{"id":4260,"date":"2011-02-10T13:49:07","date_gmt":"2011-02-10T18:49:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.planetjune.com\/blog\/?p=4260"},"modified":"2026-03-09T15:47:30","modified_gmt":"2026-03-09T19:47:30","slug":"the-planetjune-yarn-fund","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.planetjune.com\/blog\/the-planetjune-yarn-fund\/","title":{"rendered":"the PlanetJune Yarn Fund"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>My favourite yarns for amigurumi (in no particular order) are:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.lionbrand.com\/collections\/vannas-yarn-family\/products\/vannas-choice-yarn\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Lion Brand Vanna&#8217;s Choice<\/a><\/strong> &#8211; although it&#8217;s not as soft as my other favourites, it has more substance, which makes for really nice shaping on my amigurumi, and oh! the colours! I&#8217;ve never seen such a lovely selection of muted colours. All my <a href=\"\/shop\/index.php?main_page=index&amp;cPath=11_18\">Dinosaurs<\/a> are made with Vanna&#8217;s.<br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/planetjune\/4767139835\/\" title=\"crocheted dinosaurs sets 1 and 2 by planetjune, on Flickr\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/farm5.static.flickr.com\/4073\/4767139835_80a09dacd1_m.jpg\" alt=\"crocheted dinosaurs sets 1 and 2\" \/><\/a> <\/li>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.yarnspirations.com\/bernat-satin-yarn\/164104.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Bernat Satin<\/a><\/strong> &#8211; my first favourite yarn! Although it&#8217;s got thinner over the last few years (when you pull it tight, as you do with amigurumi crochet, it really thins down, so it&#8217;s hard to avoid leaving some gaps between stitches), I still buy it as it&#8217;s dreamily soft and there&#8217;s a good selection of neutral colours which is handy for animals, like almost all of my <a href=\"\/shop\/index.php?main_page=index&amp;manufacturers_id=2\">AmiDogs<\/a> designs.<br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/planetjune\/2099082746\/\" title=\"Beagle, Boston Terrier, Jack Russell Terrier (crochet amigurumi) by planetjune, on Flickr\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/farm3.static.flickr.com\/2364\/2099082746_36ab968c43_m.jpg\" alt=\"Beagle, Boston Terrier, Jack Russell Terrier (crochet amigurumi)\" \/><\/a> <\/li>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.yarnspirations.com\/collections\/yarn\/products\/red-heart-soft-yarn\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Red Heart Soft<\/a><\/strong> &#8211; similar to Satin, but a touch less soft and just that little bit thicker, which makes for a better-looking amigurumi, with less gaps between stitches. There are some gorgeous saturated colours and greens in the range, but it&#8217;s a bit limited for neutrals. I used RH Soft to make the boy and girl designs in <a href=\"\/cigtoamigurumi\">my book<\/a>.<br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/planetjune\/5346532557\/\" title=\"Amigurumi Girl and Boy by planetjune, on Flickr\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/farm6.static.flickr.com\/5209\/5346532557_47e3861b73_t.jpg\" alt=\"Amigurumi Girl and Boy\" \/><\/a>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I use these yarns a lot. All the time, in fact. Between the three, I can always find the perfect yarn for any project I dream up. But that makes me very concerned about what I&#8217;m going to do for yarn once I get to South Africa&#8230; None of my favourite brands are available over there and I don&#8217;t think there&#8217;s a South African equivalent for the soft acrylics I use for my amigurumi designs. My plan is to buy as much as possible to ship over when we move, because I just don&#8217;t know what kind of designs I&#8217;m going to dream up next year, so I can&#8217;t plan for which colours I&#8217;ll need, or how much of each. My best bet is to stockpile the biggest stash I can manage.<\/p>\n<p>Yesterday, my sister <a href=\"\/blog\/adopt-a-planetjune-ferret\/comment-page-1\/#comment-107666\">commented<\/a> that she&#8217;d like a way to be able to send me money to put towards building my yarn stash, and I thought, hmm, that sounds like a good idea&#8230; <\/p>\n<p>So, if you find my website helpful and you&#8217;d like to send me something towards stocking up on yarn to take with me so I can keep designing new patterns and creating new tutorials for you when I&#8217;m in South Africa, you can now <a href=\"https:\/\/www.paypal.com\/cgi-bin\/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&#038;hosted_button_id=BLQC4ADSSWEKQ\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">donate to the PlanetJune Yarn Fund<\/a>:<\/p>\n<form style=\"text-align: center; \" action=\"https:\/\/www.paypal.com\/cgi-bin\/webscr\" method=\"post\">\n<input type=\"hidden\" name=\"cmd\" value=\"_s-xclick\"><br \/>\n<input type=\"hidden\" name=\"hosted_button_id\" value=\"BLQC4ADSSWEKQ\"><br \/>\n<input type=\"image\" src=\"\/images\/yarnfund.jpg\" border=\"0\" name=\"submit\" alt=\"Donate to the PlanetJune Yarn Fund to help me build a yarn stash to take to South Africa with me!\"><br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" border=\"0\" src=\"https:\/\/www.paypal.com\/en_US\/i\/scr\/pixel.gif\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\"><br \/>\n<\/form>\n<p>It&#8217;s like a virtual Tip Jar, but with a specific purpose. I&#8217;ll spend every cent donated to the PlanetJune Yarn Fund as frugally as possible, taking advantage of Michaels sales and coupons (I&#8217;m in Canada, so Michaels is the only option for me here!) to make the funds go as far as I can and hopefully be able to buy up every colour of my three favourite yarns for amigurumi!<\/p>\n<p>Of course, if you already support me by buying my patterns and accessories or donating for my free patterns, that all helps too &#8211; thank you! &#8211; but any Yarn Fund monies will <strong>all<\/strong> be spent on yarn, not sidetracked into paying for food, electricity, etc \ud83d\ude42  <\/p>\n<p>I thank you for all of your support, financial and otherwise, as I go through this scary, exhausting transitional stage before our new African adventure begins. I can&#8217;t even begin to imagine what my life will be like in a few months from now!<\/p>\n<p><em>ETA: Importing yarn to South Africa to use in my new designs has proven to be a major challenge, between high shipping costs, high import tax, a ridiculously poor exchange rate, postal strikes and postal theft. If you&#8217;d like to donate towards the PlanetJune Yarn Fund, it&#8217;s still operational, and all donations will be gratefully put towards my next yarn restocking adventure. \ud83d\ude42<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>My favourite yarns for amigurumi (in no particular order) are: Lion Brand Vanna&#8217;s Choice &#8211; although it&#8217;s not as soft as my other favourites, it has more substance, which makes for really nice shaping on my amigurumi, and oh! the colours! I&#8217;ve never seen such a lovely selection of muted colours. All my Dinosaurs are [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4260","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-crochet"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.planetjune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4260","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.planetjune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.planetjune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.planetjune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.planetjune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4260"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.planetjune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4260\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26756,"href":"https:\/\/www.planetjune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4260\/revisions\/26756"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.planetjune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4260"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.planetjune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4260"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.planetjune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4260"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}