Planet June

I love crocheting soft and squishy Giant Amigurumi versions of my patterns using blanket yarn! They’re super fun and huggable, but giant amigurumi are more like decorations than playable toys: using a hook that’s wider than a finger always leaves gaps between the stitches that little kids could stick their fingers in.

So I started to wonder: what if I could crochet a version that’s still big and soft, but with the firmness and structure of a standard amigurumi? Could I use the same super bulky blanket yarn with a small enough hook to eliminate those gaps and create a perfectly cuddly kids’ toy?

I did some tests to find out, and here’s the result, courtesy of a not-so-Baby Octopus (from my Baby Cephalopods collection):

A double-sized octopus (left) has twice the size and twice the snuggliness of a standard-sized octopus (right)!

It only took me an hour to make my octopus, and I’m so happy with the result! Trying to see chain stitches in chenille yarn made the tentacles a little more challenging – I had to frog a couple of the arms and try again, but I got there in the end, and everything else came together beautifully.

I forgot how clean and simple these Baby Cephalopods are – such a joy to make! If you haven’t tried these patterns yet, I can highly recommend them. Set 1 includes the Octopus and Squid, and Set 2 has the Cuttlefish and Nautilus, or you can get the multipack that includes all four sweet tentacled babies.

Now, back to my experiment: I found that using a 6.5mm (K) hook gave the best results for toy-making:

• Smaller hooks make the gaps between stitches so small that it’s harder to insert your hook – especially with chenille yarn, where the texture makes the stitches harder to see.
• Larger hooks create the softer ‘giant amigurumi’-style fabric with more space between the stitches.

The K (6.5mm) hook was the sweet spot – small enough to make a satisfyingly sturdy, gap-free fabric, but large enough to offer an easy, enjoyable crochet experience.

And, as a bonus: working with blanket yarn and a K hook, you end up with an ami that’s almost exactly twice the size of the original (for a standard sized amigurumi, worked in worsted weight yarn with an E hook). To demonstrate, here’s a comparison of three versions of my Tiny Whale pattern: Standard, Double, and Giant.

As you can see, the Double whale (centre) is about twice the size of the Standard one, and significantly smaller than the Giant version. It’s a nice middle ground if you want something bigger and cuddlier than a regular amigurumi but not as yarn-hungry as a giant ami!

As this is the ‘goldilocks’ size, I’ve refined my amigurumi scale chart and replaced the old Mini Giant scale (which was such a clunky name anyway!) with the slightly smaller but much more satisfying Double scale:

• If you’ve bought The Essential Guide to Amigurumi, you’ve already seen the new chart – the Double scale was debuted in the book when it launched!
• If you’ve bought The Complete Guide to Giant Amigurumi ebook, I’ve just updated page 8 to reflect the new Double recommendation (and you can download the revised version from your PlanetJune account)
• And I’ve also cleaned up my online Scaling Amigurumi guide with the new Double scale, so everything now matches.

Have you tried making standard amigurumi patterns with blanket yarn? If giant amigurumi feel a bit ridiculous, double-sized amigurumi could be just right for you! They use much less yarn and create a lovely plush huggable toy.

And here’s the best part: all the techniques I developed for giant amigurumi work beautifully at this scale too, especially my game-changing secure magic ring that’s perfect for chenille yarn. If you have my Complete Guide to Giant Amigurumi ebook, you’re already equipped with everything you need to make Double-sized amis too.

I think double-sized amigurumi using blanket yarn and a K US/6.5mm hook might be the perfect fit for sweet cuddly toys – give it a go and let me know what you think!

The post How To Crochet Double-Size Amigurumi appeared first on PlanetJune by June Gilbank: Blog.

Here’s a new addition to my stemmed flower patterns: an elegant sculptural lily flower! With my new crochet pattern you can make Calla, Peace, or Arum Lily flower stems that look stunning in a tall vase and are perfect for modern floral arrangements, wedding bouquets, or Easter décor.

A fun fact about these flowers: the Calla Lily (or Arum Lily) from South Africa shares its elegant flower shape with the unrelated Peace Lily from the tropical Americas. Despite their names, neither of these plants is a true lily!

I made mine in classic white (off-white, actually – for that extra touch of elegance), the colour of Peace Lilies and the wild Calla Lilies that I remember from my time in Africa. You can also get creative with your colours: hybrid calla lilies come in a variety of colours including yellow, orange, pink and dark purple, so you can pick your favourites!

While a few of these stems look lovely displayed alone in a narrow vase like this, you can also mix and match them with my other cut flower crochet patterns to create your own custom bouquet:

Here are all my other stemmed flowers: Basic Rose, Daffodils, Carnations and Tulips.

As I like to reward people who chose to donate for my donationware patterns, the PDF version of the Calla Lily / Peace Lily pattern includes additional assembly photos, bonus tips if you want to make a more resilient flower, and my special technique for fastening off the yarn neatly at the base of the stem. As always, the pattern is free for you to use, and you need only donate if you’d like to thank me for my time in creating it, or if you’d like the easy-to-print PDF version.

Go to the free Calla Lily / Peace Lily crochet pattern >>

Or jump straight to donate:

Order the Calla Lily / Peace Lily pattern >>

Not ready to make it yet? Add it to your Ravelry queue:

The post free crochet pattern: Calla Lily / Peace Lily appeared first on PlanetJune by June Gilbank: Blog.

When we first moved into our forever home, we saw a pair of mourning doves trying to nest in next door’s porch. They failed. The sticks they piled on the ledge above the door kept blowing down, and, after a couple of days of trying, they gave up and moved on.

But this sparked my dream that one day doves would nest in my front porch. In all the countries we’ve lived, visiting doves (of different types) have always been a constant friendly presence, with their big eyes and soft cooing calls. These days, mourning doves regularly visit our garden: sunbathing and taking baths in summer; huddling together and fluffing up to stay warm in winter. Watching them raise babies would be a next-level privilege.

And I still can’t quite believe this, but my dream has come true, and it’s even better than I could have hoped for…

If you’d like to follow along in real-time as this year’s chicks hatch and grow, I’m sharing live updates and short video clips of my dove family in the PlanetJune Discord – more on that later. But first, let me take you back to how it all began…

Building the Nesting Platform

I did some research to find a dove nest box design that would work well (I chose this open platform design from 70birds), and asked Dave to build it. He recycled some of the wood from our old IKEA futon frame, which had finally fallen apart on the journey back from South Africa. (Don’t you just love the idea that our old bed has now become a dove bed?)

Dave also mounted a motion-activated security camera facing the platform so we could monitor anything interesting that happened.

The first year we put up the platform, nothing happened – with hindsight, that was my fault. I’d asked Dave to mount the box where I could see into it, which meant it wasn’t high enough for the doves to feel secure. Last year, we moved it much higher on the wall, and what a difference – a pair of doves moved in as soon as nesting season began!

Nest Building

For a few days, the male brought twigs, and the female arranged them. This was incredibly frustrating to watch – she placed the twigs haphazardly and didn’t anchor them at all against the wind, so every day we found a new scattering of sticks strewn on the porch beneath the nest.

But the pair persisted, and, with more determination than skill, they eventually had enough twigs to form a nest of sorts, and the female settled in…

Raising Babies

I’m so impressed with the dedication and care of the parents! Both birds took shifts all day to protect the eggs, and then the chicks, and mama dove kept them warm every night. It was hard to even get a glimpse of the eggs or chicks, as the parents rarely left them unguarded for more than a few seconds!

Here are a few key candid moments captured on the security camera:

1st egg laid… 2nd egg laid…
As soon as a chick hatched, the parents removed the shells to a safe distance (so they wouldn’t alert predators to the nest location)

The nest box was an unqualified success. Starlings, house finches and a robin took an interest, but the doves refused to give up their prime real estate! Within 2 days of the babies fledging, the parents would return to start their next clutch of eggs.

Doves always lay just two eggs, and with the exception of one infertile egg in the first brood, all our eggs hatched and were raised successfully.

Baby Dove Photo Gallery

Although the nest location and protective parents didn’t make photography easy, I did manage, with the aid of a stepladder, to get enough photos to show you the whole egg-to-fledge story (click any of the pics to see the full-size images):

The dove nest has been an absolute delight: saying hello to the doves every time we left the house; trying to catch a glimpse of a little head with pretty blue-lined eyes peeking over the edge of the platform; being serenaded by soft coos from the porch while we sat in our living room; and watching nine chicks grow and fledge over the summer!

Dove Nest Statistics

I studied all my camera footage to quantify the 2024 season:

Nest started March 31st First egg laid April 2nd Last chick fledged September 10th Egg hatch time 14 days* Chick fledge time 14 days* Time between broods 2 days* Number of broods 5 Total eggs laid 10 Fledged chicks 9

* Average times across the whole season

Congratulations to our superstar dove parents!

Dove Watch 2025

Now it’s nesting season again, and our doves (I romantically assume it’s the same pair) have already laid claim to the platform again. Hearing their warm calls once more and seeing them build their nest and settle into their egg brooding routine has reminded me of the joy I found in watching our dove family growing over the course of last year – I hope I’ve shared a glimpse of that with you in this story.

But this year will be even better! Last year’s video footage was good enough for me to monitor the doves and get some stats, but the clips were grainy and indistinct. We’ve just installed a new high quality camera with optical zoom, plus a server to store the footage.

As you can see, the new camera gives a perfect view into the nest, so I can monitor the progress without disturbing the birds, and save high quality video clips of every stage. I can already tell the male and female apart by their subtle differences in colouring – something I couldn’t see at all last year – so I can get a much better understanding of their lives and routines.

Once the season ends, I’ll have thousands of video clips that I can pull from to produce my own little wildlife documentary!

Follow Along in Real-Time!

The first eggs in the above image should hatch any day now, and I’ll be sharing progress reports and short video clips in the PlanetJune Discord. If you’d like to follow my dove family’s story as it unfolds over the year, please join us there, and you’ll get the first look at this year’s chicks!

Nature is amazing, and I feel so privileged to share in the life of my pair of beautiful mourning doves as they patiently and devotedly raise their chicks. I hope you’ve enjoyed this glimpse into the life of our dove family, and that you’ll join me to follow their magical journey this year.

The post Nesting Season with Our Dove Family! appeared first on PlanetJune by June Gilbank: Blog.

I have a new (to me) knitting machine! The Studio LK150 is a mid-gauge machine, and a big step up from my Ultimate Sweater Machine, which is so basic it’s sometimes called a ‘toy’ (although it’s definitely not a toy, and I’ve made several sweaters with it).

My ‘new’ (to me) LK150 knitting machine

This machine had been in storage for about 30 years (it even came with a VHS instruction tape!), so I wasn’t sure how much maintenance it would need, but it was in pretty good condition: it was missing one needle and had a few more with slight rust spots. But the main problem was the sponge bar, which had never been replaced:

Most knitting machines have a sponge bar that runs across the tops of the needles and presses them down while still allowing them some flexibility as the carriage passes by. The sponge is a disposable part that should ideally be replaced every year or so when it loses its elasticity.

Tip: If you have a knitting machine, try tipping the whole machine forward. If the needles stay in place, your sponge bar is still good! If any of the needles slide forward, it’s time to replace your sponge bar.

You can see how flat the 30+ year old sponge bar is compared with its new replacement! The middle of the old sponge completely disintegrated as I pulled it out.

With a brand new strip of sponge installed, all that was left to do was to replace the damaged needles, clean and oil the machine, and see if it worked…

And it did! I’ve made two test projects so far: a new dog sweater with worsted weight yarn, which is pushing the upper yarn weight limit for this machine…

Maggie loves her winter walks!

…and a basic V neck sweater for myself using light #3 (DK) weight yarn – the first time I’ve tried to machine knit a sweater in a finer yarn than worsted weight.

This sweater may look familiar if you have a good memory – I unintentionally recreated this sweater – which was, coincidentally, my first ever attempt at using a knitting machine. But although the colour and styles of the two sweaters are almost identical, the yarn weight isn’t! Compare the stitch size of the new sleeve with the stitches in the old sweater body behind it:

On top: DK-weight sleeve; below: worsted weight sweater body

With the finer yarn, the stitches are much smaller, and I think the new sweater looks really neat as a result.

I prefer to finish all my knitting by hand – knitting the ribbed collar and cuffs on circular needles is almost as fast as converting plain machine-knit rows into ribbing, and knitting is much more enjoyable and relaxing than manipulating stitches.

For this sweater, I also used a centred double decrease to add a vertical bar in the middle of the V neck. I think I prefer it without the bar, but it does make a nice crisp centre line:

A centred double decrease makes a straight line emerging from the tip of the V

‘Machine knitting’ sounds like a fully-automatic process and not real crafting, but using a manual knitting machine is surprisingly hands-on: you’re still counting all the rows, manipulating the needles and yarn to place every increase and decrease, moving weights and checking for dropped stitches. And I find it to be quite exhausting manual work! The key for me is to notice I’m tiring and walk away before I start making mistakes – it can take so long to fix a mistake that sometimes it’s faster to start the piece again from scratch.

I really like my combination of machine and hand-knitting: by knitting all the stockinette parts on the machine, I still get to design the sweater pieces myself and spend enjoyable hours hand-knitting the collars, cuffs, button bands and any fancy stitches, but I get to speed up the overall process.

I’m very happy with my new machine, and now I’m trying to decide what I should make next! Something a little more adventurous next time, I think – although that means I need to do some serious planning and designing before I can start…

The post first mid-gauge knitting machine projects! appeared first on PlanetJune by June Gilbank: Blog.