PlanetJune Blog: Latest News, Patterns and Tutorials

I just returned from the summer Tent Sale at the Yarn Factory Outlet in Listowel, ON. Twice a year, they have a big sale, and I’ve been to the past two winter sales, but never to the summer sale before.

It’s about an hour’s drive from my house, through farmland and Mennonite country, and today I had an added surprise: the highway was closed for a stretch, and I got to take a scenic diversion through even more of the countryside. It turns out that the drive is so much nicer in August than in February: I saw 2 hawks perched on a signpost, skipping lambs following their mothers, countless cows with calves, and big horses with adorably fragile-looking foals. If the sun had only been shining, it would have been a perfect drive!

And then when I got there, I discovered that the yarn sale is also better than their winter sale! They put up a huge tent in the parking lot, filled with huge boxes of bagged yarn, 3, 4 or 6 balls per bag (same shade and dye lot in each bag) with crazy prices on the bags and then, on top of that, if you buy 3 bags of the same yarn, you get the 4th for free!

Despite the gloomy day, it was stuffy and humid outside, so you can just imagine what it was like inside the crowded tent. But it was worth it. Everyone was handed an extra-strong black garbage bag on the way in, to use as a shopping bag, which I thought was overkill until I started shopping. 24 balls of yarn is large and heavy, and the deals were too good to stop at only 24!

I managed to restrain myself and only bought 4 bags (24 balls) each of Patons Grace and Bernat Satin. And that took some serious willpower – seeing yarn that usually costs $4-5 per skein being sold at $4 for a bag of 3 skeins… Ah, the temptation!

My haul!

The only downside was that I didn’t have any cash with me – the cash-only till had no queue at it, but the two debit/credit tills moved very slowly. I ended up spending about half an hour shopping, and another hour standing in the stuffy tent waiting to pay. But when I finally got back outside, there was a little refreshments tent, selling hot and cold drinks and fresh baked goods, so I got myself a little energy boost before the drive home 🙂

Today was the first day of the sale, and it runs through to August 21st. If you live in driving distance of Listowel, Ontario, I highly recommend you take a trip to the Yarn Factory Outlet this week or next. You won’t regret it!

July has come and gone, and so it’s time to draw another ‘Review and Win’ winner… July’s winner is Cheryl D, who said:

I used my detail stuffing tool for the first time today… I bought it ages ago and haven’t made any amigurumi lately, (it’s all been big projects and house moves) and when I used it today to make a penguin baby toy, I WAS AMAZED! It’s absolutly brilliant and does exactly what June says it does! Thanks June! You are a GENIUS!!!

Congratulations, Cheryl – you win a free pattern of your choice! (And thanks for the lovely review of my Detail Stuffing Tool too!)

I’ve faced a dilemma about the reviews in my shop and I’d like to explain my thoughts and my decision here, in the interest of transparency. I had my first bad (2 star) review last week, but it transpired that the reviewer hadn’t actually bought the pattern – she was only commenting about her opinion of my design:

This judgement was based on my photos alone – the ‘reviewer’ has not seen the pattern.

When you leave a review in my shop, the purpose is different: a review is there to help other customers to decide whether they should buy the item you’ve reviewed, or not. As such, leaving a review giving your opinion of the look of the finished piece isn’t helpful – you’re not telling the reader anything she can’t see for herself by looking at the photos in my shop! I believe that the only really useful reviews are ones where the reviewer has purchased the pattern and can give an opinion based on reading (or having made) the actual pattern, for example:

• “This is a well-written pattern”
• “I found it really confusing and hard to follow”
• “The step-by-step photos were really helpful”
• “I found a bunch of errors and the designer didn’t reply to any of my emails about them”
• This is the most realistic design I’ve found, and the pattern is very clear

(These comments are for example only, although the positive ones are loosely based on real reviews – I hope nobody will have cause to leave those negative comments about any of my designs!)

Now, whether the rating attached to these is 1 star or 5 stars, or something in between, they all give you valuable information about what you can expect from the pattern, and as such are helpful reviews.

I’ve decided (after a lot of thought) to delete the above 2 star review from my shop, as it will harm my sales but it offers no information that would help anyone else make a purchase decision. In fact, the ‘review’ is actually misleading – when I mentioned it on Twitter, several people assumed she was leaving her review of the pattern itself, as she does say “I like the simplicity of the pattern” (which, let me remind you, she has never seen) – they thought she was saying that the pattern didn’t live up to her expectations and didn’t include enough detail – which would be a valid criticism, except that it’s not true! [FYI, my T rex pattern contains 2 full pages of assembly instructions, including 5 photos – I don’t think anyone could call that a lack of detail!]

If the comment had been posted on my blog instead, I wouldn’t have a problem with it: of course not everyone will like my style! I have no problem with that, or with people telling me that they would like my T Rex design more if it had teeth and claws (for example). But it would insult your intelligence to suggest you need a review to tell you that my design doesn’t include a lot of details like that – you can see for yourself whether you like my design style based on my photos, and choose to buy the pattern (or not) based on your own opinion.

Let me be clear about this: I’m not deleting all negative reviews from my shop! If you truly feel, having bought a pattern, that it deserves 4, 3, 2, or even 1 star, and you explain your reasons for feeling that way in your review, I will leave that review intact for all to see. But reviewing a pattern without ever seeing that pattern is like reviewing a book after just looking at the cover – how could you possibly know what it’s like without even looking inside?!

So, please do continue to review the patterns and products in my shop, but please limit your reviews to items you’ve actually experienced for yourself. The reviews aren’t there for me to read (you can email me or leave me blog comments if you want to tell me your opinions!) – they are there to help others, so please write the sort of information you’d find helpful to read! Thank you 🙂

I haven’t posted anything about punchneedle for a while, but I haven’t forgotten all about it: I’ve been working on larger scale projects instead of new small patterns. My punchneedled Moon, with a 5″ diameter, was the largest project I’d undertaken, until I bit the bullet and bought a mammoth 10″ diameter embroidery hoop so I could make some larger, more complex, pieces.

I was commissioned to make a very interesting project for publication, but the actual publication process has gone through some twists and turns, and it’ll be a while longer before it sees the light of day, so I don’t think I can talk about it yet (or share a picture :(). This is one of the reasons why I find the immediacy of self-publishing so satisfying – I completed the piece in December 2009 and I still can’t talk about it, whereas if I’d self-published it, I’d have been able to share all the details before last Christmas!

But my latest punchneedled piece is just for me, and it’s somewhat ambitious (aka large), so it’s going to take a while to complete. I have a tendency to hide my work until it’s ready for the big reveal when it’s completed, but I think that in this case it might spur me on to keep making progress if I share it as a WIP (work in progress) every now and then.

I was inspired by 3D papercraft models to try something unique: using a combination of punchneedle and sewing to create a full 3D shape. I’m punching the design onto a flat piece of fabric, and then stitching along the lines where you’d glue a tab from one piece to the next in a paper model. I think it’ll work very well, although I’ve never seen anyone do anything similar, so I won’t know for sure until my piece is ready to assemble!

I assembled these paper models for a tutorial I posted at Folding Trees with tips on how to cut and assemble models like these. I’m using the same concept (turning a flat design into a 3D shape) for my punchneedle project!

I invested many hours into it before I even started the embroidery: figuring out the flat shapes I’d need to embroider, so I could eventually cut and stitch them together to create the final 3D shape, and then drawing my pattern in Illustrator. Now, I have no idea if the subject of my punchneedle will be very obvious from this photo, or a bit cryptic – can you tell what it’s going to be? (This is the reverse side, by the way – the side I look at while I’m punching. The other side will look much prettier!)

I hugely underestimated the amount of embroidery floss I’d need to complete this project – I initially bought 10 skeins, but my revised estimate is now 28 skeins! That’s a lot of embroidery, even with the speed of punchneedle (which is much faster than conventional embroidery). This is definitely going to be a long-term project…

If you’re saying “huh? Punchneedle – what’s that?”, you might like to check out my eBook, The Punchneedle Handbook: Miniature Punchneedle Embroidery Basics & Beyond. This eBook includes everything about punchneedle from the absolute basics for those who have never heard of this craft, to my techniques that will allow absolutely anyone to create beautiful punchneedle embroideries. I’ve also made an excerpt from the eBook into a free tutorial so you can get a taste for what punchneedle is about.

So, how about it – any guesses as to what my giant punchneedle project is going to be?

Since I began selling physical products (safety eyes and noses for amigurumi, stitch markers for crocheters, and Detail Stuffing Tools) in addition to virtual products (PDF patterns and ebooks) I’ve had a new challenge to contend with: packaging. Canada Post has the delightful rule that any packages over 2cm thick cost around 4x as much to ship, so I have to pack carefully to ensure that all my packages are within the 2cm height limit – which can be quite tricky!

I also want to do my part to protect the environment (you’ve probably already guessed this from the subject of most of my designs, but animals and the natural world are really important to me), so I try to follow the ‘environmental 3 Rs’ principle: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.

Reduce: I’m continually refining my packaging process to use the least material while still being secure and protecting the contents. I’ve gone from using one sheet of bubble wrap to pack 4 orders, to cutting it in such a way that I can safely package an average of 7 orders using a single sheet of bubble wrap – that’s a big reduction! This little stack will package 12 orders:

Reuse: I do use plastic bubble wrap for packaging because there’s nothing like it for protecting my little goodies as they travel across the world to their destinations, but I don’t feel too bad about that because I advertise locally and collect clean, tape-free bubble wrap from people who’ve just moved house and have bags of it sitting around after unpacking all their ornaments and tableware. (Speaking of which, I’m running low – if anyone around the K-W area has a bunch of bubble wrap going spare, please contact me.) Clever, huh?

Recycle: I use recycled Post-It notes to make the thank you notes I send out with each order.

And this isn’t quite recycling, but it’s a step in the right direction. I went out to replenish my stock of envelopes today, and I made the decision to switch from smart-looking white envelopes to blah-looking kraft coloured envelopes.

I’m hoping that nobody will mind the colour change – it’s just an envelope, after all; you only glance at it for a second before ripping it open and discarding it (into your recycling bin, right??), so how could anyone object?

But the added bonus here is that my new envelopes are FSC certified. Forestry Stewardship Council (FSC) certification guarantees that the wood used to produce paper products is taken from responsibly managed forests.

Many species of animals and plants (including my favourite, the orangutan) are at great risk from deforestation, so using FSC certified paper products is an easy way to do your part to help protect the environment – just look out for the FSC logo when you’re shopping.

My envelopes are FSC certified as “Mixed Sources”. The wood used to produce FSC certified products with a “Mixed Sources” label comes from FSC certified well-managed forests, controlled sources and/or recycled material.

This means that, while my envelopes may not be fully recycled, at least their production hasn’t deprived any endangered species of their natural habitat, so you can feel good about ordering your crochet supplies from me! 🙂

I’m just back from my sister’s wedding (which was spectacular); my refashioned shoes held up well and I managed not to trip on my way up the aisle, so we’ll call that a success! It was lovely to see my family, but I really missed being online (other than daily email checks for anything urgent) – how sad is that?! Now I’m trying to pick up the reins of my life and business again, which is surprisingly difficult after a week away from it all…

But look what was waiting for me on my return: new Dinosaur business cards!

What do you think? I’m really pleased with them – they work much better than any of the previous options I was considering. If you order anything that needs shipping (i.e. eyes, noses, stitch markers, and/or Detail Stuffing Tools) from my shop in the near future, you’ll be getting one of these in your package! (And, of course, if you’d like to buy any or all of the Dinosaur crochet patterns, you’ll find them all in the Prehistorical Animals category in my shop.)

And in other news, we’re almost up to the halfway point of the Summer Crochet-along (CAL) on Ravelry.

We already have some excellent completed projects (see below), and many more in progress.

Photo credits: African Violet by bsktkls; Alpacas by rainydaybaby

If you’d like to join in and make an Alpaca or African Violet, there’s still over a month to go, and don’t forget you can get 20% off the cost of the pattern(s) (either or both) if you’re crocheting along – check the CAL instructions to find out how 🙂

Ahh, it’s good to be back!

Reviews

Just realised I forgot the ‘Review and Win’ draw at the end of June – oops! The June winner is Vicki S – congratulations, Vicki! I’ll email you to find out which pattern you’d like as your prize 🙂

I’m really happy to have almost 100 reviews in my shop now – thank you so much to everyone who’s taken the time to review one of my patterns or products over the past 3 months. But there are still lots of patterns that have yet to receive a single review, so please keep reviewing! (It’s an easy way for you to help my business even if you don’t have any spare cash to buy more patterns right now, and you might win the next monthly draw!)

To write a review:

1. Go to www.planetjune.com/shop
2. Browse to the item you want to review
3. Click the Reviews tab
4. Click the write a review button

…You may be July’s free pattern winner!

Vacation

And now a little shop admin: as you may have gathered from my previous post, my fancy-schmancy shoes and I are heading to the UK for my sister’s wedding next weekend. This means that any orders for eyes, noses, stitch markers and stuffing tools received after today (July 11th) will be shipped when I return on July 21st. (That’s the downside of having a one-person business! Sorry for any inconvenience.)

Pattern orders are unaffected: all patterns will still be available for immediate download, as always. I’ll also be checking email while I’m away, so feel free to contact me with any questions.

I’m filing this as a tutorial because you could use the same methods to add pretty bead embellishments to any pair of shoes!

My sister’s getting married next week and I, being the maid of honour, need to have pretty shoes for the occasion. This is a huge problem for me; I’m not a girly shoe kind of girl, and I’ll go for comfort over style any day: heels hurt my feet, pointed toes hurt my feet, unpadded footbeds hurt my feet… However, I’m not stupid, and I don’t think running shoes would be the right look for this occasion! I thought silver would be best with my purple maid of honour dress, but all the silver shoes I saw looked totally tacky or ridiculously expensive. After a marathon 2.5 hour shopping trip covering 7 shoe shops, there was only one pair that looked nice (i.e. not flip flops), were fairly comfortable (i.e. standing in them for 2 seconds didn’t make me say “ouch!”), and reasonably priced. So we went back to the first store (of course that’s where they were!) to buy them.

But. Slight problem: on closer inspection, the beading on the shoes was quite nice, apart from a hideous misshapen lump in the middle of each band, surrounded by a border of tacky-as-anything gold seed beads. Why would they do this?! I despaired for a moment and then remembered that I’m crafty and can totally fix stuff like this. I bought the shoes.

Before. Hideosity.

The beads were stitched on with invisible nylon thread, and the fabric (and hence the threads) were all glued down to the layer below, so I could snip the threads on the offending beads without all the other beads falling off.

Offending beads removed.

I wanted to replace the focal bead with something that would tie it more closely to my purple dress. I found some flat oval cats eye beads that are subtly purple, without looking out of place on the shoe (some of the existing beads are pinkish so the tones match). I couldn’t glue the focal beads to the shoe because the surface was too uneven and the beads were too slippery, so I used some invisible nylon beading thread to go through the focal bead and through an existing bead on each side to lock it in place. A little superglue on the knot to stop it from coming undone when I snipped off the ends of the thread, and the focal beads were secured.

Focal beads attached.

Now I just needed to fill the empty space around the new focal beads. I bought some glass seed beads in similar shades to the seed beads already on the shoe, and used some Aleene’s Jewel-It glue (specifically designed for permanently sticking gems onto clothing – I happened to have bought an Aleene’s trial size multipack a couple of years ago, and never had a use for this type of glue until now!) to attach them. I put a bead on the tip of a needle, dipped one side into the glue, and used the needle to position the bead. Then I used a pin to keep the bead in place while I removed the needle, and waited for the glue to dry. Easy, if a little fiddly.

Seed beads fill the gaps

I love the finished shoes – well, as much as I could love impractical women’s shoes. No idea how I’ll cope with those little heels; I’ll probably trip up the aisle! Wish me luck!

Shoes: $35. Beads: $7.50. Wearing a pair of shoes I actually like to my sister’s wedding: priceless.

I have a confession to make: when I launched my Dinosaurs Set 1, I promised I’d design another set if/when I sold 100 copies of the first set. And, ahem, well let’s just say that happened quite some time ago… I did start working on Set 2 in rare quiet periods while I was working on my new book, but there’s a lot involved in designing a three pattern set, so I put them to one side and concentrated on individual patterns until I had more time on my hands.

Dinosaurs Set 1, L-R: Brachiosaurus, Stegosaurus, Triceratops

And that time is now!

As you probably know from my first set, my dinosaur designs are deceptively simple: crocheted all in one colour, so they are really easy for you to crochet, and all the magic is in the shaping I built into them. It was really important to me that the new dinos have the same aesthetic as the original designs, and I hope I’ve succeeded in that:

Dinosaurs Set 2, L-R: Pteranodon, Plesiosaurus, Tyrannosaurus Rex

The first set (Brachiosaurus, Stegosaurus, Triceratops) were all herbivores, but I didn’t really want to make an all-carnivore set (some of the dino shapes are too similar to give an interesting mix of designs), so the theme of Set 2 is land, sea and sky. Coincidentally, once I started my research, I discovered that all the dinos I chose for Set 2 are actually carnivores anyway – ha!

Meet The Dinosaurs

Tyrannosaurus Rex was an obvious choice for my land dinosaur. He was the ‘king’ of the dinosaurs – need I say more?! T. rex was one of the largest carnivores, at about 40 ft long. He used his long tail to counterbalance the weight of his big head, he walked on his back legs, and had almost comically tiny arms.

Plesiosaurus is my sea dinosaur. I’ve always loved the elegant shape of Plesiosaurs. Plesiosaurus was about 8 ft long, and had an extremely long neck, a small head, wide body, and four long, paddle-like flippers. He lived in the sea and fed on fish and cephalopods.
Fun fact: some people believe that Nessie, the mythical Loch Ness monster, could be a surviving plesiosaur!

Pteranodon is my sky dinosaur; a type of Pterosaur. I was going to call him Pterodactyl, but then I discovered that the word Pterodactyl actually covers several different species (some of which don’t have that distinctive head crest!), and that the correct name for this specific dino is Pteranodon. He had a 20-30 ft wingspan, a long toothless beak, and a characteristic cranial crest at the back of his head.

I should probably mention, that, during my research for these species, I discovered that, technically, neither Plesiosaurs nor Pterosaurs are actually dinosaurs! The term ‘dinosaur’ correctly covers only a certain type of terrestrial reptile with an upright stance, so Plesiosaurs and Pterosaurs are simply related reptiles that lived in the same time periods as the true dinosaurs. I think that, for the purpose of this collection, and what people understand when they hear the word ‘dinosaur’, it’s okay for me to include them in my dinosaur set – I don’t expect anyone to use my patterns as research tools!

I hope you like my new dinosaur set! You can buy the patterns individually in the shop, or save a bundle when you buy the complete Set 2.

And here’s a bonus pic of my Dinosaurs Sets 1 and 2 – is it just me, or do they look really cute together?! (And I love those Vanna’s Choice yarn colours!)

Click to see them larger!

PS – I mentioned the new dinos on my Facebook page yesterday, and people there are already asking about Dinosaurs Set 3! Well, the same thing applies as last time: I’ll make a third set if I sell 100 copies of this one. So, if you want even more dinos, please spread the word about my new dino patterns!