Welcome to this week's Friday Feature Newsletter - the Janie Crow equivalent of a Sunday supplement magazine....

Greetings from The Big Apple!

After months of waiting we have finally arrived in New York for The Vogue Knitting Live Show, which starts this evening at 5pm. We are VERY excited! I will tell you all about the show and share some images in next week's newsletter.

At last we have some positive news about the new web sites, which you can find lower down this email in the 'What's New?' section. I have also included some information about a lovely Italian knitting holiday that Sarah will be tutoring in May and I have left in the information about the colouring competition, which I know many of you have already been getting involved in.

The first feature of the newsletter relates to my admiration for the Austrian artists Egon Shiele and Gustav Klimt and my colour palette of the week also relates to this topic. I hope you will enjoy it.
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Around a decade ago there was a surge in popularity of Klimt's paintings and many stores made the most of the trend by selling large reproduction canvasses of paintings like The Kiss and The Three Ages of Woman so I am sure that many of you are aware of Klimt's work, especially his gold period.

I didn't really get to grips with crochet until about ten years ago, so it wasn't something that I added into my degree work, although we did have to include one hand knitted sample within our final collection. When I first started my crochet journey I remember stumbling across images of crochet inspired by Klimt paintings and I still love the idea of doing something similar. I have posted some images of some fabulous projects with links to the crocheters who have made them below.
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My good friend Dedri from Look at What I Made showed me how to use a running stitch marker a couple of years ago and it is a technique that I find invaluable when working in the round and is one that I cannot believe I lived without knowing for so long!
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Those of you who have been reading the newsletters over the last 6 weeks or so will know that we have been promising you that 2 new web sites would be launched very soon. Our original plan was to launch in November, but after a load of technical issues we had no choice but to delay this.

Last week our original Janie Crow web site crashed beyond repair, probably as a result of all the migration of products and images to the new site. This sudden failure of the site has meant that we have had to make the new 'Just Knots' site live a little sooner than we had intended and means that it is still under construction. If you have seen the site I hope you will feel that it looks and works better than the original site anyway, but you may find some glitches, so please bear with us while we work through these.
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I am currently going through a love affair with the colour orange, so I thought this would make a perfect palette to sit in this week's newsletter and carries on nicely from last week's palette where I also looked at coral and terracotta shades.
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I told you last week about a situation where I felt my work had been copied by fashion house Dolce and Gabbana. I know that many of you are continuing to send messages to the company and are making your voices heard on social media, so I want to thank you again for all your support. Stylecraft have also been incredibly supportive and we hope that between us we will get some kind of response from D&G. I will let you know if I hear anything. If you missed last week's newsletter you can find it by following this link.

We had a fabulous time at Waltham Abbey Wool Show last Sunday - as always it was a great day with lots of visitors and a fantastic array of vendors. The show is held every 3rd Sunday of January, so you might want to put the date in your diary for next year!

Once we are home from the US our next show will be Unravel in Farnham from the 22nd to the 24th February. I will be teaching a Mystical Lanterns workshop at the show and you can find tickets by following this link. I always feel like this show marks the change from winter to early spring, although last year we had snow in March, so fingers crossed that the same won't happen this year!

We are looking forward to exhibiting at Edinburgh Yarn Festival in March. I think advance tickets may have sold out, but you can get tickets on the door and you can find more information by following this link.

We will be at the show here in New York right through to Sunday afternoon when it closes at 4pm. I am going to try and remember to take plenty of images so that I can show them you next week and I will also be putting some on Instagram, so do take a look.

I hope you all have a fabulous weekend.
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Another reason for the fervent activity in the Janie Crow studio this week is because we have now launched one of the 2 new web sites. The Just Knots site remains under construction, but is now live and taking orders. You can find it by following this link or by clicking on the logo above. The old web site is not automatically redirecting traffic at the moment, but we hope to have this glitch fixed soon. We are planning for the other new web site to go live on Monday - this is also under construction so please bear with us while the new sites are being worked on.

This week sees the return of the lovely Sarah to the Friday Feature newsletter. Sarah has written a piece on interior colour trends and has also very kindly agreed to share one of her favourite vegetarian recipes, should you fancy doing a bit of cooking over the weekend.

I hope you will enjoy this week's newsletter - it is quite a long one, so grab a drink and a couple of custard creams and spend a bit of time catching up with all things Janie Crow!
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I am so excited to introduce you to a fun colouring in competition that I have devised in collaboration with graphic designer Luise Roberts, Simply Crochet Magazine and Stylecraft Yarns. The competition is open until 15th February 2019 and you can enter as many times as you like, so why not unleash your creativity and enjoy some mindful colouring in? 
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There are two really strong colour stories for 2019. The first is Pantone’s 16 – 1546 (Living Coral), a mouthwatering vibrant coral - shown above.

Pantone declared that Living Coral would be the 2019 Colour of the Year, not least because of its life affirming tone, but also because of the symbolism it shares with the natural world.

'Just as coral reefs are a source of sustenance and shelter to sea life, vibrant yet mellow PANTONE 16-1546 Living Coral embraces us with warmth and nourishment to provide comfort and buoyancy in our continually shifting environment.

In reaction to the onslaught of digital technology and social media increasingly embedding into daily life, we are seeking authentic and immersive experiences that enable connection and intimacy. Sociable and spirited, the engaging nature of PANTONE 16-1546 Living Coral welcomes and encourages lighthearted activity. Symbolizing our innate need for optimism and joyful pursuits, Pantone 16-1546 Living Coral embodies our desire for playful expression.'

Another key colour for 2019 is the more demure, but no less dramatic 'Night Watch' (Pantone Ref PPG1145-7)

The inspiration for advocating this luxurious green is its association with nature once again. Take one look at Night Watch and we think of luscious vegetation and the calming atmosphere of walking through a forest. The image below is typical of the way that Night Watch is being used as a feature wall to provide a flawless backdrop to those elements used in the soft furnishings and accessories like brass, glass, wood and woven textiles and proves to be the perfect foil to those coral coloured tulips taking centre stage. 
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If you follow me on Instagram then you may well have seen that I shared an image taken at the Dolce and Gabbana Spring Catwalk show in September, The image is of a skirt and a sun top that I think bears a striking resemblance to my Frida's Flowers CAL project that I launched in collaboration with Stylecraft back in 2016.
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My good friend and fellow designer Lucia Dunn was the first to flag this image to me and over the course of last Friday evening we received messages and emails from many crocheters asking whether D&G had collaborated with me on this design.

Copying goes on in many businesses and the hand knit and crochet world is no different. Having a design or an idea copied is pretty common. For example, I know a lady who swears blindly that Mystical Lanterns is her design and that it is simply fate that we have achieved exactly the same stitch count on every round and even given our design motifs the same name!
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When I first saw this image I was totally stunned. To me it looks like there are elements of both Frida and Lily Pond in the skirt (which would set you back a whopping £12,850). I can see at least 2 squares from Lily Pond, with the 3D lily shown above being the most obvious one and I can see lots of elements from Frida reproduced as squares rather than hexagons as in the image below. What do you think?
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As a small independent designer in a world of much bigger fish there is probably very little I can do about (what I feel is) blatant copying. Sadly, crochet patterns are like recipes - you only need to make a few changes to the ingredients in order to call it your own and a law suit related to this would end up expensive and exhausting. Add to this the fact that I don't want my love for my work and my belief in the power of the positive effects of crochet to be affected by what would no doubt turn into a bitter and costly affair, however I do feel that this is a case of awarding credit where it is due.

As I have said already, the response to the posts I have published on Facebook and Instagram over last week have been incredible and I am so grateful for everyone's amazing support. Many people have left comments on the D&G facebook page and have shared lots of related posts on Instagram, Twitter and on their own Facebook pages. If you would like to do the same then I would love to have your support. If you copy Dolce & Gabanna into your Instagram posts and hashtag #fridasflowerscal #lilypondcal2015 and me #janiecrow and #stylecraft that would be brilliant. Many people are also using the hastag #creditwherecreditisdue and copying in @dietprada - an Instagram account that exposes copying in the fashion industry.

T H A N K - YOU

If you fancy entering the brand new colouring in competition that I have mentioned further up this email, then you might want to take a look around the internet for some palette ideas. Pinterest is a great place to find a colour palette and I often look at interior images to find unusual colour mixtures. I also look back through all the pictures I have taken on my mobile phone.

When thinking about the palette idea for this week I wanted to tie it in with Sarah's piece, which mentions Pantone's colours of the year. The Pantone colours are used in regards to both fashion and interiors and it is always interesting to see just how much these two areas over lap each other, invariably without us realising, with a popular interior shade often featuring on the catwalk too.

I had a lady at a show once tell me that she would never purchase a yarn kit that featured a coral pink, as she HATED that colour! Sometimes people's dislike of a colour is linked to a negative experience - or because it seems old fashioned and I have to admit that until recently I found 'shimpy' coral kind of colours quite a challenge to use in my design work. Now though I am a total convert, especially when I look at these kinds of shades in relation to inky dark green, blues and bright turquoise and petrol shades as in Sarah's interior image.
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So, this week I have chosen an image that I took whilst on holiday in Athens last summer. At this time of year it is good to be reminded of warmer days and, with the current trend for all things foliage related in regards to home interiors, I thought it would make a suitable picture for this week.
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Mr H and I decided to try a meat free January almost by accident! We both know several vegans, but happily tucked into turkey, gammon and all the trimmings over the festive season. During the lull between Christmas and New Year we caught up with friends who we haven't seen for ages and discovered that they had become vegan. Paul and I were both vegetarian during our student days, but for one reason or another eventually went back to eating meat.

So, we've been giving 'Veganuary' or at least a meat-free January a go!

We are not trying to change our eating habits overnight, but we have really enjoyed sourcing, cooking and eating a different set of ingredients. It doesn't have to be expensive either. Many of you probably have nuts left over after Christmas, so why not try a nut roast - it really is tastier than you might imagine!

There are no hard and fast rules with a nut roast, but I would recommend combining equal amounts of nuts to other ingredients like pulses /cheese/ breadcrumbs. An egg can help bind ingredients together, but if you want the full vegan experience you can use a food processor to blitz all the ingredients together along with a couple of softened, chopped onions.
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