National Craft Month – Crochet

Spring has made a reappearance here after disappearing into a couple of days of gloomy gloom.  The sunny weather doesn’t match my mood though.  I’m down in the dumps because I am having trouble sleeping again, and it isn’t Baby Man’s fault this time.  Just another one of my semi-regular bouts of insomnia.  Joy.

Enough complaining!  I am healthy, I have a lovely home and a loving family, and I have more things that I could stitch in a life time.  A little bit of insomnia is easily overcome.

As you may recall, March is National Craft Month in the U.S., and this Canuck as decided to co-op it for her own purposes.  Today I’m going to post about my favourite Canadian crochet designer: June Gilbank (aka PlanetJune).

I met June at the Spring CreativFestival in 2009.  She was giving a free talk on her cute little crochet amigurumi animals, which I totally fell in love with.  I took one of her business cards and promptly went to her website to purchase several patterns (and I have bought several more since).  Not only are her patterns cute, but they so well written that someone very new to crochet (like me) and easily figure them out.  And, to make things even better, June herself is a very, very sweet lady.

June is also a published author.  You can order her papercraft book Paper Chains and Garlands from Barnes and Noble (I’d love to get my hands on this, but shipping to Canada is too much), and you can preorder her book The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Amigurumi from Amazon or your local bookshop.

And, just this month June introduced her new detail stuffing tool, which helps make stuffing little amigurumi creations so much easier.  And, my dear cross stitching readers, I know it would make stuffing biscornus and ornaments much, much easier too.  I recommend  it highly.

June has an online shop at www.planetjune.com/shop, where you can purchase pdfs of her patterns, eyes for your creations, her new detail stuffing tool, and some punch needle patterns too.  She also has a whole slew of free patterns on her blog (crochet and punch needle).

My latest Planet June creation is this sweet little bunny, all ready for Easter.