The Getting Ready information for the launch of the revamped Spirit of Flora patterns will go live on the Janie Crow website next Wednesday, 20th March. The free downloadable document includes information about yarns needed, the pattern release schedule as well as crochet related information such as choosing your project layout, how to achieve the correct tension, reading charts and dealing with yarn ends, as well as some background information about my inspiration and design process. The first four patterns, Leaf Trellis, Moffatt Flower, Merton Abbey Flower and Tudor Rose, will be published on 24th April and you will be able to purchase single patterns or a bundle of all four, either as download or printed copies in UK or US terms. We will release four further patterns in June and the final four in August. The patterns for plainer crochet squares and the three edging patterns will be available for free on the website over the next few months, alongside a download document designed to guide you through the making up and finishing process. As I said in my newsletter introduction, we have put a lot of work into making these patterns as easy to follow as possible and I think they are looking particularly lovely, especially as they include crochet charts and layout diagrams, things that weren't a part of the original release schedule in 2023. I will be sending an email update to you next week with links to all the information you need to get yourself ready for what we hope will be a really re-run of this exciting project. The email will also include information about pattern prices and links to where you will be able to find them, as well as a chance to purchase a project kit if you want to use yarns in my original colour palette. I have started to look at design inspiration for the projects I am going to create for participants to make on the Textile Traditions of Peru workshop trip in the summer. The itinerary for the holiday in July includes visits to all the incredible sites, such as Machu Picchu and Lake Ticicacca, as well as outings to textile related businesses. As much of the focus of the tour is on textile production and the creation of beautiful alpaca yarns I have decided to create a knit and a crochet project for participants to make while we are away. At the Stitchtopia Festival last weekend, quilting and patchwork tutor Karin Hellaby talked about her trip to Peru last year. She told us about the things the group got to do and the places they visited and she showed us some of her incredible images and videos - some of which I have shamelessly copied from her Facebook page to feature here. Karin has tutored more than 60 trips for Arena Travel over the last decade and so it is huge praise when she called the holiday her 'best trip ever'! There are still a couple of places left on the trip with me in July and you are able to bring a companion at a reduced price if you share a room. The cost of my trip is £1000 cheaper than other listed trips to Peru on the Stitchtopia site as the price has been upheld from last year. If you are interested in joining me please follow this link for more information. I am so incredibly excited about the opportunity to go to Peru and can hardly believe that the plane seats are booked and the trip is a definite 'goer'. I have created a Pinterest board to help kick start my design process - you can find it here if you fancy taking a look. Thank you for the brilliant response to the new Marrakesh version of Persian Tiles. Our first stock of kits sold out almost immediately, and there are only a small number of our second batch of kits left in stock. You can find them here. You can source the yarn for this project from other Stylecraft stockists and some of them have made up kits too. You can find a list of yarn stockists here and the free download yarn substitution document here. It has been a week for stock updates for the Persian Tiles kits as we now also have stock of the West Yorkshire Spinners version (shown above) and we have Sandalwood kits in too! We know that quite a lot of crocheters choose to interpret their blankets as wall hangings and we often get asked about how to mount them. We hang the blankets up to display at shows using poster clip frames, but for something more permanent you may find you need to attach a fabric backing or some kind of curtain tape along the hanging edge to stop the yarns from stretching. A few weeks ago I was sent this lovely image by a lady called Karin Brinza who has created an amazing layout of Spirit of Flora and hung it on her wall. Isn't it great! As I am quite an impulsive online shopper I decided to put myself on a three month 'buying ban' from the first January. As we near the end of my period of abstinence, I am starting to line up a few things that I might just have to have once my ban is over. One of my first purchases could be one of these beautiful rugs from the William Morris Collection on Ruggable. I am particularly keen on the bird and pomegranate design and think it would look great in my living room. That said, I am wondering whether to prolong my purchasing ban as it has definitely made me really question whether or not I need things rather than simply want them - and of course I have saved a few quid along the way! We currently have a pretty healthy stock of Della Q Makers Canvas products in stock. We have backpacks, rucksacks and messenger bags, as well as tote bags, needle cases, knit sacks, buddy cases and scissors in various colours. I am pretty smitten by the new midi backpacks, which I think are the perfect size for transporting a knit or crochet project and all your bits and bobs. The Della Q range now includes a fabulous purple shade which is just lovely! Muhammara is a roasted red pepper and chilli dip and this yummy stew uses aspects of the dip recipe to create a really delicious chickpea based dish. I made a version from the One Pot, Pan, Planet cookery book by Anna Jones, but as the recipe is only available in the book I am linking to a similar recipe by Dishing Out Health, which includes blobs of greek yogurt and is served with some tasty looking pitta bread. The recipe I used made quite a lot of stew, so we had left-overs which tasted even better the following day after a night in the fridge. This is a really easy recipe, especially if you use roasted peppers from a jar! Definitely a dish I will be making again and again. I had Monday off this week as I was away from home teaching at the Stitchtopia Festival for the whole of last weekend. As a result I have spent all week feeling a bit muddled about what day it is. Tuesday felt like Monday, Wednesday felt like Tuesday and ditto for the rest of the days this week - I was one step out the whole time, so it seems odd to already be writing about what I am planning for this weekend. The weather has been really naff yet again this week, with loads of rain making the garden incredibly soggy, so I am really hoping that the weekend will provide some brighter days. Our lovely cousin Kassie will be 30 on Sunday so we will be celebrating her birthday with pizza and bowling over the weekend and I will be aiming for a couple of walks as I seem to be sticking to my walking habit. Next week is set to be a busy one and so, as I am feeling a little run down after very little time off lately, I think I will be spending a bit more time than usual snuggled up in a duvet with a book or my crochet! I will be back in your inbox on Wednesday with more information about the Spirit of Flora relaunch, so do look out for that. Until then, I hope you have a great couple of days and I leave you with this image of Andy and I recreating the now iconic pic of Justin and Hailey Bieber at the Vanity Fair Oscars after party last year. You can vote for who wore it best on our Instagram page here.
Janie x Yesterday was the official publication date for my new book 'The Complete Crochet Handbook' before it was moved to the 18th of February due to overwhelming demand. It feels a bit strange to be celebrating the release of a book which is now pretty much sold out, but I am certainly not complaining! If you want to get your hands on a copy of the book, you will now have to wait until early to mid May. We have the book for sale on a pre-order basis on the website and you can choose between a signed or un-signed copy. We will be doing more promotion surrounding the second release date, so do look out for that soon! If you are in the US and want to find a copy in US terms the book has an alternative title of 'The Perfect Crochet Finish'. The Magic Circles blanket is one of our best selling patterns and it has been wonderful seeing many colourways of it appearing out in the wild over the last few years. We have been working on our own new colourway and so have the team at Stylecraft, so the colour substitution documents for not just one, but two new colourways of Magic Circles are now available to download from the website. A few weeks back we revealed the Supernova colourway, created by the team at Stylecraft Yarns as an exercise in playing with colour, and we mentioned another colourway that was more in keeping with the Magic Circles scarf palette. That one didn't yet have a name, but now it does and I'm happy to introduce Skimming Stones! Skimming Stones Magic Circles Wrap This new version of the blanket echoes the colours I used in the scarf and the palette reminds me of early morning walks on the beach, pretty, wet pebbles underfoot, pinky hues of clouds in the sky and fleeting reflections across the water. You can click on the images to be taken to the free yarn substitution download documents and you can find yarn packs for all three colourways of the blanket for sale on the website. Supernova Yarn Etc is a fabulous independent (and award winning) yarn store in Harrogate in the North of England and it's run by Fiona, who made a big career move from horticulture to yarn back in 2016. Fiona recently decided to launch her own yarn brand for the store and The Harrogate Yarn Company Mercer DK was born! Fiona says 'The idea for having my own yarn spun just for Yarn Etc came from wanting to be able to supply a lovely, natural, British yarn that was a bit special to our many local customers and the many visitors from around the country and the rest of the world. I wanted a yarn that was the essence of Harrogate. Beautiful colours, lovely texture and spin and just lovely to work with. It’s a proper yarn that is being very well received by everyone who uses it for their projects and we are very proud of it. I loved working directly with the mill to produce the yarn and the dyers to get exactly the colours I wanted. I really enjoyed working closely with a great graphic designer, Rosie of Rapport Creative Design, who is based locally, to bring my yarn brand to life. The ball ands on the yarn make me so happy, as they feature some of the wonderful architecture we have here in Harrogate.' You can find out more about the yarn over on the Yarn Etc website here. The shades have the most wonderful names, such as Agatha's Claret and Cold Bath! It's a versatile yarn suitable for all kinds of projects and customers of the shop have used it for garments, hats, cowls, scarves, blankets and more. We have been working hard to get the Spirit of Flora patterns ready for when they will be re-relased in a couple of months time. The Getting Ready information will be available on the Janie Crow website from the 20th March and the first set of four patterns will be released on April 24th, followed by two further pattern releases across the summer. As we are still in the pattern layout and checking process we have not yet made definitive decisions about pricing, but all going well, the patterns will be available in paper brochure and download format. We have included charts and beautiful layout diagrams and have also created patterns in US terms. No further advice is available at this time, so please be patient and look out for more information soon! Over on the dedicated Spirit of Flora Facebook Group this month Julia Hill laid down a challenge for makers to photograph their completed Spirit of Flora blankets in public places and post those photographs on social media using the hashtag #spiritoffloraphotochallenge. Just take a look at these! Thank you to Julia Hill, Herbie Kio, Hilary Lyall and Handmade in Iver for sharing their stunning photos. We look forward to seeing lots more Spirit of Flora blankets out in the wild soon! Over on Instagram our lovely Emma has been waxing lyrical about Moon Phases (see what we did there!) and even created a Janie Crow Moon Phase chart. We have been pondering the question if and how productivity and creativity are influenced at all by the phases of the moon 🌙 Here at Janie Crow HQ we were happily surprised to find out that we should be refining and polishing projects at the time of the waxing gibbous moon and it made us smile because we’ve been checking and updating the Spirit of Flora patterns. 26th February 2024 Where did the last four weeks go? February seems to have been a very busy month, eventhough it always feels like one of those months that doesn't have a lot going on. When I signed off last month I had started the first Bloomsbury motif, which is one of the long strips that forms part of the outer edge of the Bohemian Blooms blanket. The first of the Bloomsbury strips is now complete, but for a few yarn ends left to sew in. Only three to go! I didn't use Jane's suggested method of pre-cutting lengths of yarn for this but I'm going to try that for the second strip. I loved how the long strip of stripes was suddenly transformed into so much more once the edge rows were added and the line of surface crochet was the icing on the cake. Am I the only one who always takes ages to work out how to attach the yarn at the beginning of a piece of surface crochet? A bit like crab stitch, it always seems to take a few unsuccessful attempts before getting into the swing of it! The next motif in the book is the Omega motif and there are eight of these to make. These form the outer corners of the blanket (before the border is added) and the corners of the inner square, as part of the 'frame' around the nine central motifs. I decided to use the production line method to make these. It can feel a bit like hard work using this method, but the satisfaction at the end, when you have all the motifs made, is well worth it! I still have a couple of Omega motifs to finish off, but I'm looking forward to moving on to the 'Gordon' motifs this month. The inspiration for the Bohemian Blooms blanket comes from the work of Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant, who were part of the Bloomsbury Group during the first half of the 20th Century. 'Gordon' is named after Gordon Square in London, where Vanessa and her siblings lived after the death of their parents. The Gordon motif is worked in rows and the four panels form part of the outer section of the blanket. I'm quite excited to be moving on to this one as it is the first that includes beading. I have crocheted with beads before, but it was some years ago so wish me luck! I'll let you know how I get on in the March Quick Catch Up. Gemma x Today's recipe recommendation of Margarita Cheesecake Mousse comes from Sarah and, as she made these for us last weekend, we can confirm that it is a really delicious desert. Sarah served it with a cheeky shot of tequila on the side, but this is not an essential addition if you are not a fan. The recipe can be found on the Delish website here, if you fancy giving it a try. The Longest Yarn are a non-profit association of crafters from all age groups and walks of life, based in France. They are knitting and crocheting an exhibition called The Longest Day in time for the 80th anniversary of the D-Day Landings on June 6th 2024. Created with guidance from historians, in order to be historically accurate, each of the 80 handmade scenes has been selected by the creator to depict the story of this day in history, each scene unique and made with care. You can see some images of the scenes below and find out more on the group's website here. If you have any spare time on your hands and a yarn stash that could do with being a little bit smaller, the wonderful charity Woolly Hugs have a number of ongoing projects that welcome contributions of yarn throughout the year. You can find more information about all of their projects by clicking on the link here. Woolly Hugs regularly run craft sales through their Facebook page and the Spring/Easter Craft Sale and Auction is due to begin on Tuesday 5th March to raise money for their work. The sales always have a wonderful array of items made by crafters up and down the country and it's a great way to shop for handmade gifts, so do take a look by following this link. Like Gemma, I am a tad flabbergasted at the speed at which time is flying by. It is exciting to be heading into spring proper, with lighter evenings and slightly warmer weather, but seriously - where did February go? I have been busy walking most mornings and am planning a slightly longer jaunt over the weekend again. It is still incredibly wet and muddy over the woods and park where I walk, and I regularly get soaked through, but the positive effects of being out in the countryside is definitely worth a soggy strip off when I get home! We will be celebrating the book publication with a meal out and a glass or two of wine this evening - nothing too raucous though as I have been invited to attend the Debbie Bliss knitting workshop at The William Morris Gallery tomorrow. It is incredibly kind of Debbie to have offered me the chance to attend and I am really looking forward to it. If you fancy coming along you can find more information over on Debbie's Instagram page and tickets can be purchased via Eventbrite here. Next weekend I will be tutoring four workshops as part of the Stitchtopia Festival with Arena Travel, so next week will be dedicated to some prep work. I am working on a physical mood board for my Peru trip in July, which I will take along to display and I will be teaching beaded crochet flowers (my favourite) and some great finishing techniques, so it is set to be a great weekend. There are many other workshops on offer, with some great tutors. You can find more information by following this link. If you are one of those annoyingly organised people, you might already be thinking about projects for Easter. It falls quite early this year at the end of March, but there is still time to make some lovely crochet items to decorate your home or giveaway as gifts. I found some free patterns on the Craftworld website here. I have checked that they are definitely free and know that they are from a trusted website. Quite a few of the projects would make perfect weekend makes and I especially like the crochet wreath that I have shown a snippet of in the pic above. To access the patterns you need to be a member of the Craftworld club, it's free to join up and being a member has quite a few perks, so if you fancy making something, why not take a look.
Whatever you have planned for the next few days I hope you have a great time and, as usual, if you want to get in touch, simply hit reply..... Janie x My workshop trip to Peru has been confirmed this week, so I have started to look at design inspiration for the projects I am going to create for participants to make while we are away. The itinerary for the holiday in July includes visits to all the incredible sites, such as Machu Picchu and Lake Ticicacca, as well as outings to textile related businesses. The tour is entitled 'Knitting Traditions of Peru', but it seems to me that the trip will be just as exciting for crocheters as it will for knitters, as much of the focus is on textile production and the creation of beautiful alpaca yarns. I have therefore decided to create a knit and a crochet project for participants to make and have created a Pinterest board to help kick start my design process - you can find it here. I have already done a little bit of sampling with some fabulous bright yarn shades. This really is a trip of lifetime so Andy and I have raided our piggy bank so that he can come with me. There are still a couple of spaces left on the trip, which is held at last year's price at £1000 cheaper than other trips to Peru on the Stitchtopia site. There is room for more 'plus ones' if you want to bring a friend or partner too, and you don't have to start your journey from the UK, so it is open to everyone. If you are interested in joining me please follow this link for more information. Thank you for the brilliant response to the new Marrakesh version of Persian Tiles. The kits went out of stock almost immediately, so I apologise to any of you who were disappointed not to have nabbed one. Keeping good stock levels has been incredibly challenging over the last year especially, due to lots of different factors affecting global yarn production, but we will have more kits in stock soon, so do keep an eye on the store page. You can source the yarn for this project from other Stylecraft stockists and some of them have made up kits too. You can find a list of yarn stockists here and the free download yarn substitution document here. On Sunday the 4th February I appeared on Stuart Hillard's birthday weekend show on Sewing Street TV. I had a fab time with Stuart showcasing my new book The Complete Crochet Handbook. The UK edition of the book was due to be published on 29th February, but it has proved so popular that it has already sold out at trade and many places no longer have it for sale on a retail basis either. Our own stock sold through in less than a day, which is totally bonkers! The reprint of the book is not likely to arrive until early May so we have added it to the website on a pre-sale basis. You can find it here. Please note that your order will not be dispatched until early May. If you are in the US you will find the book under a different title. It is called The Perfect Crochet Finish and is due to be published early March. You can find it available for pre-sale on US sites. You can see the recorded Sewing Street Show by following this link. My slot starts at about the 3 hour 38 minute mark. I demonstrated how to add beads to crochet, how to create a neat ring and how to do a quick joining method when making granny squares, so there might be something of interest to you within the programme, where we also talked about some of the new Emma Ball items. Which leads me nicely on to say that we now have some lovely new things in stock from the Emma Ball range, including new tins, cards, glasses cases and even a new 1000 piece jigsaw. Follow this link to see all our Emma Ball stock, or click on the images below to see specific items. They say that imitation is the highest form of flattery, but I am not sure who 'they' are and, after my recent experiences with copy cat crocheters, I am not sure I agree! Over the last few months we have discovered a Spanish translation of all the Spirit of Flora patterns being offered for sale by a lady in Argentina, a printed Persian Tiles top for sale on a fashion site and dresses made using the Mystical Lanterns motifs for sale on the webstore of a high end knitwear company. Oh, and a copy of the Persian Tiles blanket on the cover of a Spanish craft magazine - and that's just within the last six weeks or so! I find these copies incredibly upsetting. Not because I seek to profit financially from the sale of items, but because the people putting selling them have not put the background work in and, by copying, have not shown due diligence to making sure that they are creating something original. In the case of the 'designer' in Argentina translating the Spirit of Flora patterns and selling them under the radar via WhatsApp Business it is pure theft - no more, no less. If you see any copies of my work that appear to be unauthorised, please let us know about it. You can reply to this email, or in the case of Spirit of Flora, you can also let Inside Crochet magazine know. If you do email us, please include as much information as possible and some links. Thank you! I have been nominated in two different categories in the Yarn Industry awards for 2023. I am really proud that my name appears in the 'Best Independent Designer' section and within the 'Best Online Personality' category. I am up against some true giants of the yarn world, many of them with many more followers than me, so I am flattered simply to have been nominated, but if you do want to vote for me, or any of the other fabulous nominees, please follow this link. Voting closes on the 22nd February. Before lockdown I was an avid sourdough bread maker. I used to prepare it in the evening, prove it over night in the fridge and bake it in the morning. When bread flour became scarce during the pandemic my poor starter (Keith) died and I sadly haven't made a sourdough loaf since. Last weekend I saw a video on Instragram showing a no knead technique for making Focaccia and felt it was time for me to dust off my bread making kit and have a go! It was a great tasting loaf and I had fun making it. If you fancy having a go too, you need to be around to play with the dough pretty much all day and I would suggest going a little easier on the oil - it was delicious, but boy was it calorific! You can find a link to the recipe video here. What have you got planned for the weekend? After a relatively quiet one last weekend we have a slightly busier couple of days ahead. We are going out to see a music concert tonight in Camden Town and I am booked on to a workshop on Sunday afternoon, which I am really looking forward to. It is an embroidery on knitting workshop tutored by Judit Gummlich who I have wanted to meet for a while as I really admire her work. Judit has a really beautiful feed on Instagram and you can find it here. The workshop is at the Wild and Woolly yarn store. I have been struggling with (what my Osteopath tells me is) a twisted pelvis for the last month or so. After a session with him last week it has eased, but I am still in quite a lot of pain with it at times and will be heading back to see him again early next week. I have found that walking really eases my lower back and is beneficial in other ways too.
My lovely friend Sarah Moran recommended a great book to me called 52 Ways to Walk by Annabel Streets. The book is a lovely one to dip in and out of and suggests a different way of walking for each week of the year (hence the title), so with the gym out of bounds for me for a while, I am really making the most of this gem of a book and am really enjoying my daily wander. Next week is shaping up to be a relatively quiet one, with more work on the re-release versions of the Spirit of Flora patterns for me and the team, but I am looking forward to the Stitches trade show at the NEC next Sunday. If you're going to be there too, please do say hello if you spot me! Janie x I have had a bit of a strange start to 2024 and am only just getting up to speed with all that is going on here at Janie Crow. After the loss of our internet connection at home for almost 4 weeks and coming down with a coughing lurgy that I just couldn't shift for about the same amount of time, I am currently running about a month behind with my work schedule. Thankfully this week I seem to have turned a corner and have the bit between my teeth and am finally raring to go! I hope all is good in your world too! The Marrakesh version of my Persian Tiles blanket will officially launch next Friday on the 9th February. Stylecraft yarn stockists will have all the information about the yarns used in the project if you want to purchase the yarn from them and we will be selling kits too. The yarn substitution document will be a free download on the Janie Crow site from next Friday, so if you already have some yarns in your stash you can refer to it to see what you need and what order to use the shades in. The kit for the West Yorkshire Spinners version of the original colourway of Persian Tiles has been really well received, but we had a little hiccup with our latest stock delivery as the courier's van (that contained our order) was stolen from the depot! Unfortunately West Yorkshire Spinners are now out of stock of one of the shades used in the kit, so we have taken the kits for this version out of stock until we have the yarn physically here! Please bear with us while we get this sorted. I am really excited that my new book 'The Complete Crochet Handbook' will be published later on this month. I will be appearing on Stuart Hillard's Birthday show on Sewing Street TV this Sunday to promote some signed, advance copies of the book. The book officially launches on February 29th and we will have them in stock on the Janie Crow website. There are still a couple of places left on the Arena Travel Stitchtopia weekend in March. I will be teaching some crochet workshops, but there are plenty of other workshop subjects on offer with lots of other tutors, so if you fancy a cheeky weekend away with like-minded crafters, do take a look by following this link. We were delighted to share the exciting news that our lovely Emma was busy working on a collection of videos to support anyone working on the Persian Tiles project. As we might have mentioned once or twice, this continues to be our most popular pattern and we know that many of you find videos a really useful tool to help you when working through a project. Over on Instagram Emma shared a photo of her workspace in preparation for filming one of the videos and who doesn't dream of a desk like that! You can find the Persian Tiles playlist over on our YouTube channel here. Still on the subject of Persian Tiles, the news of the release of our first all natural yarn kit for this project, using beautiful British West Yorkshire Spinners yarns, was well received on both Facebook and Instagram. Given that natural fibres come in at a higher price, we are testing the waters on this front. We know that some people do prefer to work with non-synthetics and the fact that our first stock has now sold out shows there is a demand for alternatives. A lot of love was shown when we posted about Jane's nomination in not one, but two categories in the Yarn Industry Awards 2023. She is up against some true giants of the yarn world in the 'Best Independent Designer' and 'Best Online Personality' categories. We understand that voting is open for those resident on the UK Mainland only, but you can find all the info on the awards by clicking here or on the image below. 10th January 2024 Towards the end of last year, after completing a sample blanket for the course that I will shortly begin teaching, I decided that I shouldn’t make any more blankets. After all there are only so many blankets you need; One for each bed, a couple for the sofa, one for each armchair and extra to snuggle under on cold winter evenings. After that point, how many becomes too many? I decided to focus on more practical items such as garments and accessories. So, what happened? How come I’m about to embark on Bohemian Blooms? Well, I’ve had the book sitting on my shelf since I started working with Jane four years ago. Back in November Jane came to the organisation I teach with, Community Learning Partnership, to give a talk on her career and the process she follows to design. Jane brought with her a wide selection of her blankets and having had a close-up look and feel of Bohemian Blooms, I had that niggly little feeling that I was going to have to give it a go at some point in the not-too-distant future. You can read more about the project over on the website here, or click on the image below. I took the opportunity to request yarn as Christmas presents from my family, and by the beginning of this year had managed to assemble a kit, including a couple of the discontinued Rowan yarns that I had been able to track down. So, I have the book, the yarn, the hooks that I need and, like any conscientious crocheter should, I’m going to make a start by working up a couple of tension pieces as suggested in the book. I’m going to use the Rowan Baby Merino Silk in Iceberg and a substitute yarn Rowan Alpaca Soft DK in Off White for the tension pieces as both have had an extra ball added to the yarn requirements as such a tiny amount was left over when Jane’s blanket was made up. 23rd January 2024 With my tension squares made (almost spot-on I’m happy to report) I finally got the chance to take the plunge and start work on the first pattern, called Bloomsbury. Four of these long strips will make up the frame for the complete blanket but won’t be joined to other pieces until the end of the project. Jane’s advice to me for these is to do them along the way, work them in parallel with making other motifs. There will be lots of ends as they are a sequence of stripes using four colours, with only two of those colours being carried at the sides. My plan is to make one strip and then move on to the next motif in the book, named ‘Omega’. I'll be back next month to show you my progress. Gemma x Gemma's recommended recipe this month is for a Goats Cheese, Red Onion and Thyme Quiche. There's something about a homemade quiche that is so much more satisfying than a shop bought one and goats cheese really seems to mellow in flavour a little when it's cooked, especially when paired with fried onions. Click on the image below to find the recipe on Donal Skehan's website. It is funny to think that we came into 2024 a little over 4 weeks ago. For me, the new year celebrations seem like an age ago and, if I am honest, I am quite pleased to see the back of January! As the evenings get progressively brighter and the days a little longer, February always seems a little more positive. It is a joy to see the bulbs coming to life in the garden and the very first signs of spring already happening. Of course, we can get caught out by the great British weather right through to the late spring, but this is the time of year that I always feel optimistic about the year ahead. I have an absolutely stunning amaryllis that has been blooming in the kitchen for the last couple of weeks. It has managed to produce five incredible flowers from one stem and it makes me stop in my tracks every time walk past it. Isn't it a beauty! I have a weekend of pottering planned. The house in much need of a good clean - the brighter weather is showing up quite a lot of dust around the place, so I can't really ignore it any longer! I have been doing quite a lot of walking recently, so will probably head out tomorrow afternoon for a couple of hours, so long as the weather stays dry. I cleaned out my studio over Christmas and discovered just how many part started crochet and knit projects I have on the go, so I am also planning to spend a bit of time working on a couple of those. Sunday I will be travelling up to Sewing Street TV HQ to do the book promotion, so if you are around between about 11.30am and 1pm perhaps you might fancy tuning in?
Sending big yarny hugs! Janie x It has been a bit of a slow start for us here in North London. Andy and I both caught a lurgy at Christmas time and have struggled to chase it off completely - thankfully we seem to be on the way out of it now! Alongside feeling a tad poorly we have been without stable internet connection for almost 4 weeks after a road traffic accident demolished the green cabinet which houses all the local BT lines. Andy has managed to set up a mini hub so we are able to work, but large files, videos and images are still a bit difficult to access. I am incredibly grateful to Emma and Gemma for continuing to pop lovely posts on our social media platforms - something I am not currently able to do with ease! Poor internet connection has been a blessing in some ways - we have read lots of books and I have crocheted more than usual, finally completing the new Marrakesh version of my Persian Tiles blanket and getting the new yarn substitution document sorted for the West Yorkshire Spinners version too. I am really pleased with this version of the blanket, which uses yarns from the West Yorkshire Spinners range of natural British wool. The blanket (shown above) stays true to the navy, teal and orange colours of my original design, although a few of the yarn shades are a little lighter, giving the blanket a slightly paler feel. The quality of the pure wool gives the blanket a lovely feel and drape, and the natural fibres will provide warmth and comfort for years to come, making it a true heirloom piece. New kits retail at £97.50 and we have added them to the website on a pre-sale basis as we are away at a show next week. You can find the kits and more information by following this link. was lucky enough to visit the stunning gardens that surround the Yves Saint Laurent Museum in Marrakesh last year and was blown away by the incredible colours, shapes and patterns there. Le Jardin Marjorelle was created by French artist Jaques Marjorelle over the course of almost 4 decades from 1923 and was later purchased by Saint Laurent and his partner Pierre Bergé who restored and maintained it to create the incredible location it is today. My new version of the Persian Tiles blanket is inspired by the gardens. Kits and a free downloadable yarn substitution document will be added to the website within the next couple of weeks, so do keep and eye on our social media platforms as we will shout about it as soon as it is ready! We will be sorting out some nicely styled images of the blanket soon, but I have popped a quick snap I took at home (above) so that you can get an idea of what the blanket looks like. Emma has been busy working on some official Persian Tiles technique videos and is in the process of making a playlist on our Youtube channel that includes lots of the processes involved in the design, such as making the fans, the crossed stitches and putting the pieces together. Follow this link, or click on the image above to take a look. In more Persian Tiles news - we have created a Spanish translation of the pattern which is almost ready for release. It has taken us quite a while to sort this, but it is looking lovely. Big thanks to Emma who has brushed up brilliantly on her language skills and to the fabulous Elizabeth Pintado who has worked hard to create a really concise translation. This is our first venture into Spanish translations, but if the pattern is a success we will consider doing some more in the future. Alongside all the Persian Tiles related jobs, I have also been working on the kits and yarn substitution documents for two new versions of my Magic Circles blanket design. One colour way has been created by the Stylecraft team who have named it Supernova (shown above) and the second colour way echoes the shades used in the shawl version, so it is made from yarns in light pink and apricot shades. It doesn't have a name yet, but as soon as we have more information I will let you know. Both these kits are likely to be a February release. It has been amazing to see completed Spirit of Flora blankets out in the wild. It has been a fantastic experience seeing this project evolve over the course of the last year and I am so proud of what the crochet community has created. We have had lots of people asking about my plans for the re-release of the patterns when the project reverts to me this year. We will have more news about this in the February newsletter once we have finalised our plans. We received quite a large Della Q order just before Christmas and it included some fabulous messenger bags and backpacks, as well as a couple of new makers bag designs. We are especially in love with the brilliant new purple colour way and of course pleased to have the ever popular mini messenger bag (my own personal favourite) back in stock in lots of shades. Follow this link to take a look at what we have. I have been nominated in two different categories in the Yarn Industry awards for 2023. I am really proud that my name appears in the 'Best Independent Designer' section and within the 'Best Online Personality' category. I am up against some true giants of the yarn world, many of them with many more followers than me, so I am flattered simply to have been nominated, but if you do want to vote for me, or any of the other fabulous nominees, please follow this link. Voting closes on the 22nd February. We will be taking apart in the Wool in Garden City event in Welwyn next week. The preview evening is later on today and then the show will be open daily throughout next week from tomorrow onwards. It is free to enter and there are lots of workshops, talks and demonstrations that you can get involved in, including a 'knit night' on Saturday and a 'Crochet, Chat, Knit and Natter' event on Tuesday. We are really looking forward to the event and hope to see some of you there. Tickets are sold out for this evening, but I will be at the show from 10am to 5pm tomorrow and then from 12 to 4pm on Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday and next Friday if you want to come and say hello! You can find more information by following this link. Last weekend my friend Jo came to stay for a few days and we had a great time wandering around galleries and shops and doing lots of crochet and walking! It has been incredibly cold over the last couple of weeks, but the bright weather, and the fact that we are actually getting to see some sunshine, is a real bonus after all the rain we had before the new year. I think the weather is set to change again as we head into next week, so I will be hoping to get out in the sunshine again this weekend before the rain comes back! We have quite a lot of exciting things coming up over the next couple of months including the release of my new book, The Complete Crochet Handbook, which will be out in February, so do make sure to keep up to date with what is going on via our social media platforms and these email newsletters. I will be back in your inbox in a fortnight's time with a quick catch up email. Sending yarny hugs until then. Janie x
I adore my job as a crochet designer and enjoy making pretty much every stitch, but as crocheting is my job I tend not to have a crochet project to work on during my down time and opt to knit instead. I really enjoy the period between Christmas and New Year as we tend to be off work and at home more than usual, so there is more time to sit on the settee and craft. I tend to plan a new project for the holiday period and have decided to start work on a sweater I have wanted to make for more than 20 years! It is a Kaffe Fassett sweater design called Dark Daisy which featured in an old Rowan Magazine. All of the yarn shades used in the design have been discontinued, but the yarn range itself is still current, so I have managed to create a colour palette very similar to the original. I am hoping to knit my tension square this weekend and have also lined up my existing knit and crochet down time projects in the hope of getting something finished - I like having a couple of projects on the go, but really need to complete something! If you are also beginning to think about what project you want to work on over the festive period then you might want to consider embarking on a new blanket. We have Sandalwood kits back in stock after a bit of an absence and many others are still available, including kits for the Climbing Rose Wrap, Bohemian Blooms, Mystical Lanterns in the Avice colourway and Fields of Gold. Tuesday 19th will be our last postage date for this year and the last Royal Mail postage date for the UK is Wednesday the 20th, so now really is the time to make those last minute gift decisions. Don't forget we have lots of lovely Emma Ball items in stock including some of the bundles we put together last week. Emma came up with the brilliant idea of using one of the tins from the Emma Ball and Janie Crow collection as the 'wrapping' and so Andy put together some bundle options on the web site, which you can see by following this link. We think that the large Sandalwood tin would be perfect to hold a handmade gift for a friend. All you need to do is pop the gift inside, shut the lid and tie a ribbon around it and you have created a no waste present! Or maybe you fancy more than a tin and would like to take a look at some of the bundles in stock - all the bundles include a discount of around 15% compared to the price of the items bought individually. Andy has been patiently waiting for a Della Q order to arrive from the US. We have been hoping to have the fabulous messenger bags and backpacks in stock for quite a while, especially as they make the best gifts, so being patient has not been particularly easy! In theory they should arrive next week but this is not set in stone. Andy will put them in stock as soon as they get here, so if there is something you've been waiting for then do take a look. If there is a particular item that you have been waiting for and it is out of stock, you can add your contact details on the web site so that you will receive a notification once it is back in. Inside Crochet magazine will feature the final crochet block for the Spirit of Flora crochet along project in the next publication, which is due out on Thursday. The motif is called Bedford Daisy and it is the most complicated block in the project, but with all the skills that have been built over the year I am sure that you amazing crocheters will cope with it admirably! The magazine will also feature the patterns for the 3 borders so that you can choose which one you think suits your project the most and you will also find images of another blanket layout, so it is a magazine full of loveliness once again! I am really excited to reveal that I have been nominated in two different categories in the Yarn Industry awards for 2023. I am really proud that my name appears in the 'Best Independent Designer' section and within the 'Best Online Personality' category. I am up against some true giants of the yarn world, many of them with many more followers than me, so I am flattered simply to have been nominated, but if you do want to vote for me, or any of the other fabulous nominees, please follow this link. I love projects that use up left overs or small amounts of yarn and I really adore adding beads to crochet stitches, so I am really excited that the pattern for the beaded pouches are available for all you eager crocheters who love stash busting projects and a bit of bling too - they would make a particularly nice accessory for a festive outfit! You can find the patterns available as downloads on Etsy and Ravelry and as paper copies (UK terms only for this one I'm afraid) by following this link to the Janie Crow store. As I said already, we will be taking a break from work for a bit over the next couple of weeks, but we are already planning for 2024 and will be running some money saving offers over the 12 days of Christmas from the 25th December to the 5th of January on our social media platforms. So if you fancy a crafty bargain, do look out for our daily posts. It has been a fabulously busy year and I am so incredibly grateful for your support over the 12 months. I know that Christmas is not an easy time for some people and am mindful of all that is going on in the world around us, but I hope you at least manage to find time for a bit of rest and recuperation at some point over the next fortnight and that you will continue to find solace ion your crafty projects. Happy Christmas from us all at Janie Crow
Janie x I made a decision way back in the spring that I would spend December doing festive things as I’m usually horribly organised and the lead up to the big day goes by in a flash. I’ve got my wreath on the door and the tree and all the twinkly lights are up, but I am already feeling like my To Do list is getting inexplicably longer - could it be that the more time you dedicate to preparing for Christmas, the more and more things you find to do? I had planned to spend this week making lovely decorations out of saved, and therefore recycled, paper and card and also had it in mind to do some little jobs in the house that have been crying out for attention all year, such as properly hemming the living room curtains and pulling the peeling paint off the bathroom ceiling! Once again, however, the week has run away with me and only one big job (sorting out all the old Christmas decorations in the loft) has been scrubbed off the list- Ugh! Never mind - all first world problems and hopefully next week will prove more productive! Anyhoo - I have a few things to tell you about this week so I hope you have a spare five minutes or so to catch up with all things Janie Crow. Last week Emma came up with the brilliant idea of using one of the tins from the Emma Ball and Janie Crow collection as the 'wrapping' for a festive gift and this got us thinking about how many of the items in the collection would make great gifts. This thought process ultimately led to Andy spending time making up some bundle options on the web site, which you can see by following this link. We think that the large Sandalwood tin would be perfect to hold a handmade gift for a friend. All you need to do is pop the gift inside, shut the lid and tie a ribbon around it and you have created a no waste present! Or maybe you fancy more than a tin and would like to take a look at some of the bundles in stock - all the bundles include a discount of around 15% compared to the price of the items bought individually. We now have the amazing 'Seams' hand cream back in stock. This luxury cream is specifically aimed at those of us who work with textiles and yarn and therefore suffer with ultra dry fingers and nails. It is non greasy and gets absorbed quickly, with 10 natural ingredients to help mend, moisturise, nourish, soften, & soothe hands and condition nails, fast! We stock it in 2 sizes so that you can chose a smaller trial size tube if you haven't tried it before. Click on the image below for more information. We had such a fabulous workshop weekend in Bournemouth a couple of weeks ago when Debbie Abrahams and I tutored our annual festive workshop. We both designed a pair of beaded mitts so that participants could choose whether they wanted to knit or crochet. My mitts included a beaded pine tree and a glitzy snowflake design. It was fabulous to see so many of our participants heading home with completed, or near finished projects. I will be working on the pattern over the next couple of months so that it includes a couple of sizes and a less complicated beading option, so keep an eye out for the pattern in Autumn 24. Yesterday was Christmas Jumper Day here in the UK and as the festive movies are in full swing here the Janie Crow team had a chat about the lovely knitwear that pops up in them, often causing us to focus so much on pattern and 'could I make that?' that the storyline of the film becomes secondary! We discussed our favourite knitwear from the big screen and here’s what we came up with: Jane: 'My favourite sweater from a film is the cable sweater that Amanda (Cameron Diaz) wears in The Holiday. I love cream cable sweaters and one of the very first garments I ever hand knitted for myself was a cable sweater from Rowan Magazine 19 in 1995. I wore it over and over and still have it packed away somewhere. I love it when movies have definite wardrobe themes - The Holiday is all cream, brown and black and grey - for all characters - have you ever noticed that? No bright colours and lots of snowy scenes. I love it even though I am a real fan of colour.' Emma: 'Ok, so while we are on the theme of cables, can we stretch that to traditional Aran sweaters and look at the lovely example worn by Chris Evans in Knives Out. NOT just an excuse to look at Chris Evans as is evidenced by the fact that we’ve also discussed Steve McQueen wearing an Aran sweater in 'The Thomas Crown Affair'. Emma also felt it was important that we included Colin Firth's iconic Rudolph sweater from Bridget Jones's Diary. Sarah's favourite is the knitwear in Heroes of Telemark: 'I used to knit little versions of this for my brother’s Action Man!' Gemma is still open to persuasion on this subject, so we thought a couple of good strong women would be appropriate for inclusion in our list - we have added the jumper that launched a thousand copies, worn by Sarah Lund in The Killing, and that glorious creation worn by Katniss Everdean in the Hunger Games. We would love to know which film or TV knitwear you covet most, so do get in touch or join in the conversation over on our Instagram feed here. I am really excited to have been nominated in two different categories in the Yarn Industry awards for 2023! I am really proud that my name appears in the Best Independent Designer section and within the Best Online Personality category. I am up against some true giants of the yarn world, many of them with many more followers than me, so I am flattered simply to have been nominated, but if you do want to vote for me, or any of the other fabulous nominees, please click the link here. Thank you to all of you who have supported and nominated me - I am delighted! There's still time to make some stash busting festive crochet decorations and we have lots of patterns to choose from! You can find them here. If you're a knitter rather than a crocheter how about some of our cushion designs - perfect for adding a touch of cosy to your sofa over the winter months. Just a reminder that I will be participating in the Wool in Garden City Festival which will take place in January. The event is a week long pop-up yarn show in Welwyn Garden City. A few exhibitors, including myself, have already been revealed and there will be workshops and other yarn related events you can attend. The pop up is free to visit, but if you would like to come to the preview evening on Friday 19th January, you can purchase a ticket for £10. You can find more information by following this link. On Instagram this week we took a look back over the Spirit of Flora Crochet Along, which has been running in Inside Crochet magazine over the last year. How time has flown! We have followed your progress through the Marlborough, Gillow and Evelyn motifs, as well as Double Carnations, Sunflower and Pair of Roses, amongst others. The latest issue of the magazine included cushion patterns and along the way there was the Dana bag too. Over on Facebook we celebrated the joy of a cosy blanket when the temperature drops. Of course it's a great time of year to be making a blanket too, because it keeps you warm at the same time! Here are some of your favourites that you shared: Bliss Butler's growing blanket pile! Jancey Glynn's first Janie Crow project in the shape of Persian Tiles is coming in handy during a cold snap! Tricia Badley made this gorgeous Imogen blanket, which now resides in the Philippines. Isn't it gorgeous! This time last year saw the release of the Glad Tidings Wrap, a design just perfect for using those gorgeous little Advent calendar mini skeins. It's a lovely project for the festive period, with a repeat that can be picked up quickly, making it a relaxing and mindful make. The pattern could also work well with leftovers from other projects, as a stash-busting exercise or with a colour changing yarn such as the Scheepjes Whirl. It does work up quite quickly, so could make a great Christmas gift too. Click on any of the images above for more information. This week's recipe is a warming sweet potato and lentil bake from the Riverford website. Gemma tried this out on her family this week, expecting mixed reviews with her girls not liking lentils and sweet potato respectively, but it apparently went down really well. Gemma didn't have tinned lentils in her store at home, so used dried red lentils and a couple of variations on the vegetables, but everyone asked that it be made again, so it sounds like a real success. If you'd like to give it a try you can find the recipe by clicking on the image above. It's this time of year that Christmas post box toppers start appearing around the UK, so we did a quick Instagram search on #christmasyarnbombing and here are a few of our favourites. Hertford/Ware Faversham West Sussex Thirsk As we head into December, the Crisis at Christmas services have started to open and the frontline staff are working hard across the country to support as many people as they can this winter. Right now, things are urgent. Over 250,000 families and individuals in the UK are experiencing the worst forms of homelessness. People are forced onto the streets, into sofa surfing, or temporary accommodation. This can and must end. There’s still time to make this someone’s last Christmas without a home. Donate now by following this link. We are looking forward to meeting my brother and his wife in town this evening. Andy and I went to see the London festive lights last Wednesday and had such a lovely time, so are hoping for nice dry weather again today in order to see all the decorations at their best. The Advent calendar at Fortnum and Mason was fabulous, as were all the window and store front displays in the high end stores on Bond Street. I love London at Christmas, but don't usually get time to visit, so I am trying to make the most of it this year. We are hoping to spend the weekend doing some Christmas prep. We have 13 coming for dinner on Boxing Day, so will cook a few things that can go in the freezer for a couple of weeks. Vegetarian cooking can be particularly time consuming thanks to all the chopping involved, so it is always good to get an early start! I am still working on the new Marrakesh colourway of Persian Tiles, which should be ready in the new year. I am making the Granny Squares at the moment and finding them a particularly mindful make - the perfect accompaniment to Christmas movies! Janie x
The most recent crochet design to feature in Inside Crochet Magazine as part of the Spirit of Flora CAL is called 'Double Carnations'. It is another motif to feature two flowers sitting at opposite corners of the square motifs and it has been great to see them popping up 'out in the wild' over the last week or so. It amazes me how quickly some of you get them made! As you know, this project was inspired by the Arts and Crafts Movement and the work of ceramicist William De Morgan in particular. Botanical symbolism was widely adopted by members of the movement in their art work, and plants were often used as metaphors for virtue and vice. William used the carnation flower frequently in his designs and it was often depicted as a symbol of love. Spirit of Flora is drawing to a close now with the final block due to be released in December. It doesn't seem possible! The project was a HUGE undertaking - 13 individual block designs, 3 blanket layouts, a bag and shawl pattern, as well as 2 cushion design options and 3 borders - this was never going to be a small undertaking! From the outset we wanted the CAL to be a project where crocheters forged their own paths, either by making the motifs using yarns from their stashes, or by choosing completely different colour palettes. We also hoped that some of you would choose to make things other than a blanket and so have shown a bag design, a shawl, and most recently a pair of cushions. The team at Inside Crochet always create such lovely images of my projects and we have come to expect a really high level of styling and photography from the dream team who are Claire Montgomerie and Leanne Jade. When I first saw the images of the cushions this week they really blew me away, so I am sharing a few here as they are just so stunning! This month's Inside Crochet Magazine also features a supplement pattern for my beaded Glitzy Festive Stockings shown below: When we were children my brother and I would place hessian sacks at the end of our beds for Father Christmas to fill with gifts overnight. The sacks felt huge back then and I remember how we would drag them into our parent’s room, probably at some ridiculously early hour, on Christmas Day to rummage through them, always finding satsumas and nuts at the bottom. These decorative crochet stockings are not large enough to hold lots of presents, but they would make the perfect addition to the fireplace none the less and are definitely large enough to fit a few small gifts in or would make a lovely gift in themselves. The sight of a festive stocking hanging ready by the fireplace for Santa to fill epitomises all things festive don’t you think? To me they symbolise the expectation of gifts and people arriving to celebrate with us, as well as creating a lovely decoration. Don't forget that we now have kits for a new version of my Bohemian Blooms Crochet Along Style project. The original pattern is written for yarns from the Rowan range, but as 3 of the shades are now discontinued we decided it was time to give the project a revamp. Our new kits include yarns from the Stylecraft range and we have chosen shades that almost exactly match those used in the original project. The tension of the new yarn palette crochets up the same as the original, but we decided that the new version would not include beads so that crocheters can see what it looks like without them and have the choice of whether or not they want to add them - not everyone is a fan of bling like me! We have created a quick video that shows the two versions of the blanket and you can find over on our Instagram feed. We have made a yarn substitution document, which also suggests alternative yarns for the discontinued yarns in the Rowan version should you wish to source yarns from their range. You can find it by following this link. With a multitude of cut-price offers bombarding our in-boxes care of Black Friday this week, it is good to know that a growing number of consumers are opting to support smaller retailers over the big discounts and the start of the heavily promotional Christmas season, which can appear all consuming. At Janie Crow we are rarely able to offer bargain prices on our kits, but instead choose to do offers on patterns from time to time. This week however, we do have a sale offer for you in the shape of the Crimson Dreams yarn kits, which are discounted by 20%. We only have limited stock available in our 'Crimson Friday' deal, so you might need to be quick! Kits are reduced from £74.50 to £59.60 - they will not be restocked at this price once our current stock has sold through. This blanket project was originally designed in a blue colourway and you can find more information by following this link. I am really excited to reveal that I have been nominated in two different categories in the Yarn Industry awards for 2023. I am really proud that my name appears in the 'Best Independent Designer' section and within the 'Best Online Personality' category. I am up against some true giants of the yarn world, many of them with many more followers than me, so I am flattered simply to have been nominated, but if you do want to vote for me, or any of the other fabulous nominees, please follow this link. I love projects that use up left overs or small amounts of yarn and I really adore adding beads to crochet stitches, so I am really excited that the pattern for the beaded pouches are available for all you eager crocheters who love stash busting projects and a bit of bling too - they would make a particularly nice accessory for a festive outfit! You can find the patterns available as downloads on Etsy and Ravelry and as paper copies (UK terms only for this one I'm afraid) by following this link to the Janie Crow store. If you fancy a bit of stash-busting in the lead up to Christmas, and also want to make something to decorate your home, why not take a look at our festive patterns. We have mini stockings, bunting and hanging decorations. Here at Janie Crow we all love the Mystical Lanterns pelmet/bunting that I first saw at Folklore Yarns in Belfast. It’s a lovely way to interpret the pattern and add mirrors to the centre of the motifs to add some extra sparkle! I am really looking forward to taking part in the Wool in Garden City event in January. I will be taking part in a 'meet the designer' session on Saturday 20th and will also be at the Preview Evening event on Friday 19th. Both These events are ticketed -the preview tickets are £10 and are available now. A full list of workshops and events will be published soon. Click here for more information. If you are looking for some little gifts that are perfect for popping in Advent Calendars or giving to a yarny friend as a Secret Santa present, how about checking out our Janie Crow & Emma Ball Collection. The little tins, stitch markers and notebooks are incredibly popular and make ideal small gifts. For the festive season we have bauble cards that feature images of my crochet designs. The baubles detach from the cards and can be hung on the tree. We also have jigsaws and there are still some calendars left in stock if you want to get organised for 2024. You can find a little reel I made yesterday of the bauble cards and the jigsaws on our Instagram account. This is a 'ta dah' moment as I want to show you the two self-seeded butternut squash that we have harvested from the garden. Aren't they fabulous! And utterly free! We will definitely be growing them again in 2024 and next time we will let them all grow rather than mistaking them for courgettes and eating them far too early!!! Despite being big butternut squash fans, we haven't cooked either of the homegrown pair yet, but last week I did buy another squash and make the soup recipe that Emma found a few weeks ago. It was totally delicious so I really recommend it. I popped all the veg in to roast while I was cooking something else in the oven at the same time and even managed to make some focaccia bread to go with it. My pics don't do it justice as it was really yummy! You can find the recipe by following this link. We are in Bournemouth this weekend for our Festive Inspired Minds workshop. The hotel is beautifully decorated for Christmas already and Debbie and I have designed a festive project for our workshop group to make over the weekend - I will reveal the design on my social media platforms next week. The weather forecast is good for the whole weekend so we are hoping to squeeze in some beach walks while we are away and maybe a little bit of Christmas shopping. I hope that you are also looking forward to a nice couple of days whatever you have planned. Janie x
It has been a fortnight of pretty much incessant rain here in North London. I have to admit that I have found the transition from summer to autumn to winter a bit tricky this year so I am particularly pleased to have my crochet to focus on now the clocks have changed and I can settle down on the settee in the evenings for a bit of 'me' time. I have a few things to tell you about this week so I hope you can spare 5 minutes to catch up with all things Janie Crow... Last Friday I spent the evening with Gemma at a charity fundraising event where I gave a talk about my design history and process. I think many of the audience members were surprised to hear just how many stages a design goes through and how long winded the process can be. As we near the end of the Spirit of Flora CAL in Inside Crochet magazine I thought you might also be interested to read about my process and see some 'behind the scenes' images so, with help from my fabulous assistant Emma, I have published a post about it on my blog. You can find it here. I want to remind you about our new yarn kits for the Bohemian Blooms blanket project which I showcased a few weeks ago. The Stylecraft yarn shades in the new kits are almost identical in colour to the original Rowan branded yarns, but they come in at a more affordable retail price. The patterns are written in a crochet along style in UK terms and feature in the dedicated pattern book. You can find more information by following this link. Mary Maxim have recently released a yam pack for my Summer Palace blanket in the Blue/Pink colourway. The pack includes their Mellowspun yarn and is particularly cost effective for those of you in the US and Canada. You can find more information here. Many people probably feel that it is still too early to start using the word 'Festive' or any others linked to Christmas, but it is fair to say that us yarny folk need to start planning our holiday makes relatively early. I am hoping to create an Advent calendar using my Mini Festive Stockings pattern. I had planned to make a stocking pretty much every day for the duration of November, but so far I have only to managed to finish one, despite the fact that I have already bought all the chocolate treats to pop inside! At this rate I will be crocheting them right up until Christmas day! Perhaps you can be more organised than me and have yours ready for December 1st? I am using a palette of mint, yellow and green shades to match our living room and would love to see them in more colourways, so do share your makes using #Janiecrow on social media platforms. I have cut right back on teaching commitments for next year, in order to concentrate on my design work, but I am really looking forward to the Arena Travel, Stitchtopia trip to Peru in July. Textile expert Karin Hellaby is currently accompanying a group on a similar tour there, so if you're interested in seeing her images of the trip, which include pics of some super cute alpacas and some lovely squishy yarn, then head over to her Facebook page. There are still some spaces left on this incredible textile holiday, so if you are interested in finding out more take a look at The Arena Travel website here. I will be participating in the Wool in Garden City Festival which will take place in January. The event is a week long pop-up yarn show in Welwyn Garden City. A few exhibitors, including myself have already been revealed and there will be workshops and other yarn related events you can attend. The pop up is free to visit, but if you would like to come to the preview evening on Friday 19th January, you can purchase a ticket for £10. You can find more information by following this link. I launched my first crochet along project in 2011 after I was inspired by Debbie Abrahams's Mystery Blanket Club which she has been running for well over a decade. Debbie was instrumental in encouraging my crochet designs and she has been an incredible support to me over the years. Debbie has recently started the application process for her 2024 (knitted) Mystery Blanket Club and it has already nearly sold out. If you're interested in Debbie's club follow this link for more information. Have you visited the Janie Crow YouTube channel lately? We are regularly adding new videos to help with basic techniques through to videos to support you with specific projects, such as Sunshine & Showers and Indigo Dreams. You can see some examples below. Click on any of the images to be taken through to the video on the YouTube channel and if you subscribe to the channel you'll be notified when new videos are added. If you're struggling with a particular section of any of our projects please let us know. If lots of you are finding the same thing tricky we will add it to our list of topics for future videos. Over on Facebook we reminded our followers of three crochet along projects for which the patterns remain free to download from the Stylecraft Yarns website here. Those projects are Lily Pond, Frida's Flowers and, of course, The Fruit Garden. Some of you shared photos of your projects with us: Here's Betsy Fruhling with her Lily Pond blanket: Carol Baker also made Lily Pond but in the Cherry Blossom colourway - we don't see this one so often so it's lovely to see such a beautiful example. Here's Joanna Whymark's Frida's Flowers in the Primavera colourway. Just gorgeous! Thanks, as always, for sharing. We love a good show and tell! Have you ever tried making pesto using parsley? Faced with a large bunch in the grocery box this week Gemma decided to give it a try and was pleasantly surprised with the results. It has a fresher, lighter taste than pesto made with basil, but was equally delicious stirred through a bowl of gnocchi! There are plenty of recipes available, but you can find the one Gemma used by clicking on the image above. Alzheimer's Research UK are currently running a fundraiser in which they are challenging those taking part to knit, sew or crochet every day in November to raise £100 for vital dementia research. If this is something you would be interested in taking part in you can find out more by clicking on this link or on the image below: In the village of Stanley Common in Derbyshire a local crafter, Jilly Crofts, known locally as the 'Crochet Queen', has spent over 200 hours crocheting a life size World War 1 soldier to be ready in time for Remembrance Day. Isn't it incredible? You can read more about why Jilly decided to make the soldier here. We have a quiet weekend planned after meeting some friends in London today for a walking tour. The forecast is for rain again, so I am sure to be snuggled on the sofa with my crochet hook at some point. I am still working on my granny hexagon cardigan and it is shaping up really nicely! I have been sent a book called 'The Lost Flock', by Jane Cooper and hope to find some time to start reading it over the next few days. It's described as a 'windswept love letter to Scotland's heritage sheep and to the Orkney farming community too!' and is all about the authors life as she cares for the UK's last remaining flock of Boreray sheep. If you would like to read it after me, reply to this email, quoting your address (UK only I'm afraid) and I will pick one of you to send it to - so long as you promise to pass it along to another reader once you're done. With big thanks to Chelsea Green Publishing for sending me the book. I will be back in your inbox in a fortnight's time with the November Newsletter. Don't forget that we love hearing from you and seeing your makes out in the wild, so do get in touch or tag us on social media so that we can see what you're up to. Janie x
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AuthorWelcome to my blog. Here you will find my email newsletter archive alongside any other general musings or information about events or new pattern releases that I wish to share with you! Archives
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