PlanetJune Blog: Latest News, Patterns and Tutorials

I’ve tried something a bit different for my latest design for the AquaAmi range. My sea turtle is made with two colours of yarn, but is still all worked in single crochet in the round (apart from a few rogue hdcs). He is one of my largest and most ambitious designs to date, at 11″ (28cm) long from nose to tail, with a 12.5″ (32cm) flipper-span!

Click for larger photo

I’ve designed him so his head and limbs appear to stick out of holes in his shell. The top and bottom of his shell are each formed from 10 hexagons. Yes, that is a lot of stitching together, but I think it was worth it!

Some fun sea turtle facts I discovered while researching for this design:

• Sea turtles, unlike other turtles, cannot retract their heads and limbs into their shells
• Sea turtles have evolved streamlined shells and large front flippers so they can ‘fly’ through the water
• Sea turtles spend almost their whole lives at sea, but females return to the same beach they were born to lay their eggs
• You can tell females from males as the females have a very short tail

Here’s his belly:

Once I have finished writing up and illustrating all the steps that go into making him, you’ll be able to make your own Sea Turtle! Join my mailing list if you’d like to know when the pattern is available.

What do you think of him? I hope you love him as much as I do!

UPDATE: Looking for the pattern? You can find the AquaAmi Sea Turtle crochet pattern in my shop.

AmiDogs Set 3 includes:

• Siberian Husky (or Alaskan Malamute)
• Welsh Corgi (Pembroke and Cardigan varieties)
• German Shepherd (aka Alsatian)

The patterns are available individually, or as a value-priced set of all three. If you’d like to purchase them, you can click through to my store to buy (and scroll down; the latest dogs are at the bottom of the list!)

Enjoy!

I decided I was being unfair by making my corgi design only apply to tailless Pembroke Welsh Corgis, so here is a Cardigan Welsh Corgi modification:

(The corgi pattern will include both versions!)

For everyone who is waiting, the AmiDogs Set 3 patterns will be available very shortly…

UPDATE: Looking for the pattern? You can find the AmiDogs Corgi crochet pattern in my shop.

Want to know some more about me and my crafting? The lovely and crafty Carina (Wardi) interviewed me a few weeks ago, and the interview is up on her blog today.

Go and check out my interview, and while you’re there, take a look at Carina’s blog and see the happy colourful crafts she’s been making lately!

Thanks to Carina for taking the time to interview me – it was fun 🙂

Photo credit: embroidered garden by Carina

By popular demand, I finally designed a german shepherd (also known as an Alsatian, for any Brits reading this):

A big thanks to Kris and Kassie for your design feedback!

It’s difficult to see his nose (black on black) but you can see it’s there from the profile of the face. I also just realised that the angle of these pictures don’t really show it, but the black from the dog’s back carries over into the base of the tail.

Now to finish the patterns… AmiDogs Set 3 (Husky, Corgi & German Shepherd) should be ready to purchase (individually or as a set) within the next few days; please sign up for my mailing list if you’d like to be notified when the set is available.

UPDATE: Looking for the pattern? You can find the AmiDogs German Shepherd crochet pattern in my shop.

* If you can see this post, you’re viewing the new improved PlanetJune server! *

I just went to my mailbox, and look what I found inside (sorry about the photo quality; the sun is not cooperating today):

It’s a new book, Amigurumi Animals by Annie Obaachan! The book is very cute, and has lots of tips for how to design and make amigurumi:

It includes a menagerie of patterns you can make (with both written and charted instructions):

In the back is a gallery of amigurumi artists, and guess who has a full-page spread? 😉

Three large pictures, and a little blurb about me and PlanetJune.com. What really cracked me up, though, is I even made it into the index 😀

If you’re an amigurumi beginner, you could do a lot worse than picking up Amigurumi Animals (and not just to look at my photos!)

I’ve ordered business cards etc from VistaPrint before, so I’m on their mailing list for all their promotions. A couple of weeks ago they had an offer that was too good to pass up, so I thought I’d sample a wider range of their products. I designed PlanetJune postcards, magnets, sticky notes, a rubber stamp and even a custom pen!

Today my box of goodies arrived. I’ve never been disappointed with VistaPrint, and this order was no exception.

Lots of stuff!

These ‘business cards’ and ‘postcards’ are actually fridge magnets. My polymer clay Gingy wanted to get in on the fridge photoshoot too 🙂

The full order (click pic for larger version). Clockwise from left: postcard, rubber stamped images, pen, sticky notes, large postcard, business card magnet.

I think my rubber stamp design (my pink bear and the words ‘PlanetJune.com‘) may have been too detailed, as I’m having trouble getting a good print of the bear. I’m a stamping novice, though, so it could be the paper or ink at fault – I will experiment some more.

My favourite items from the order are the sticky notes (the pink bear image is faint enough to write over the top of it) and the large AquaAmi postcard. I made a border for the AquaAmi card featuring tiny images of all my designs, and I like the effect. I almost want to frame one of these and put it up on the wall in my craft room!

Although I have my new leather desk chair in my craft room, I stored my old chair in the basement, just in case. I saw a great post (‘save your old chair with a new look’) on IKEA Hacker a few weeks ago, and recognised my boring old Svenning chair given a fantastic makeover. Well, I do have two desks in my craft room, so having two chairs wouldn’t be a bad idea…

I went to the fabric store and managed to find some fabric in the exact colour scheme I used to crochet the throw for my other chair!

Holly’s method involved removing the old fabric from the chair, and then stapling the new fabric over the chair padding. I don’t have a staple gun, and after reading about Holly’s stapling difficulties, I decided to try a different method to attach the new fabric. I removed the backing fabric from the seat, and the plastic backing from the back rest, but left the original fabric stapled to both parts.

I stretched the new fabric over each piece and pinned it roughly in place so the dots pattern would be straight. Using a curved upholstery needle and strong thread, I stitched around the underside of the seat, sewing the new fabric to the old fabric.

I used a combination of running stitch for speed and backstitches for extra security every few stitches and around the corners. No need to be too neat – none of this is visible in the finished chair.

When I’d finished sewing, I trimmed the excess fabric, leaving about an inch beyond my stitches.

I reattached the plastic back to the back, and blanket stitched the original backing fabric to the seat, to hide the raw edges.

And the result? Better then new!

I love it!