The Essential Reference Work from a Stellar Crochet Designer!

I discovered PlanetJune in 2011 and my crochet universe exploded! I have followed her¬ remarkable career as a designer since then. Her patterns have been consistent in their format over the years, with clear, easy-to-read fonts, well-designed layouts, and beautiful photos. On her YouTube channel are videos with even more detailed explanations.

In this her latest book, The Essential Guide to Amigurumi, she provides step-by-step instructions for entering into the world of crochet amigurumi. If you are not familiar with this term, it is a technique of crocheting in rounds, not rows, to create amazingly cute animals and dolls and nearly limitless other items with very little or no previous crochet experience. And there are two mirror editions of this book, one for right handers and one for left handers. This is revolutionary!

The volume begins with the simplest of tools: a crochet hook, some yarn, and a pattern. It finishes with suggestions for how to make this most creative craft your personal hobby or even elevate it to be what you do for a living. The explanations are easy to understand, the illustrations beautifully done. The tips are always useful, the diagrams concise. The index is impressive. Even as an experienced “amigurimist” (her term, which I love), I learned many useful techniques and tips. This work will be a standard for future generations. It takes you from the very beginning to making your own amigurumi and creating the patterns for them, or even making them into works of art.

In The Essential Guide to Amigurumi, you take up just a hook and a strand of yarn and learn the basic stitches and vocabulary, and then June explains how to follow patterns. From there she moves on to making variations to patterns and then to designing your own and building your own business, if you’d like, selling those patterns - and much more in between. She has enormous experience in all of these areas and she gladly shares it. I highly recommend this book.

If you want to learn more about crochet, you will also want to delve into June’s previous book Everyday Crochet, which concerns itself with everything not related to amigurumi. It’s a whole universe of stitches, patterns, techniques, and knowledge. June skillfully presents the intricate aspects of crochet that make it so wonderfully creative.