I hope that this email finds you all well and that you are looking forward to the weekend!

We are enjoying a lovely warm afternoon here in North London and it looks like we are set to finally get some good weather. I am sure the garden and all the delights of the next few days are calling you, so this is just a speedy update that won't take you too long to read before your weekend gets under way...

We had a lovely time in Bournemouth last weekend for our Inspired Minds crochet workshop. Sarah and I had a group of 29 crocheters in our company over a 3 day period when we also enjoyed lots of good food, friendly chatter and a fabulous talk by Dedri Uys of Look at What I Made on the Saturday afternoon. Dedri brought lots of her projects with her, including Sophie's Universe and the Ubuntu blankets, so it was a real treat to see her. If you fancy coming along to another Inspired Minds hand knit or crochet weekend in 2020 you can sign up to the mailing list by following this link.

If you are a patreon of Fruity Knitting then you might be interested to know that I will be a guest on Andrea and Andrew's exclusive live chat tomorrow afternoon at 3pm GMT. I am really looking forward to the event and hope that there will be lots of interesting questions for me to answer! You can also see a recent interview with me on the Fruity Knitting podcast by following the links from my dedicated web page here.
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If you are a regular visitor to the Janie Crow web site then you may have noticed that a new Knit For Peace page has gone live this week. The page can be accessed from my home page and it contains lots of links to the charity's web site, including those to the forth coming holiday in Mysore, India in January 2020. Places on the trip are booking fast now so it might be wise to make an enquiry if you have been contemplating coming along. The new web page also features links to make donations to the charity and those to more information about raffles, how to get involved and to the Knit For Peace shop.

I told you a few weeks ago that I have designed a Crochet Along project for Inside Crochet magazine. The project will be revealed in the July issue, which goes on sale week beginning 22nd July. The patterns for the CAL will be featured in 4 issues from August through to November and not July to October as I previously said, so please note the change in schedule. I have also decided not to re-release the patterns myself until Autumn 2020 rather than the spring, so there is a little movement in timings here too. If you want to subscribe to the magazine (a bargain at just £5.99 a copy) you can find more info by following this link to their web site.
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I realised after I sent last week's email that I had not included an image of the new version of my Hollicarrs scarf, so I have put a couple in this time! The first image above is of the new version (dusky pink) and the second one is of the original design courtesy of Rachel Atkinson. The pattern originally featured in Rachel's book 'Daughter of a Shepherd Volume One' and was designed using her fabulous British DK wool 'Hebridean Zwartbles'. I have updated the pattern using Fyberspates Vivacious 4 ply. The design uses 2 skeins of yarn and 4 packs of beads.

The new version of the pattern can be purchased from my web site either as a 4 page paper pattern or as a download option. The pattern includes written and charted instructions and is available in UK and US terminology. Both versions of the pattern are £3.95.

The repeated beaded lace pattern of this scarf/shawl lends itself beautifully to any choice of yarn, be it 4ply or DK, but if you like the idea of using the lovely Vivacious 4 ply yarn and the Debbie Abrahams beads then Andy has put some kits onto the Just Knots web site and hopefully other stockists will start to stock the pattern as well. We think it would look great using Scheepjes Whirl too, although you may have to make the design a little longer to fit in the full colour spectrum of the yarn length.

If you are off to Woolfest in Cockermouth this weekend then I hope you have a lovely time. I am beyond excited to be going to see Pink in concert at Wembley Stadium on Saturday. I will be heading off to the show straight after the live chat with Fruity Knitting, so it is set to be a really fabulous Saturday. No doubt Sunday will be spent recovering in the garden with lots of tea and sunshine - fingers crossed!

As always, if you want to get in touch please hit reply and tell me what is on your mind. I hope you have a lovely weekend wherever you are....
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I hope that this email finds you all well and that you are looking forward to the weekend!

We are in sunny Bournemouth today catching a bit of sunshine and sea air and getting ready for our Inspired Minds Crochet weekend, which kicks off later on this evening, but I am just dropping into your inbox to let you know that my 'Hollicarrs' scarf/wrap pattern is now live on my web site.

The pattern originally featured in Rachel Atkinson's book 'Daughter of a Shepherd Volume One' and was designed using Rachel's fabulous British DK wool 'Hebridean Zwartbles'. I have updated the pattern using Fyberspates Vivacious 4 ply. The design uses 2 skeins of yarn and 4 packs of beads.

The new version of the pattern can be purchased from my web site either as a 4 page paper pattern or as a download option. The pattern includes written and charted instructions and is available in UK and US terminology. Both versions of the pattern are £3.95.

The repeated beaded lace pattern of this scarf/shawl lends itself beautifully to any choice of yarn, be it 4ply or DK, but if you like the idea of using the lovely Vivacious 4 ply yarn and the Debbie Abrahams beads then Andy will be putting some kits onto the Just Knots web site next week and hopefully other stockists will start to stock the pattern too.

Thank you for all the feedback from last week's newsletter. I realised as soon as I had pressed send that I had forgotten to add in my Instagram of the Month recommendation, so will include this in next week's update.

As always, if you want to get in touch please hit reply and tell me what is on your mind. I hope you have a lovely weekend wherever you are....
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This week I have been looking at the summer time fashion trends. Crochet features quite heavily in beach fashion trends and this has led me to question the ethics of buying hand made crochet items, so I have written a quick article about this, which you will find lower down. I have also introduced a new feature entitled 'Discovery of the Month', which will focus on ethical 'everyday' items, as well as knit and crochet related things that I have found over the month. This newsletter also features some information on my upcoming Crochet Along project that starts is July and some news of an imminent new pattern release, so I hope that you are able to spend a few minutes in my company ahead of your fabulous weekend.....
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​I have been busy putting the final touches to my next CAL design, which will be a crochet wrap/runner that will be featured in Inside Crochet Magazine from July. The CAL is divided into 4 parts, so will run through until October. I am unable to reveal the design to you just yet, but I am incredibly excited about this project and cannot wait to show it to you.

I think it is really nice to work through a CAL project when it is brand new and when the majority of other people are also working through it at the same time. If you would rather work through the project at another time though it is worth noting that the patterns will revert to me some time in 2020 and will be available as paid for downloads from my web site at a price of somewhere in the region of £4/5 each.

Inside Crochet magazine is a monthly title available at many retailers. You can find more information about the magazine, including subscription rates and links to download the title, by following this link.  I think the magazine, which features lots of designs, is a real bargain at just £5.99 a copy.
 

A few years ago I designed a beaded scarf project for Rachel Atkinson's 'Daughter of a Shepherd Volume One' book. The design 'Hollicarrs' was originally made using a DK weight yarn, but I have now updated the pattern so that it can be worked using a 4ply. I will be releasing the revised pattern next Friday via the Janie Crow web site and hope that you will like it. I have popped an image of the original DK version (from Rachel's fabulous book) above.

As many of you will already know, I tend to release my patterns in paper form rather than as downloads. I have made this my policy in order to protect my own copyright and also to protect stockists who sell my patterns either on line or in their stores. Over the past year I have come under increasing pressure to release my patterns in download form and so I have decided that Hollicarrs will be the first pattern to be available either as a download or as a paper copy. The success of this will pave the way for all my patterns in the future, so it will be interesting to see how many of you opt for download over paper! After all, the less paper we use, the more trees we save, so watch this space!
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I am aware that I have been really neglectful of my Facebook page recently. I have been a bit lax on the Instagram front too as I started finding social media massively time consuming, so I am always pleased when amazing people volunteer to help me with this! Karen Citrine, the wonderful lady who already moderates the Persian Tiles Facebook group, messaged me this week to ask if she could alter the name of the Bohemian Blooms Group that she has been running for the last couple of years. The group has nearly 3000 members and so Karen has been finding that she is receiving pattern queries and getting general chatter about lots of designs and not just Bohemian Blooms. Sarah Hazell - our pattern query guru - is going to join the group so that she can keep an eye on the queries and help where needed and if you want to join the renamed group too, you can find 'Janie Crow (Jane Crowfoot) Crochet Help Group' by following the link or clicking on the image above.
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Finally in the 'What's New' feature this week I am going to do a shameless plug and ask that you vote for me in the 'Favourite Crochet Designer' category of this year's Let's Knit British Knitting and Crochet Awards. You can find a link to the voting form here or by clicking on the image of me and my fellow crochet designer pals above. The image shows all 3 finalists in last years awards, with Lucy of Attic 24 (centre right) winning the title and Dedri (right) and I (centre left beside magazine editor Sarah Neal) coming in as runners up.
 

A freind of mine asked me about the current fashion for net-like crochet items, which feature heavily in the trends for this summer. My friend is not a crocheter or a knitter, but she had noticed that the advertising for many of the crochet items currently on sale make a point of them being hand made, so her question to me was whether every crochet item was indeed hand made, even those she had seen in Primark for £8 each.

Crochet can be mimicked by machines - sometimes things are described as crochet when they are in fact a form of stitching and overlaying, a little like fake lace, but it is a sad fact that when you see a crochet item that says hand made it will have been. I say 'sad fact' because when you think about the price point on many hand made items in relation to the amount of time they have taken to make it doesn't take a maths genius to work out that the person who hand made the item will not have been paid adequately for their time.
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As I have been saying in a lot of my newsletters lately I have been looking at ways of lowering my carbon footprint. I have told you that my work creates lots of dilemmas in regards to making green choices and that I am conscious of making the right decisions about yarn and packaging going forwards. We have recently introduced paper packaging and have ditched the plastic mail bags for almost all of our post. We also reuse a lot of the packaging that comes in to the studio and I am hoping that download patterns might further reduce our use of paper, however it is at home that I have been making the biggest changes and I have to say that it has been incredibly gratifying to see the difference these are making.

Here in London we have large blue dustbins for our recycling and dark grey bins for our everyday waste. When we first got the blue bins, into which we can put paper, glass and bottles, I was flabbergasted by the amount of waste we were producing in a week - sometimes the bin would be completely full to the point where we couldn't properly shut the bin. What worried me the most was the amount of needless plastic we were throwing away. Things like shampoo bottles, liquid soap bottles, meat packaging and plastic bags.
 

Over the last year our recycling bin waste has gone down considerably. Where possible I try to buy items with as little packaging as possible and I am always on the look out for things that make green sense, so I was really pleased when my sister-in-law introduced me to Beauty Kubes, a great little cosmetic company based in Cornwall, whose aim is to produce products that create as little waste as possible.

We have tried the shampoo and conditioning cubes and I think they are fabulous. They smell great and although £9.50 for a box may seem like a lot of money, they really do last well. I have short hair so only need to use half a cube per wash. There are 27 cubes in a box so I will get a lot of washes out of it and there is not a single bit of plastic in sight as the cubes are wrapped in paper inside a small cardboard box.

The company do make body was cubes too, but it is far cheaper and more logical to buy a bar of soap! Just switching from liquid soap to a bar would make a massive difference to our plastic waste. Check out companies like Lush and L'Occitane for some really nice smelling products.
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We had a fair bit of feedback about the S & Z yarn twist piece I put in the newsletter a few weeks ago. Many of you were really pleased that the piece had given you a 'light bulb moment' as to why yarn seemed to untwist as you crochet, whilst others questioned whether or not the twist of a yarn could be 'changed' by swapping which end of the ball you work from. I thought, given all the emails we received on the subject, that it might be an idea to clarify a few things this week.

So, here goes....

An S is an S whichever way up you look at it and a Z is a Z in exactly the same way. If you have an S twist yarn, it will look like an S twist yarn whichever way up you look at it - whether it is drawn from the centre of the ball or from the oustide of the ball. Changing the yarn end you work from the ball will not alter the twist on the yarn - an S does not become a Z and visa versa.

BUT, What does happen is this:

If you draw your yarn from the outside of a ball the ball itself jumps about in order to accomodate your pull. This movement allows the twist on the yarn to slacken ever so slightly. However, if you draw your yarn from the centre, the ball does not move and stays in place, thus stabilising the twist on the yarn as you draw it out. The extent to which it does this is minimal and it might only be that you notice it once you are a fair way through the ball, but drawing from the centre does enhance the twist.

In case you missed it a fortnight ago, here is the original written piece. Towards the end you will find a list of Z twist yarns that a lady called Lynn Elms has found in her stash and I have added in a couple of links to Z twist yarns currently on the market:

Something that is actually quite important when choosing a yarn for crochet is whether your yarn of choice has been spun with an S twist or a Z twist, but what does that mean? Well, S twist yarn is one that has been spun anti-clockwise, whilst Z twist yarn has been spun in the opposite direction (ie clockwise). The image below should help you see why this is referred to as S or Z twist.
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S twist is the most common yarn - in fact I would be be prepeared to say that almost every ball or skein of yarn in your collection is S twist. It is the most readily available 'craft' yarn and it has been designed to be used for knitting, by right handed knitters. Knitting with an S-Twist yarn reinforces the twist and keeps the plies coherent and the strands stable.

Sadly though it seems that the opposite happens in crochet by right handed crocheters as a loosely spun S twist yarn can actually come undone in the crochet process. You may have noticed this already and might well have yarns that you find splitty and difficult to crochet with even though they appear to work fine if knitted.

I found a great piece by Doris Chan that you can also see by following the link.

'....Because the yarn is wrapped around the crochet hook (yarn over) in the opposite direction of the knit yarn over, and because crochet stitches have height and may contain multiple yarn overs each time, crochet tends to un-twist the S-Twist.  Eventually, if this continues throughout the length of a skein (exacerbated by the act of fixing mistakes, frogging and re-crocheting) then that S-Twist yarn will become seriously untwisted, splitty, lose coherence and begin to fall apart.  When the yarn is a loosely S-Twist product to begin with, crocheting it can result in disaster.'

Doris explains about adding twist as you work. This may be negligible in most cases, but if you find a yarn is opening up or splitting as you work, then it might be an idea to draw it from a different end of the ball. I tend to delve into my balls of yarn to find the end from the middle of the ball, rather than drawing from the outside end. I have always done this to prevent the ball from jumping about as I crochet and have never really thought about it in regards to the yarn twist, but I have heard that some yarns advise specifically whether to draw from one end of a ball or the other.

Linda Skuja, the fab crochet designer behind Eleven Handmade talked about S and Z twist yarns a few months ago on her Instagram feed. This is part of what she has said:

'I've seen people saying - there is no difference between knitting and crochet yarns. When in fact - THERE IS! And that difference is called YARN TWIST....
Z-Twisted yarns are more suited for crochet with the right hand because the crochet process itself is Z-twisting the yarn a little bit (but it can make a big difference on larger items). Your crochet piece will simply look better if you choose Z-twisted yarn. However - if you're a lefty - S-twist will be your friend. BUT the problem is - the majority of yarns are S-twisted and are produced with knitting in mind. I rarely see a Z-twisted yarn and what I would love to see is not only more Z-twisted yarns, but also labels that say "This yarn is Z-twisted'.

I hope this information has helped you understand why you might find some yarns more suitable for crochet than others and, if you have come across any Z twist yarns that are commonly available then I would love to have that information to share here for everyone another time, so do get in touch. In the mean time, if you are in the process of choosing an alternative yarn for a project and have a ball of yarn ready to work a tension piece, then it might be a good idea to work a small sample from both ends of the ball so that you can see if there is a difference in the look of the yarn once crocheted and in the feel of it as you work.

Lynn Elms emailed us with a list of Z twist yarns she had found, they are as follows:

King Cole ‘Curiosity’

King Cole ‘Riot’

James C Brett ‘Marble Chunky’

Louisa Harding ‘Pitturissimo’

Louisa Harding ‘Amitola’

Debbie Bliss ‘Rialto Luxury Sock’

I have just done a quick search on line for Z twist yarns and have found the following:

Lion Brand ZZ Twist - 100% Acrylic (this is probably a Worsted Weight yarn, so a little thicker than the UK standard DK weight). It comes in 100g balls.
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West Yorkshire Spinners Chunky Roving - Re:treat is a really lovely 100% British Wool Chunky Roving. It comes in a great range of shades too.
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There are quite a few yarn shows on this weekend including The Wool Monty, which takes place in Sheffield and Woollin in Ireland, which starts today. I hope that you have a lovely time if you are going to either of these events.

I am hoping to take a trip to see the sea in Aldeburgh so long as the forecast remains good and I am going to make a second attempt at yogurt making. Last week's effort was lovely and really easy, but I was a bit disappointed with the amount I ended up with once I had strained it, so this week I am going to add in some whole milk in the hope that I will get a thicker yogurt prior to straining. The plus points on last week's yogurt (tasty and no plastic waste) outweighed the negative, so it is definitely worth me persevering, especially as the left over whey has boosted the rise on my sourdough bread beautifully!

I hope that whatever you have planned you have a fabulous time this weekend and that you stay safe and happy. I will be back next week with a quick reminder about the updated Hollicarrs beaded scarf pattern so do look out for my email.

Sending yarny love and crochet kisses....
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I hope that this email finds you all well and that you are looking forward to the weekend!

I have just returned from a lovely couple of days at Black Sheep Wools in Warrington where I taught two day long workshops, covering the techniques of beaded crochet and designing a small crochet flower. I had a lovely time in the company of fellow crocheters and the fabulous team at the Black Sheep HQ. If you are anywhere near the store and have a bit of spare time on Saturday, then you might fancy popping along to their West Yorkshire Spinners event, or, if you fancy doing something towards the end of the month, they also have an afternoon tea event with Sue Stratford planned. You can find contact details for the store (which is also one of my 3 'Flagship' Janie Crow Stockists) by following this link.

The weather forecast is looking pretty dismal here for the weekend, so I am hoping to spend some time on the sofa with my crochet. I am also hoping to get a chance to make some yogurt as I stumbled across some videos on Youtube that show how to make it in the slow cooker. It looks really easy, so I am going to give that a go. I will let you know in my 'proper' newsletter next week, how I have got on. Who says life doesn't begin at 50!!!!

The reason for me dropping into your in box this Friday afternoon is to say a big thank you to all those of you who took the time to nominate me within the Favourite Crochet Designer category of the 2019 British Knitting & Crochet Awards. The full list of nominees can be found by following this link and simply by submitting your choices within a speedy survey you can be in with the chance of winning some goodies in the prize draw.

We had quite a lot of feedback about the S and Z twist yarn piece in last week's newsletter - I am glad that so many of you found it useful and I want to also say thank you again for all those of you who wanted to talk about the Dolce and Gabbana copyright infringement. I have replied to all your emails - your support means so much.

As always, if you want to get in touch please hit reply and tell me what is on your mind. I will be back next week with June's Friday Feature Newsletter and hope that you have a great week between now and then....
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