 I hope this quick catch up email finds you well. It has been a bit hectic here at Janie Crow this week as I have been preparing for my workshops 'up north' next week. I love doing workshops and events, but there is always a lot to do in the build up to them, like making sure the project is made and accompanying yarn packs prepared, as well as making sure I have all my own notes ready. I am also doing a presentation next week, so that has taken a bit of work too. I felt a bit snowed under yesterday, so I tidied my desk and had a quick clear up in my studio space - something that always makes me feel more in control, so I am heading into the weekend feeling a little calmer! I have a few things to tell you about this week and hope that you can spare 5 minutes out for your own hectic schedules to catch up with all things Janie Crow.    Thank you for your incredible response to our appeal to raise funds for the charity UNHCR, who are doing their best to support refugees. Throughout Ukraine's history sunflowers have been a symbol of peace and solidarity and it has been amazing to see how many of you adopted the idea of making a crochet mandala, using my Fields of Gold pattern to show support. We have seen so many lovely images and messages on social media over the last couple of weeks and I am absolutely blown away by your generosity. We have tallied up all the profit made on the sales of my Fields of Gold pattern for the month of March. We have rounded all amounts up and we have taken a hit on some of the printing charges and packaging costs so that we can donate as much as possible for each sale. We have included download patterns via Etsy and Ravelry and all paper patterns, including those in blanket project kits. We have also added in donations made directly to me via the 'Support Me' buttons on my web site this month. So, without further a do, I can reveal that the amount we raised was an amazing £4901.28. The final amount we will be donating to UNHCR is the incredible total of £5000! I am so grateful to all of you who supported this fundraiser - you are all totals stars! THANK YOU!  Last Friday I took myself off to the V&A Museum and had a wander around for a couple of glorious hours. The V&A is my default destination when I am looking for ideas and it was so good to be back there after a long time away. My first port of call at the museum is almost always the Islamic Middle East Gallery, where I check in with the ceramic tile that became the inspiration for my Persian Tiles design way back in 2016.  From there I wandered around the South Asia Gallery, which always leaves me full of ideas. This time I found myself really drawn to Indian water colour paintings. I have collected a few of my own miniature paintings on our travels in India, but what really drew me to those on display was the intricate floral painted frames, which I have focussed on in the images below.   A visit to the V&A is not complete without a walk around the Arts & Crafts Movement room (Britain Galleries), which has lots of lovely William and May Morris pieces. I was really excited to see that a new item in the museum's collection is this amazing portrait by the awesome Kehinde Wiley. I missed his exhibition at the William Morris Gallery in 2020, so I was a bit emotional to finally see a piece of his work up close and personal, especially as this one is so stunning! If you are a fan of Wiley's work then you might be interested to know that there will be an exhibition of his work at The National Gallery from 18th April - you can find more info here.  And finally, I climbed the stairs to my favourite 'hidden gem' in the museum, the ceramic galleries on the 4th Floor. These rooms are a bit out of the way and are not on the well trodden museum route, so there are never many people up there and it almost feels like I have found something secret! The ceramic collection is vast, with huge display cabinets from floor to ceiling in at least 4 large rooms and I always leave feeling really inspired and a little overwhelmed!    A visit to the V&A is not complete without a mooch around the shop. I found some great books, which I hope will help me form some new design ideas.  In my last email I mentioned that I have been thinking about designing some garments. Many of you replied to say that this is something you would like and I am still considering how my designs could work within items of clothing. I admit that I am quite apprehensive about the idea of fitted pieces and am more likely to come up with wrap, shawl and bag ideas to start with - so it is a case of watch this space for now. If you are looking for some great crochet fashion design I urge you to take a look at Cassie Ward's work. Cassie's Instagram feed is called The Missing Yarn and you can find it here. The response to my pastel versions of the Beaded Decorations was so good last time I emailed that we sold out of kits in no time. The good news is that we now have some more in stock, so if you missed out last time please take a look!   The kits includes 6 balls of Organic Cotton DK in the spring shades, a bag of Debbie Abrahams beads, a 4mm crochet hook and the printed pattern, which also includes a beading masterclass. The price for the contents of the kit work out at almost £30, but we have priced it at £24.95. I have made 12 decorations so far and possibly have enough to make at least 8 more depending on the order of yarn use. You can find the kits by following this link, where you will also find the pattern if you want to use yarn from your stash.  Just a reminder that the price of our paper patterns will be going up. At Janie Crow we have tried to keep our prices as reasonable as possible and have swallowed quite a few of our increasing costs over the last few years, however we are at a point now where we can no longer put off a price increase on our paper patterns. The cost of printing has almost doubled over the last few months and so we will be increasing the price of paper patterns as existing stocks sell through. The increase in price will be added to the next print run of all our brochure patterns, but for now our smaller 4 page folded leaflet style patterns will remain for sale at £3.95. Going forwards 8 and 12 page patterns will increase in price to £6.95 each and 16 page patterns will be priced at £8.95. If you want to stock up on paper patterns before the price increase starts to kick in from next week, you can find a link to all our paper patterns here.  I will be at Black Sheep Wools for a couple of days next week. I will be hosting a Fruit Garden Blanket Tea Party at the store on Wednesday 6th of April. The event is a chance for you to come along and hear about my design process for the project, how we launched it as a CAL over the pandemic and how I set about creating the dedicated book last year. I will be bringing along lots of my own projects and hope that participants will also get involved in a show and tell and talk about their own Fruit Garden projects. You can find more details about the event by following this link. The following day (7th April) I will be tutoring 2 beaded flower mini workshops where I will demonstrate how to make a lovely beaded flower using a motif from the Fruit Garden project as inspiration. Most of the places have sold out but you can still find a couple of spare spots by following this link.  Gemma has been incredibly busy finding some great items online this week, such as the fact that March was National Crochet Month in the US and that crochet is a key fashion trend for 2022. You can find a great piece from The Fashion Network here, a piece from Malay Mail here and a lovely piece about crochet handbag trends from Woman and Home. I am pretty sure we could all come up with some lovely crochet bags at a fraction of the price of some of these....  Gemma also found this great little video from 'On the Red Dot' entitled 'Handmade Tales'. I really enjoyed watching it and particularly liked the piece about yarn bombing in Singapore and the spotlight on fibre artist Kelly Limerick.  Gemma is always busy in the kitchen and serves her family some lovely home made meals. This week she has recommended this Parsnip Dal recipe from Riverford. It sounds delicious!   The last couple of weekends we had some amazing weather, so we spent quite a lot of time preparing the garden for veggie planting. Our little beetroots were delicious, so too were the over wintered fennel I used to make a scrummy pasta sauce.   I try to start my working week with a good dose of fresh air and tend to head for a walk around the woods before I settle down at my desk on a Monday. This week the blossom was in full bloom and the catkins were just so pretty that my walk took me much longer to complete as I kept stopping to take some photos on my phone! The weather is a little different here today as we are now in the grips of some icy and blustery weather, so it is extra nice to look back on my images and be reminded that it has been warm and sunny so recently!  We are heading away to Stratford Upon Avon for the weekend to meet up with a group of friends who came to Mysore with us in 2020. I am really looking forward to a weekend of knit and chatter and some good walks around lovely Stratford, so I am hoping the weather will not be too unkind! If you are also planning a spot of knit or crochet over the weekend, then you might want to find some good TV to keep you company. I am looking forward to catching up with all things Bridgerton over the next few weeks and will try hard not to binge watch it. Andy and I have also been watching 'This is Us' and are totally hooked - we are only one season in, so we will probably be watching it for the next 5 years! I am always on the look out for good TV and love to hear recommendations, so I would love to know what your favourite shows are to knit and crochet along to! I know that many of you listen to podcasts and book readings, so I would love to be able to pass on your recommendations for these too. We have been keeping an eye on our plastic use in the home for the last couple of years and have managed to drastically reduce the amount that goes into our recycling bin, but we still have a way to go, especially as the figures suggest that only 9% of household plastic gets recycled in the UK and because plastic cannot be recycled infinitely. If you are also on a mission to reduce your plastic consumption then you might want to take part in 'The Big Plastic Count', which will take place for a week between 16th & 22nd May. You can get more info and sign up by following this link.  As the war in Ukraine continues, we will be looking at ways to continue our fundraising over the next couple of months. There are still many knitters and crocheters out there doing their bit to raise money, so do have a look around for ways that you can support them. Amanda at Little Box of Crochet is asking for crocheted squares made in blue and yellow to make blankets that will become part of a big raffle. You can find more info on Amanda's Instagram feed.  Before I leave you I just want to ask a small favour. My good friend Emma has had her Instagram account blocked, which means she can no longer access it. Despite being a beautiful middle aged woman, the IG bots believe Emma to be underage for an account and, despite her providing all the required information to reinstate her account, she continues to be blocked. Over the years Emma had gained a really good following of more than 10,000 people on Instagram, but now she has had to start all over with a new account. So, my appeal is for you to take a look and follow her if you fancy - I guarantee you will not regret it as she is a lovely, funny human with a great big heart who will not fail to give you a giggle! I hope you all have a fabulous weekend whatever you have planned and I look forward to popping back into your inbox in a couple of weeks time. Thank you all again for your incredible support of our Ukraine appeal - you're all amazing! Janie x
   Thank you for your incredible response to our appeal to raise funds for the charity UNHCR, who are doing their best to support refugees. Throughout Ukraine's history sunflowers have been a symbol of peace and solidarity. The national flower is being adopted by protesters - some are carrying bouquets at rallies, others are displaying the flower emoji to show support on line. We will be donating the profit from the pattern for my sunflower blanket design Fields of Gold to UNHCR for the duration of March. I have no idea how much we have raised already as I have not had a chance to tally it all up, but I would really love it if we could manage to raise £1000. Please consider purchasing a pattern if you can - you can choose a paper copy or a download via Etsy or Ravelry. You can find more information here. The charity Good Gifts, a sister charity to Knit For Peace, are raising funds for medical supplies for Ukraine. The emergency health packs are dispensed by health professionals in clinics set up at the borders, as refugees arrive from Ukraine. The packs contain wound dressings, pain relief, antibiotics and medicines to treat chronic conditions such as diabetes and hypertension. The medicines will be dispensed by health professionals free to patients at the point of provision. The contents of the packs are donated by pharmaceutical companies, but funds are desperately needed to transport them. Please consider making a donation by following this link.  I managed to catch covid and had a week or so of feeling a bit naff. This week I have been struggling to concentrate on anything for very long, maybe in part due to the infection, so I have been dipping into quite a few different projects so that I don't get too frustrated by my fuzzy brain. I have completed some more pastel coloured beaded decorations which I am planning to decorate the house with this weekend. We had these on display at the Stitch Festival recently and have a limited number of kits for the project left to sell.   The kits includes 6 balls of Organic Cotton DK in the spring shades, a bag of Debbie Abrahams beads, a 4mm crochet hook and the printed pattern, which also includes a beading masterclass. The price for the contents of the kit work out at almost £30, but we have priced it at £24.95. I have made 12 decorations so far and possibly have enough to make at least 8 more depending on the order of yarn use. You can find the kits by following this link, where you will also find the pattern if you want to use yarn from your stash.  I have also been testing out my Tidings Wrap pattern using Stylecraft's 'Charm' yarn. Sarah is making one too, so we hope to have the pattern for this project ready soon. As soon as we do I will let you know.  As I am sure you are aware the price of pretty much everything is set to increase over the next few months if it hasn't done so already. At Janie Crow we have tried to keep our prices as reasonable as possible and have swallowed quite a few of our increasing costs over the last few years, however we are at a point now where we can no longer put off a price increase on our paper patterns. The cost of printing has almost doubled over the last few months and so we will be increasing the price of paper patterns as existing stocks sell through. The increase in price will be added to the next print run of all our brochure patterns, but for now our smaller 4 page folded leaflet style patterns will remain for sale at £3.95. Going forwards 8 and 12 page patterns will increase in price to £6.95 each and 16 page patterns will be priced at £8.95. If you want to stock up on paper patterns before the price increase starts you can find a link to all our paper patterns here.  If you are looking for a project kit we now have Primavera yarn packs back in stock. The packs have a yarn substitution in place for the Organic Cotton Shade 'Bone', which is out of stock at Stylecraft. We did a couple of tests and replaced the shade with Ecru from the Naturals ReCReate range. I really love this yarn and think it is a great alternative to the cotton - it has a fabulously long length too, so you need fewer balls, which in turn means the kit is £5 cheaper than it was. You can find all our yarn packs and kits by following this link.  It has been amazing to see some completed Indigo Dreams projects popping up on social media. I have really enjoyed the CAL and hope that it has brought those of you who followed it some joy too. I have been working on a new colourway of the project which will be released in the autumn when the pattern reverts to me.  As the sun has been making its debut for 2022 in our house this week I have been noticing the odd spider's web and the fine layers of dust in places that it has gone un-noticed since the summer. Over the course of this week I have been starting a bit of a spring clean and this weekend I will take it a step further and put some of my spring-time decorations up. If you follow Lucy at Attic 24 you will know that she rearranges her mantel piece at home to reflect the changing seasons and has a collection of lovely crochet wreaths that all have a seasonal theme too. Lucy has been working on a winter garland lately but I think it looks beautifully springy! You can find some lovely images and more information about her projects by following this link.  I found a lovely 'Hello Spring' cushion cover by Two Little Birds on Etsy. You can find the pattern here. There are also patterns for bunny and flower cushion covers on there.  While searching through Etsy I also found these ready made crochet tulips by La Fleur Creations. Aren't they fab! You can pick your colour and create your own bouquet!  If you fancy making some crochet flowers to brighten up your home and make it feel lovely and springy then you could use this pattern, which you can download via the Knit For Peace web site - obviously I would love it if you would also make a donation to the charity while you are there!  I have a few exciting events on the horizon that you might fancy joining me for. You can find information about an afternoon tea event and a couple of workshops that I am doing at Black Sheep Wools lower down this email, but I have a few other things I want to tell you about. We are really looking forward to exhibiting at Wonderwool Wales next month. The show has not happened since 2019, so we are particularly excited about returning. You can find more information by following this link. I will be tutoring two workshops for Arena Travel as part of their Stitchtopia programme. I will be accompanying a group on a cruise to Iceland in May and then will be going on a tour of Finland in June. You can find more information about the trips by following this link. I have been invited back to Yarn Lane TV on May 2nd. I hope you can join me.   I will be at Black Sheep Wools for a couple of days in early April. I will be hosting a Fruit Garden Blanket Tea Party at the store on Wednesday 6th of April. The event is a chance for you to come along and hear about my design process for the project, how we launched it as a CAL over the pandemic and how I set about creating the dedicated book last year. I will be bringing along lots of my own projects and hope that participants will also get involved in a show and tell and talk about their own Fruit Garden projects. You can find more details about the event by following this link. The following day (7th April) I will be tutoring 2 beaded flower mini workshops where I will demonstrate how to make a lovely beaded flower using a motif from the Fruit Garden project as inspiration. You can find more information about this event here. I hope you might fancy joining me!  Do you fancy a relaxed weekend away in the Hertfordshire countryside with specialist knitting and crochet teachers, gorgeous yarn kits and likeminded people? If so, the WoollyAway could be the answer.   A weekend of woolly fun starts in just over a week on the 26th of March and the event includes 2 days of crafting and relaxation in beautiful surroundings. With workshops being led by Natalie Warner, Andrew Kite, Deb Cunningham from Crates of Wool and Diana Bensted from The Crochet Chain. If you book a place you will get to stay in the beautiful Manor of Groves hotel, choose between a knitting or crochet class each morning and immerse yourself in your crafts for two blissful days. Meals are provided and you get access to the hotel's leisure centre if you feel the need for a change. You will also receive an amazing tool kit with some exclusive luxury yarns and patterns for all 4 workshops with a value of approximately £95. You can find more information about the event by following this link and you can book a spot here. I have to admit I am VERY tempted!  I was banished from the house for a week while I was infectious with covid recently. Thankfully my symptoms didn't include loss of taste and smell, which I was really pleased about as Andy was a total star catering for my every need. Breakfast, Lunch and Tea were delivered to the door of our garden room without fail for a week and I was treated to some really lovely home cooking.  s a thank you to Andy for his amazing attentiveness I gave him a copy of the first ever book from Dishoom called From Bombay with Love. It really is a gorgeous book, full of really tasty recipes. This is what the authors say about the book: 'Dishoom: From Bombay with Love, is an eccentric and charming cookery book, with over 100 recipes for the Bombay comfort food and drink that we love. Through the course of the pages, you will be taken on a day-long tour of south Bombay. Starting at breakfast, through to lunch, dinner and nightcaps, we share recipes for beloved dishes such as Masala Chai, the Bacon Naan Roll and House Black Daal.' The book is a really lovely read, with lots of stories, anecdotes and information about the origins of some of the recipes therein. The images are so incredibly enticing. I visited Mumbai in 2015, but this book is really making me want to go back again!  We already love this recipe for Kejriwal - fried eggs on chilli cheese toast - which we discovered a couple of years ago. It used to be our favourite Dishoom recipe, but now that Andy has the book he is working his way through some more - all of which have been delicious so far!   When I looked back at last month's newsletter I saw that I was waiting for my Amaryllis to flower, so I thought I would show you what it looked like a few weeks ago. It really was stunning and flowered for about 3 weeks. I have only just moved it off the kitchen table and cut it back. This weekend I am planning to replace it with some twigs and cuttings form the garden which I will decorate with my spring inspired beaded decorations.  I am hoping to get into town next week to do a bit of design research. It is ages since I have been to the V&A or an exhibition or even to some of the larger stores like Anthropologie, which I always find so inspiring. A bit of window shopping sounds like a great plan!  I recently came across this amazing cardigan by The Peruvian Connection, which reminded me a little of my Frida design - isn't it amazing? It has a price point far beyond my pocket, but the work involved in it is really intricate and I love the style. You can find a few more gorgeous crochet garments on the site such as the Saltillo and Millefiore tops below.   I have always designed items for the home as I am not sure my skills are up to creating garments, but seeing these on the Peruvian Connection web site have me inspired. I would love to know how you guys feel about crochet garments - should I stick to blankets and cushions? We have had a real mixture of weather this week - we had torrential dirty rain on Wednesday, which left the windows and cars covered in a fine red dust thanks to a Saharan dust cloud that travelled up to us through Spain over the last week or so. A bit frustrating that we now need to give everything a good clean, but the sun is shining and we are set for a lovely weekend weather wise so we can't stay cross for long! I actually made it back to the gym this week for the first time in a while, so after months of ignoring my membership I am hoping to make it back there over the next few days and will also get a bit of a workout by cutting the grass - my life is so rock and roll! I hope you all have a fabulous weekend whatever you have planned and I look forward to popping back into your inbox in a couple of weeks time. Janie x
  At Janie Crow we are supporting the UNHCR (The UN Refugee Agency). We have a link to donate via our homepage, or you can follow this one if you want to make a contribution. Over the last couple of weeks we have also made donations to The Disasters Emergency Committee and to The British Red Cross. Many other charities are doing vital work, however I have noticed that many of them have stopped asking for items such as blankets and warm clothes and are now focusing on monetary contributions as this will have the fastest impact on the people of Ukraine. I know that it can be really hard to find some spare money to give away, especially as we are constantly being told about how the cost of living is set to soar, but even the smallest contributions make a difference.  Sarah mentioned to me that a friend of hers is making some crochet sunflowers which she plans to put on a wreath to display in her front window. Throughout Ukraine's history sunflowers have been a symbol of peace and solidarity, so creating something which involves them is a great idea. The national flower is being adopted by protesters - some are carrying bouquets at rallies, others are displaying the floral emoji to show support online.  For the month of March we will be donating the profit on the download and paper patterns for my sunflower design, Fields of Gold to the UNHCR as well as continuing to make our own donations. You can find more information about the design by following this link. Looking at my sunflower design has got me thinking that a single flower motif would make an amazing mandala, which I could hang on the front door. I had planned to make a new pompom wreath, but maybe this is a nugget of a new idea.... If you don't fancy making something as big as my sunflower, perhaps you could make some small brooches and sell them to friends and give the proceeds to charity, or maybe you could make a wreath of them to display to your neighbours like Sarah's friend Linda. You can find some patterns and ideas by following this link to Etsy. Some of the sellers have patterns or readymade items that include a charitable donation, so do take a look.  The team at Love Crafts have suggested making crochet or knitted hearts using the blue and yellow shades of the Ukrainian flag. You can find a free pattern by Annemarie Bentham by following this link or by clicking on the image above.  On both Etsy and Ravelry you can sort designers based on the country they are in. Ravelry have provided a link for Ukrainian Designers here.  Etsy have created a Ukraine landing page, which you can find here and they have also waived all balances for Ukrainian based sellers. Etsy CEO Josh Silverman wrote in a recent blog post: 'Being part of a community means that when one part is suffering, the rest of us must step up and offer our support'. According to Etsy, it is waiving a total of around $4million in fees, which includes listing, advertising and transaction fees. If you want to directly contribute to citizens of Ukraine you can do so as follows: Go to the Etsy home page. Click the 'All Filters' button and scroll down to 'Country'. Click 'Custom' and type Ukraine into the box. The results you get will include all digital files created and sold by Ukraine based Etsy sellers. Digital download file transactions allow Ukrainians to earn money without having to produce anything new or process physical orders during this unbelievably tough time. When I did my search I found a lot of downloadable cards and postcards, like the one shown in the image above which I chose, but there are also lots of knit and crochet patterns on there too.  We are all aware of the sanctions being imposed on Russian businesses and individuals and so I was interested to read how many UK based supermarkets have made the decision to remove Russian produce items from their stores. It seems that this mostly means vodka, which is predominantly made in Russia, but there are a few other items that we could avoid too, such as Russian grown sunflower seeds and charcoal. If you shop at a certain store then you might want to check their policy. It made me smile to read that Sainsburys have also changed the name of their Chicken Kievs to Kyivs - the preferred way of spelling the Ukrainian name. Many yarn companies, shops and designers have come out in support of Ukraine and lots of them are offering to donate profits from sales to the charities involved in helping. Below I have highlighted a couple that Sarah and I have found over the last few days: Love Crafts are donating 100% of profits from Debbie Bliss pattern sales on a selection of reduced designs.  Quinton & Chadwick are holding a raffle for the beautiful sweater shown above. Tickets are £10 each - The retail price of the sweater is £190!   Knit and crochet designers Arne & Carlos are supporting Save The children and have a dedicated pattern sale. If you are shopping around for anything else and want to be sure you are doing the right thing then you might want to check out the following article, which I found 'These Brands Let you Support Ukraine Just by Shopping.  You can write to your MP and ask them to put pressure on the Government to provide more support for the people of Ukraine. If you want to find your local MP's details follow this link and you can find a template letter here via the Ukrainian London website. There is a petition you can sign asking the Government to provide more help to refugees - you can find it here. When posting on social media use the hashtag #StandWithUkraine  There are lots of events planned for the weekend, both nation and world-wide. If you are interested in joining a march, then check out the following sites for some guidance: Association of Ukrainians in Great Britain Ukraine Solidarity Campaign Stop The War Coalition Stand with Ukraine  As we head into the weekend I am praying that we start to see some calmer times. Hopefully by the time I am sending my usual style newsletter next Friday we may have seen a de-escalation of aggression, but in the mean time I hope that your knit and crochet is bringing you some peace and that you can find solace in knowing that you have helped in some way. I hope you all understand the reason for my break away from a usual Janie Crow news heavy email and that you will understand that my motive is humanitarian and not political. Stay safe  Within the 'Thought for Today' feature on the radio this morning the speaker talked about the importance of women vocalising their success and it got me thinking about how we measure the achievements of ourselves and other women. I follow inspirational speaker Kubi Springer on Instagram and have read one of her books about building a strong brand. I like the way she writes and enjoy listening to her motivational speeches, but it always bugs me that her benchmark for whether or not you are successful (in business anyway) is what car you drive and how big your house is. It seems to me that when evaluating the worth of anyone these days (not just women) society has a tendency to base calculations on the amount of money we earn, the area we live in and how many holidays we can afford rather than the actual level of success we have achieved.  Image with thanks to (C) Opera For All On International Women's Day, we often hear about women who are championed because they have broken the mould and made a pathway into male dominated areas. We see praise for female engineers and mathematicians for example. Women who work in areas traditionally dominated by men. I am not saying this is a bad thing - my daughter is a Design Engineer and I am so incredibly proud of her, especially given all the discrimination and misogeny she has come across over the course of her working life, but shouldn't we be championing ALL women regardless of their chosen careers? For me, converting another crocheter to the benefits of our craft is a win. Hearing how crochet has changed someone's life is another win. Seeing how women support each other in the craft world - win win win! None of these achievements has a monetary value and no price tags can be placed on the joy people experience making projects either. To me, the worth of a hand made gift is immeasurable - the ultimate love token! Over the course of my career I have met some of the most amazing women, many of whom have totally changed my life. My little Janie Crow team is predominantly made up of incredible, strong, loving and funny trail blazing women who have supported me in so many ways, both on a work and personal level, but I have also found that in broader society women can be their own worst critics, especially on social media, where we are often reminded to be kind and thoughtful. We lost Andy's amazing sister to bowel cancer recently. At her funeral everyone spoke of her amazing personality. Of the love she had for her family and her incredible courage in the face of her illness. Julie worked as a teaching assistant and always put the joy of children to the forefront of her life. She was a loving wife, a doting mother to three incredible children and an amazing daughter, sister and friend. Her worth is not measured on the basis of the career she chose, what car she drove or how much money she made in her lifetime, it is based on her incredible gift for loving and looking after people - her own in-built magnificence. Our lives will never be the same without her. In 'The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People' Steve Covey talks about how we should all live our lives with 'the end in mind'. In other words, by continuously thinking about how we want to be remembered and on what we want our achievements to be based. For International Women's Day 2022, in a world where social media tells us we should 'have, have, have', I am reminding myself today of the importance of championing and supporting ALL women regardless of how traditional society measures worth.  |
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
March 2023
Categories
All
|
RSS Feed
Services |
Contact us |
|