PlanetJune Blog: Latest News, Patterns and Tutorials

I’ve been planning to design a groundhog for the past 2 years, but every time I remember, it’s late January, and far too late to give anyone other than me a chance to make one in time for Groundhog Day (February 2nd). This year I got my act in gear and made sure I’d get my design finished with a month to spare!

For those of you unfamiliar with Groundhog Day, go out and buy the movie Groundhog Day, starring Bill Murray and Andie MacDowell. RIGHT NOW. Seriously, you won’t regret it. It’s one of my favourite movies of all time 🙂

But the concept of Groundhog Day (the day, as opposed to the movie) is that the groundhog is a talented weather forecaster… On February 2nd, the groundhog wakes up from his winter hibernation, comes out of his burrow and looks around. If he sees his shadow, there’ll be 6 more weeks of winter; if he doesn’t see his shadow, we’ll have an early spring. There are several famous annual Groundhog Day ceremonies around North America, each with their own famous groundhog, including Punxsutawney Phil (yep, he’s the one in the movie!) in Pennsylvania, Wiarton Willie (an albino groundhog) in Ontario, and Shubenacadie Sam in Nova Scotia. Of course, the chance of spring starting in early February is fairly non-existent in these parts, and the groundhogs correctly predict that by seeing their shadows most years 😉

I took this photo of a pair of baby groundhogs last spring

But a groundhog is for life, not just for Groundhog Day… The groundhog, also known as a woodchuck, is a member of the marmot family. Here in Waterloo, Ontario, we see a lot of groundhogs throughout the year (except winter), sitting in fields and grazing on grass verges, and they are really cute. I love how fat they look (I made sure to build that into my design!) and when they stand up on their back legs to look around, they are just adorable! They aren’t greedy – they build up all that fat for a reason: so they can survive through the harsh winter by hibernating in their burrows.

And now you can make a cute and chubby little groundhog of your own, with my latest amigurumi crochet pattern! I made mine from Bernat Satin which is quite fine as worsted weight yarns go, and he stands at around 6.5″ tall. If you used a thicker worsted weight yarn (confusing, I know) like Vanna’s Choice, your groundhog would be even larger. If you’d like to make your own, the Groundhog crochet pattern is now available in the PlanetJune shop 🙂

I’m hoping my little guy will not see his shadow this February 2nd, so we can all look forward to an early spring!

Today I saw that the nominations for Ravelry’s annual Bobby Awards had been posted. I thought I’d take a look through and see the wonderful knit and crochet projects that made the cut this year. Imagine my surprise when I saw that my own amigurumi Discworld had been nominated – yay! As I continued to browse through the categories, I discovered that my Discworld has been nominated for not one, but three Bobby Awards!

I don’t think I’ve ever been up for an award before! My Discworld is nominated in three categories: Geekiest Pattern, Coolest Toy and Best Personal Pattern Project. If you have a Ravelry account, and (of course) if you think my Discworld is worthy of the awards, please consider voting for me in any or all of the three categories 🙂

It would be lovely to win, of course, but right now I feel so honoured to even be nominated and be recognised as an artist and designer. Thanks, of course, to Terry Pratchett, for inspiring me to recreate his wonderful Discworld in crochet. And thank you, Ravelers, for nominating (and voting for!) one of my all-time favourite designs!

As I’m a bit of a perfectionist (you may have noticed!) I really struggle with quick crafts, because I want everything to be as good as I can possibly make it. Sometimes that’s not healthy: when even my relaxation time is spent being very careful and striving for excellence, I put a lot of pressure on myself. So one of the things I’d like to do this year is to spend more time making ‘fun’ things without caring as much about how ‘good’ they are. And this is my first attempt at that.

Many years ago, I used to love making teeny tiny things with polymer clay – I once made a complete set of Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles (and Splinter the rat) that were each about 1cm tall! I thought it would be fun to try something more like that again – something quick and fun and colourful; almost the antithesis of my 3-years-in-the-making R2-D2 sculpture.

A bit of background for the non-gamers: in the late 1990s, there was a series of multiplayer games called Worms (Worms 2, Worms Armageddon, etc etc). Each player controlled a team of cute worms and took turns to try to annihilate each other by arming their own worms with a selection of outlandish and hilarious weapons. Crazy cartoon carnage ensued. Worms has recently made a comeback with new releases for consoles and iPhone, but 1999’s Worms Armageddon on PC is still a great game too.

Okay, enough talk! Here’s the action shot as the Worms go into battle on my computer keyboard:

Click through for the bigger pic at Flickr!

And because some of the details don’t show up too well against the black keys, here’s a posed shot of all the pieces:

Click through for the bigger pic at Flickr!
Worms L-R: no weapon, shotgun, dynamite, bazooka, grenade, no weapon
Back: health crate, mystery crate, oil barrel, super sheep (it’s a weapon!), homing missile, bazooka, mine

A couple of hours well-spent, I think – they just crack me up, especially their little expressions, and the super sheep with his billowing cape 😀

It’s hard to believe that 2009 has ended and I’ve been self-employed for a whole year already! My resolution from last year was “to give myself the chance to succeed, but to not beat myself up about it if things don’t go as well as I hope”, and I think that was a good resolution to have. Taking the leap into self-employment was not an easy decision, and this year has definitely been an eye-opener for me. My original plan was to spend my extra time designing more crochet patterns, and see if I could build my business that way, but, in the end, that wasn’t what happened at all…

The very next day after I made the decision to quit my job, I was approached to write a papercraft book (as a result of my work on Folding Trees). As it was my first book, I was totally unprepared for the amount of hard work this would entail – designing projects, shopping for materials, making project samples, giving myself a crash course in Adobe Illustrator so I could create quality illustrations for the book… oh yeah, and actually writing the book! But it all came together in the end, after 3 months of very hard work, and the end result, Paper Chains and Garlands, is out now to buy from Barnes & Noble stores and online.

After that, I came up with the bright idea of self-publishing a punchneedle embroidery eBook, so I spent a couple of months writing and photographing that, and designing patterns to go along with it. The result was The Punchneedle Handbook and a range of (currently) nine patterns.

Two books in one year!

I also had two sewing patterns published in the book One Yard Wonders. I taught three crochet classes at two Creativ Festivals, plus gave an online class at Crochetville. I gave a talk on designing amigurumi animals, and I was interviewed for two podcasts: Getting Loopy (about my crochet designs) and CraftyPod (about my experiences with print and eBook publishing). I finally finished my crocheted baby orang utan and was interviewed about it for an online art magazine. I did some web design contract work. And, for the past few months, I’ve also been working on 2 secret projects which I can’t reveal quite yet.

So really, it’s a wonder I had time to crochet at all, let alone follow my original plan of increasing my rate of producing new patterns! But I did manage to publish 16 new crochet patterns in 2009, some of which (African Violets, Alpaca, Dinosaurs, Christmas Trees) are now among my bestsellers, and I bought a special notebook that’s now filled with ideas that I haven’t had a chance to make yet, so I’m in good shape to start 2010.

Here’s a visual roundup of most of what I’ve made this year:

All in all, I will count 2009 as a very successful first self-employed year. There are a lot of things I was hoping to accomplish that I just haven’t had a chance to do yet, but I’ve worked very hard all year and I think I have a lot to show for it. Having said that, my resolution for the coming year is to learn to say “no” to some things – there are only so many hours in the day, and it’s not healthy to work all the time! Setting priorities is key, and this is why Eve and I made the difficult decision to close Folding Trees last week – we both have too many other things to juggle and something had to give so that we could save our sanity and spend some time with our families once in a while…

As for 2010: bring it on! I already have enough ideas to fill the entire year, but I’m not going to write a list of plans and goals here: I’ve learned to expect the unexpected and be flexible with my plans so I can seize new opportunities when they arise. I’m looking forward to continuing my journey, wherever it leads me.

On a personal level, 2009 has been a difficult year for many of us, myself included, so let’s cast all that off and move forward into a new decade and a new adventure! Don’t be afraid to try new things: shrug off the things that don’t work out and be encouraged by your successes. I wish you all a very Happy New Year, my friends!

…a project 3 years in the making.

Way back in January 2007, I posted a cryptic wip (work-in-progress) of a FIMO sculpture I’d started:

Can you tell what it is yet? 😉

Yes, I’m a lifelong Star Wars geek, and I was making a model R2-D2. I finished and baked the head, and then… nothing. I’d actually intimidated myself – the head was so detailed and so good that I didn’t think I’d be able to make a body to do justice to it! Also, I really wanted the head to be jointed so that it could rotate, and I wasn’t quite sure how to accomplish that. I filled a page in my notebook with sketches and ideas, but I never got any further than that. And the  longer I waited, the less likely it became that I’d ever finish my R2 project 🙁

This Christmas, I decided that after working myself so hard for an entire year (never work for me – I am a demanding boss!) I’d take a week off to spend time with Dave and just relax. And relaxing, for me, involves making stuff, so I got out the FIMO and set to work. A week and many baking sessions in the toaster oven later, here is the finished R2-D2:

I strongly suggest you click through to see the larger picture! You can’t really see the detail at this scale.

I am so happy with how he turned out! He is perfectly hand-sized at 8cm (just over 3″) tall, and he comes with a secret special feature: yep, I managed to get that rotating head working! I embedded a rare earth magnet into his body, and stuck a second magnet to the base of his head. This lets the head rotate smoothly and freely. Not sure what I’m talking about? Here’s a shot of the inside:

(The purple clay inside the body is just a core I made by smushing all my leftover unbaked scraps from past FIMO projects together. As it doesn’t show in the finished piece, there’s no point in wasting a huge lump of new clay, so I made a cylinder from the scrap clay, baked it, and then covered it in a sheet of white clay to form the torso.)

The head magnet fits perfectly inside the recessed hole. There’s a second magnet just beneath the surface of the clay at the bottom of the hole, so the head doesn’t fall off the body but can swivel freely. The rare earth magnets are so strong that, even when separated by a thin layer of clay, you can safely lift R2 by his head and his body will stay firmly attached. Here’s a little animation of his head moving:

This project was a great break from my normal life. I love the enforced calm that comes with my polymer clay work.  It’s so detailed and precise that I have to empty my mind and just concentrate on slicing off that sliver of clay, or smoothing out that fingerprint – it’s almost meditative. My batteries are recharged and I’m ready to tackle 2010!

Ahh, it’s Christmas! I made a batch of chocolate truffles yesterday, and mmmmm, they are so good! I wish I could give one to each of you, but as that’s a little unfeasible, my gift to you is the recipe so you can make your own. They only take a few minutes to make (plus time to set) and make lovely gifts, if you can bear to part with any! I think they are out-of-this-world delicious with Tia Maria, but you can use your favourite spirit instead – rum, Kahlua, etc – or even omit the alcohol and substitute with the same volume of milk for a teetotal version.

Happy Christmas!

Chocolate Truffles (makes approx 30)

Ingredients

• 4 oz / 120 g chocolate (semi-sweet or unsweetened)
• 10 oz / 300 g / 2 ¼ cups icing sugar (aka powdered/confectioners’ sugar), sifted
• 2 oz / 60 g / ¼ cup unsalted butter
• 1 tbsp Tia Maria (or alcohol of choice)
• Optional: chocolate sprinkles, cocoa powder or icing sugar for decoration

Method

1. Melt chocolate and butter in a heatproof bowl over a saucepan of simmering water.
2. Add alcohol and stir to blend.
3. Gradually add the sifted sugar and stir until all the sugar has been incorporated.
4. Divide the mixture into approx 30 pieces and roll each piece into a ball in your hands.
5. Roll each ball in chocolate sprinkles, cocoa powder or more icing sugar (or leave plain if preferred).
6. Place each truffle into a paper case and leave to set for 4-5 hours.

Store any leftovers in an airtight container – they will keep for weeks, but I doubt they’ll last that long!

Bon appetit, and happy holidays!

I guess you like the idea of clear eyes to use for amigurumi etc: 77% of you who voted in my poll said that you’d definitely be interested if I started selling them. Well, your wish is my command – I now have clear eyes available in the PlanetJune store in 9mm, 10mm, 12mm and 15mm sizes! (I’ve just ordered these sizes as a trial run, so if you’re looking for different sizes please let me know.)

As I mentioned in my previous post, clear eyes have several advantages:

• You can paint the flat back of the eye with acrylic paint to get the exact shade you want.
• Feeling artistic? Create customized eyes with paint effects – paint spots, stripes, starbursts etc on the back of the eye first, let it dry, then coat the entire back of the eye with the base colour.
• Don’t like painting? No problem! Just cut a square of felt a little larger than the eye, snip a little cross shape in the middle to poke the shaft of the eye through, then trim the felt so it is the same size as the eye – easy! (Blue and pink felt eyes pictured below)

By the way, the prices of all my eyes (clear and solid black) are now automatically discounted if you buy 10 or more pairs of a single size and type 🙂

And now onto the holiday sale…

From now until December 24th, all patterns (crochet patterns, punchneedle patterns, and The Punchneedle Handbook) will be automatically discounted by 10% in the shop. You don’t need a voucher code – this sale is available to everyone! This is your last chance to buy patterns at 2009 prices, and the last sale of this year, so you’ll never see prices lower than these. Multipack sets are also discounted, so you can get an even better deal there!

A small sampling of the crochet patterns you’ll find in the PlanetJune Shop

Happy Holidays from PlanetJune! I hope you’ll enjoy the pattern sale and take this opportunity to try out some clear eyes too. And don’t forget: PlanetJune Gift Certificates would make a great Christmas present for the crocheters on your list!