your tea bag papers, cut them into squares, otherwise assemble 8 squares of origami paper. You can use squares of any size; here I’ve used 1.5″ (3.8cm) squares:

Note: As with all origami, this works best if you strongly crease each fold. You can do this with a bone folder, or just by running your thumbnail along the crease of each fold before moving on to the next step.

Basic Unit

Glossary:

• A mountain fold is made by folding the edges away from you (creating a mountain shape).
• A valley fold is made by folding the edges towards you (creating a valley shape).

For each square, place it patterned side up (below, left). Mountain fold in half diagonally (below, right):

Open up and mountain fold along the other diagonal (below, left). Now valley fold the square in half (below, right):

Open up again and, by pushing the edges of paper towards each other at the points marked by the arrows below, you’ll start to fold the square down into a triangle along the creases you’ve just made.

The basic fold is now complete (below, left). Take 2 of your triangles and slot them together so the points are interleaved (below, right):

Continue to add triangles to assemble the shape. They won’t stay together unless you glue them down; you can glue them as you go, or assemble them very carefully and then glue them all together at the end.

Here’s the completed basic medallion:

Variant

For a more interesting variant, when you’ve completed the basic unit, mountain fold each of the two front points of the triangle up to meet the top point. This will leave you with the triangle shape with a diamond shape on top. Interleave the units as before:

By varying the order of assembly, you can create different patterns. In the photo below, the medallion on the left is formed by interleaving one unit above, one unit below, around the circle. The medallion on the right is formed so each unit is half over and half under the neighbouring units:

It’s as simple as that!

I wrote up these basic instructions as a teaching aid for my class last week. I’m sure there are others out there who would like to try crocheting some amigurumi but just don’t know the basic crochet stitches. Well, that’s no longer an obstacle with my clear step by step instructions to guide you through all the basics you need to get started.

Now you have no excuse not to try crochet… So find yourself a 3.5mm crochet hook and some worsted weight yarn, and you’ll soon see how simple and fun crocheting can be!

Continue to:

• Crochet Basics (right-handed)
• Crochet Basics (left-handed)