 2024 has been another really busy year for us here at Janie Crow and, as we prepare to step into a brand new year in just a couple of days, I wanted to take this opportunity to thank you for all your incredible support over the last year. I feel so privileged to be part of such a compassionate, caring and fun community of yarn lovers and hope that the festive season has brought you all much joy and that the New Year will be kind too.  As part of our 'Twelve Days of TLC' campaign on our social media channels we have been featuring a suggestion each day for things that you can do in order to give yourself a little bit of loving care throughout the holidays. Many of the things on our list are free to do and won't take up too much time, so do head over to either our Instagram feed here, or our Facebook one to take a look. If you want to read our whole list you can find it by following this link to the blog. Everyone knows that it is traditional to make some resolutions at New Year, but as well as looking forward to things I want to achieve, I always find it cathartic to look back on the last year and review all the things I have done, both on a work and personal level. It can be easy to feel like life speeds by with little happening to punctuate the weeks and months, but by looking back through images on my phone, or even just reminding myself of the projects I have made, I can better evaluate my achievements. Looking back on 2024 I can't believe the speed at which the weeks flew by, so I had a delve into our Instagram posts from the last year to help me clarify what we have been up to here at Janie Crow. I am hopeful that you have a few minutes to spare to see our year in review below and that maybe it will inspire you to look back at what you got up to in 2024 too.   We like to mark the 12 Days of Christmas every year and so we started 2024 with a round up of all our favourite posts from 2023. Of course Justin Bieber wrapped up in a Persian Tiles blanket had to take centre stage!  As we headed into January 2024 we were gearing up for the re-release of my Spirit of Flora CAL project. We also launched some new versions of Persian Tiles using yarns from the Yorkshire Spinners range of lovely British yarns. The Sandalwood version also proved very popular.  February saw the publication of my new book The Complete Crochet Handbook and I am pleased to say that it went down a storm! So much so, that we sold out of the first print run pretty much before it was even officially released! You can find more information about the book by following this link.  February is always a busy month for yarn lovers, especially here in the UK, as the weather can be at its most foul this time of year, with dark mornings and evenings when the comfort of the sofa and our knitting and crochet beckons us constantly! This year it proved to be the perfect time to launch the Marrakesh version of Persian Tiles. I think that maybe the warm, sunny palette of colours appealed to many of you as it represented the promise of warmer weather and longer days....  In March we released two new colour ways of my Magic Circles design. The palette for one blanket was put together by the team at Stylecraft and they called their version Supernova. The colourway I came up with is called Skimming Stones and it echoes the group of colours I used in the scarf version which is made using yarns from the Eden Cottage range.  March also saw us win first prize in the Best Independent Pattern Designer category of the Yarn Industry Awards. This year we have been nominated in two categories so, if you would like to vote for us, or any of your other favourite designers, yarn companies or stores, then you can do so by following this link. Voting closes on the 14th January. You can see from the screen shot of our Instagram feed above that by March we had started to feature spring designs and suggested that you could use some of my flower decoration patterns to make a homemade wreath.  In April we released the Peppercorn version of Persian Tiles blanket. It is made using the yarns from the West Yorkshire Spinners natural British yarns range and it echoes the palette I used in the Sandalwood version, which is made using an acrylic yarn. It is always frustrating when yarn companies discontinue yarn shades that I have used in my designs, so 2024 saw me working on quite a few new revamps of existing patterns so that we could update the yarn listings and add alternative kits to our range. Working on new versions can take a lot of time and I don't find it massively rewarding from a design point of view. We have two new colour ways of my Royal Garden blanket coming out in the New Year, but now that project is complete I plan to work on some new designs rather than revisit old ones. In April we were excited to see some new items added to the Emma Ball range of products. They included the most wonderful tote and bucket bags and some new tins, as well as lots of other lovely items. You can check out our Emma Ball range by following this link. I featured on the podcast Creativity Found in April. It was a really interesting conversation with the host Claire Waite Brown and it threw up a few things that I wasn't expecting. You can listen to our chat for free here.  In May we celebrated a lovely couple of events in our family, including my Mum and Dad's Diamond Anniversary and my Dad's 90th birthday. We were incredibly lucky with the weather and held hopes for a long hot and sunny summer but now, looking back, I can see that this was one of our only snippets of gorgeous weather. We love featuring other makers on our Instagram feed and in April we featured the wonderful Irene Strange and her gorgeous crochet ice-cream cones.  I took part in another podcast in June and had a chat with the lovely Merion Wills and Jamie Chalmers on the Craft Talkin channel. You can find a link to that podcast by following this link.  In June I tutored a great workshop trip to West Yorkshire where we visited Stylecraft Yarns, West Yorkshire Spinners and British Wool. We also released set two of the patterns from my Spirit of Flora project.  In mid July we celebrated the wedding of our wonderful niece Abby and her gorgeous new husband Charlie. It was a fabulous day and just a few days later we headed off on our much anticipated trip to Peru with Stitchtopia. You can find my blog post about the trip along with lots of my images by following this link.  One of our most popular reels of the year was the one we shared of me showing the amazing hand knitted and crochet items I found in Peru. You can find it by following this link. Our lovely Gemma won an award for her tutoring and Emma showed a behind the scenes post which promoted all the technique videos we have posted on our YouTube Channel this year.  In August our Instagram feed was full of fabulous warm colours and lots of flowers! We released the third set of patterns for Spirit of Flora and highlighted lots of crochet flower projects including the beaded pouch designs Cafe au Lait and French Linen.  As we headed into the autumn we exhibited at Yarndale in Skipton and I was on the Stylecraft stand at The Knitting and Stitching Show here in North London for four days. In September we asked you what kind of garments you like to make and wear. We have been working on some garment designs using your information as a base and we hope to reveal our first one in the spring - so keep an eye out for more information soon!  In October we made the decision to post a little less often on our Instagram feed. Constantly coming up with content for our social media takes a lot of time and, as Emma has been so busy creating free video tutorials this year, we decided to see if less posting would have an effect on our following and engagement. I am not sure if posting less has had an effect on our reach, but Emma and I have been chatting about posting more often as we head into the New Year. We have some exciting new projects to show you and I am planning to book a new photography shoot for February or March when the weather gets a bit brighter - so hopefully we will have some great new images to show you soon.  One of our most commented on posts of 2024 on Instagram was one where we chatted about the effects of the menopause as we celebrated Menopause Awareness month.  We headed into the festive making season in November and I released the layout information for the Festival of Flowers Shawl design. We also released the pattern for the Halley Beaded Pouch, which I think would make a great crochet project year round.  In late November we released the pattern for my Beaded Winter Mitts and Emma shared a blog post where she showed how to create your own Mystical Lanterns pelmet.
More recently Emma and Gemma have released information about their new Janie Crow Temperature Blanket project. You can find lore information here. We wished you a Merry Christmas by sharing what proved to be a really popular reel a few days ago. The video shows me doing a mammoth blanket drop and you can find it here.
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 Not everyone loves the festive season. For many it is not the traditional time for celebrating with family and friends that we see in all the TV adverts. Christmas can create a real mix of emotions for all of us and can be pretty testing and exhausting even if you love it! Emma's advice for those of you who are finding it hard this year is to 'Let go of all the stuff that doesn’t serve you or reminds you of sadness and slam something bloody marvellous in its place instead!’ Letting go of difficult feelings can be one of the hardest things to do at the best of times and the days between Christmas and New Year are a particularly strange time, with many of us not really knowing what we should be doing, or even what day of the week it is, but if you are able to heed Emma's advice I am sure you will reap the benefits! As yarn lovers we tend to be pretty good at squeezing our hobby into spare minutes, but as life these days flies past at such a fast pace, the chances are that you have been busy right through December and might find that you haven't been getting your usual craft fix and might find yourself feeling tired, a little down or simply in limbo over the festive period so, to celebrate the Twelve Days of Christmas this year, we have come up with a plan! Here at Janie Crow we tend to come up with a series of social media posts that run across the twelve days of Christmas and this year we have created a list of ideas that focus on things you can do to give yourself a little bit of TLC each day. Some of our suggestions will take just a few minutes and some will take longer, but most are free and (we think) relatively easy to slot into busy lives. We will be posting our plan daily on our social media channels between 25th December and the 6th of January, but if you like to be organised and enjoy forward planning, you can find most of our ideas in this blog post. If you're one of those more spontaneous people then you could stop reading right now and simply follow us on either Instagram or Facebook and see our ideas on a daily basis. Either way we hope you will enjoy completing some of our ideas.   Take a Power NapI have always envied those people who can drift off quietly for forty winks in any situation. You know the type - the kind of people who are able to grab a little snooze on a plane, train or sat in a queue at the Doctor's surgery. I have spent years not being able to sleep anywhere but in my bed, but as I have got older I find that in the right circumstances, I can kind of drift off for a couple of minutes. I am not totally sure I sleep, but even just resting my eyes and sitting serenely for a few minutes can feel really rejuvenating. If you are one of those fabulous people who can take a nap at the drop of a hat, then our first TLC tip for the festive season is to make sure you catch a bit of day-time shut eye at some point during a busy day. If, like me, you're not the snoozing type then how about you try practicing a bit of mindfulness or meditation instead. Crochet can really help with this as the rhythmic and repetitive nature of making stitches can assist you to move into a meditative state. If all else fails, how about taking the time to change your bedding instead? Getting into a freshly changed bed at the end of a busy day can feel so good! I have already lined up one of our brushed cotton, winter duvet sets to change the bedding to a day or two after Christmas. The smell and feel of fresh sheets and pillow cases is such a comfort after a tiring day, especially if you are able to have an extra long bath or shower ahead of padding off to bed.  Do Something Different with the Left-OversWe have hosted a big family get together at Christmas for the last couple of decades (!) and it is a forgone conclusion that however carefully we plan our menu, we always end up with some left overs. This year will be a much smaller family gathering for us, so we will need to err on the side of caution when it comes to our shopping lists compared to previous years, but I am hopeful that there will be enough bits and bobs left over so that we can come up with a few other meals to use them up. Andy says he always prefers our second Christmas dinner, which we tend to have a few days after the big day. We reheat the nut loaf or veggie wellington and add some freshly roasted potatoes, parsnips and whatever veg is needed to make the plate look colourful. Emma says that they call this left over meal 'picky tea' in her house and that it is also one of her favourite meals of the festive season. Gemma says that one of the things she loves most about Christmas is eating things she wouldn't normally - like stinky cheese! Of course there are the old favourite left over recipes, like turkey soup and turkey curry (can't help but think of Bridget Jones's Diary and Mark Darcy in that sweater!), but in our house it is the vegetables and cheese that could be left over in abundance, so this year I have already bought a bag of pasta macaroni so that a mac and cheese can be made at some point. Toasted left-over sandwiches are also very yummy, especially if you have some stuffing and crispy lettuce and pickle to hand, or you could try making a lasagna - always a great way of using up left over food. You can find some more ideas over on the BBC Good Food website by following this link.  Go for a Walk or Explore your NeighbourhoodI started a walking habit this year and try to go for a good long stomp at least twice a week. We are lucky as we live near some lovely countryside, but I also enjoy road walks where I can take in the local houses and gardens and peer into the shop windows! I read a book called '52 Ways to Walk' earlier on this year after a recommendation by my friend Sarah at Inside Crochet Magazine. The book recommends walking in all kinds of situation and challenging yourself to take a different walk each week. You could try walking in the rain, a walk in the cold, or walking just to get lost (I haven't given this one a go yet!) A walk over the festive period is a great way to get some air and a little bit of exercise. Why not grab a flask of festive drink (a good glug of Bailey's in coffee is always a favourite for us) and a cosy warm scarf (or even a crochet blanket) and head out to discover parts of your neighbourhood that you may not have seen before. If you don't fancy a walk, then how about getting on a bus to see where it takes you? You could visit your local museum or library, or even come up with a route that involves a quick stop at a local pub or coffee shop so that you can warm up, have a drink and a pee before heading back home.  Plan a Movie NightOne of Gemma’s favourite things is to go through the TV magazine ahead of the holiday period and plan what her and her family are going to watch. For Gemma this means picking out shows such as the Gruffalo and Tabby McTab as her girls are younger viewers. Last year Andy and I watched ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’ for the first time. We loved it and may well watch it again at some point this year. We are also looking forward to the Gavin and Stacy special on Christmas Day as the gang from Billericay and Barry Island have become very much a part of our Christmas tradition - we always watch the old Christmas specials and still laugh at Smithy saying 'Mature - as in mature cheddar!' when they're singing Do They Know its Christmas!  Review Your YearAs time seems to pass by so much faster as we get older it can be easy to feel like you don't achieve as much as you (think you) used to, but looking back on what you've done over the last year can bring things into perspective. You could look back through your diary or calendar or look at old emails to get an idea of what you've been up to, or you could choose to just sit for a while and scroll back through the images on your phone. I am sure you will soon get an idea of just how much you have achieved. I love how my crochet projects help punctuate the year and I really like the way they can evoke memories of a time in my life when I look at them. I have projects that remind me of when my children were younger and some that remind me of trips and holidays..... When you look back on your year, try not to dwell too long on things that are negative. Looking back on things that have happened can be cathartic and can aid in healing and help in the process of moving on, so it's important that you acknowledge them. As Emma says right at the beginning of this piece 'Let go of all the stuff that doesn’t serve you or reminds you of sadness and slam something bloody marvellous in its place instead!’  Make Some PlansI've just talked about looking back over your previous year, but another positive thing to do is to make plans for the next one. I've already spent time adding dates onto my 2025 calendar and I love making lists of things I would like to do at the beginning of a new diary, but if you are not a diary fan you could write your aims and plans on small pieces of paper and pop them in a jar, or simply pin a list to your note board or pop one under a magnet on the fridge. In 2024 I challenged myself a little and made a few plans that got me right out of my comfort zone, and although these things felt pretty terrifying at the time and I very nearly backed out, having some scary plans in the mix felt incredibly character building and ended up being really positive for me. When planning my year for Janie Crow I often download (free) printable calendars. I have already printed off a few versions of this one, which shows the whole of 2025 as an A4 layout (click on 'Download the 2025 Year Planner') and I also print the monthly versions which you can find here. If you don't like the idea of a written list then you could create a vision board. I think using Pinterest to do this would be great and I might well have play with my own board over the festive holidays. You can find information on how to create your own vision board by following this link.  Make a Sustainability ResolutionThe New Year is traditionally a time when we make resolutions. Mine are usually pretty traditional - get fit, loose weight, buy more yarn - you know the type, but this year I will be making a new sustainability resolution as well. I haven't decided quite what it will be yet, as we have made quite a few changes at home over the last five years so that we have very little plastic waste and are conscious of our general consumption (food, heating etc). At the moment I am thinking that it would be good to source as many 'new' things as possible second hand. I love vintage things for the home anyway and have recently discovered the joy of Vinted, so this might well be what I opt for. I would love to know what changes you have made to live a slightly less 'wasteful' life.  Organise a TripLooking forward to a special trip helps us get through the dingy days of January and February, so Andy and I often plan our holidays and trips at this time of year. We are not alone, as I think Christmas is prime time for booking holidays, and the travel companies know to offer great deals and offers this time of year. If you like the look of my trip to Peru last summer and have a generous savings pot then you may be interested in the two trips to Peru that Stitchtopia have in place for 2026, or, if you would rather stick a little closer to home, you may fancy joining me at the Swiss Yarn Festival in April. If your budget won't stretch to an organised craft break, then maybe you could plan your own and arrange to stay somewhere with a yarny heritage, or simply book a local day workshop at a yarn store. You can find local knitting and crochet groups listed over on the Knitting and Crochet Guild website.  Move!I have already mentioned the health benefits of walking, but how about ramping it up a little and doing some exercise at a higher intensity? I know there is a lot of pressure at this time of year to plan big changes for the New Year, but my advice is to start small and build on good habits bit by bit. No pressure - no massive gym memberships or mad exercise regimes, just aim to walk more or go for a weekly swim maybe? Those who follow Janie Crow on Instagram may remember how popular our posts about Menopause were back in October, with lots of women talking about how exercise, especially weight bearing, has really helped them navigate this time of life. You can find our Instagram posts regarding Menopause here and here (read the comments too as they are super interesting) and you can read Emma's fabulous blog post here too.  Have a PJ DayTowards the end of the Christmas break I think it would be lovely to schedule in a final pyjama day. A day of knit and crochet, or perhaps a bit of sewing or reading, whilst sitting on the sofa in comfy, soft clothes sounds like the epitome of TLC to me, especially as we head back towards 'normal life' in 2025. I love the idea of getting up, having a shower and then slipping on a fresh pair of pyjamas in order to spend the day at home and I will definitely be planning a PJ day for Saturday 5th January. I hope to use the day to plan some new yarny projects for 2025 and finish off all the left over food and drink, as well as immersing myself in some final festive movies and finishing off the jigsaw! If you do fancy getting involved in a new project and like the idea of a year long project, how about getting involved in the Janie Crow Temperature Blanket project - you can find more information by following this link. Why not indulge in an episode or two of a favourite podcast or if you've not listened before, try one out. We have some favourites here, one of mine is Fortunately with Fiona Glover and Jane Garvey Emma is an avid podcast listener and while her normal fare of UFOs, Cryptids or True Crime might not be everyone's taste, she does also recommend Ramblings with Clare Balding as a lovely gentle way to spend a half hour! You can find that one here. If reading print is more your thing then spending an hour or two immersed in a good book is the perfect accompaniment to a PJ day. It is so wonderfully indulgent isn't it! Emma suggests "The Winter Spirits" - a selection of short ghost stories, perfect for frosty nights!  Declutter your Home and MindThe twelfth day of Christmas is the day that the festive decorations should come down, although Gemma and I usually do this much earlier than the 5th January as we like to go into the New Year with them already packed up and stored away. The house always seems so bare when they are down, so I often have a good clear up and move things around at the same time so that the rooms take on a fresh look. My mum always buys flowers to replace the decorations in January and I think this is a great idea - flowers or a new house plant could be just the thing you need to brighten things up and bring some colour back into the house. You could use this day to clear up something specific like your wardrobe or your yarn stash, or you may just fancy organising your yarn into new projects and planning your makes for 2025. You could dig out all your WIPs and make a plan to finish some of them. Winding off skeins of yarn ready for new projects could also be a great thing to do.  Start a New ProjectI always think that one of the best bits about starting a new project is choosing the yarn and the pattern you want to make and then launching into it - all fresh and ready for something new. Using the first couple of balls of yarn in a knitting or crochet project is by far my favourite part as my enthusiasm often wanes the further I get into it. The same applies to my crochet design process - making the mood boards and first few layout drawings is by far my favourite part! There is nothing wrong with having a few projects on the go at the same time. I have learnt that having two or three on the go at once helps me work through them at a faster rate and with more commitment. Having projects pitched at different skill levels also helps draw me through projects as I can match the difficulty of what I am working on to my mood or situation. Heading into the New Year with a new project on the go sounds like a great plan to me, and I hope that, along with some of our TLC suggestions, it will set you up for a positive start to 2025. Wishing you a Very Merry Festive Season and a Happy New Year from us all at Janie Crow!  Will you join in with us?Have you seen temperature blankets popping up on Instagram and Pinterest over the last few years? Well, here at Janie Crow we have already made one based on one of Jane's designs and we would love you to join us by making one of your own over the course of 2025!  What exactly is a temperature blanket (sometimes known as a climate blanket)? Well, the idea is that for a whole year you crochet a row or round of a blanket in a yarn shade that you have assigned to a temperature range. You might choose to use your local temperatures or those from another destination. You may choose to assign cool colours like whites, blues and greys for winter temperatures, maybe greens and yellows for those warmer days in spring, through to warmer shades like pinks, purples and reds for those hotter summer days.  These are our colour choices on one of our Emma Ball Colour Cards - you can find them by clicking on the image If you choose to join in by making your own temperature blanket in 2025, then at the end of the year you will have a yarny record of the daily temperatures over the previous 12 months. Of course, differing climates may well result in a very different blanket depending on how colours are chosen. You can imagine that a blanket made in Switzerland will vary hugely to one made in Greece for example! For our Team Janie Crow blanket we decided to use blocks worked in the round, rather than work in rows and we thought that the plain motifs from the Spirit of Flora project were just the thing to make! If you visit the Spirt of Flora project page by clicking here you'll be able to download the free patterns we have used.  These are examples of plain motifs  Here is an example of a floral square - isn't it lovely? □ When making our blanket we made a plain block each week and made a flower one monthly. The plain blocks included yarn shades that represented the temperatures for that week, with each round representing the temperature on one day. At the end of each month an additional floral block was made to represent the lowest, highest and average temperature for the preceding month. In total we ended up with 64 blocks which enabled us to make a blanket of 8 x 8 blocks. What do you need to do to join in next year? Choose your colours and yarn: The very first thing you need to do is to decide on your yarn colours and, in order to do that, it would help to have an idea of the typical temperature range where you are. For example here in North London we typically don't see temperatures drop too much below 0 degrees celsius or go much above 30 degrees, so for our range we assigned a colour for anything below 0 and then moved in 2 degree increments up to 29 degrees and above. That gave us 16 yarn shades in total. We decided to use yarns from our stashes and came up with our colour chart on the basis of what we found. MAX TEMP COLOUR YARN (ALL STYLECRAFT) (Degrees celsius) up to 0 Hint of Silver Special DK 1 - 2 Silver Special DK 3 - 4 Mint Life DK 5 - 6 Turquoise Special DK 7 - 8 Cascade Life DK 9 - 10 French Blue Life DK 11 - 12 Apple Green Special DK 13 - 14 Meadow Special DK 15 - 16 Lime Special DK 17 - 18 Buttermilk Special DK 19 - 20 Saffron Special DK 21 - 22 Copper Special DK 23 - 24 Pale Rose Special DK 25 - 26 Grape Special DK 27 - 28 Raspberry Special DK 29 + Cranberry Life DK If you want to use fewer colours, you could make your temperature ranges wider, but typically the fewer degrees are assigned to each colour the more varied your end result.  We printed out our temperature record chart and added it to our Emma Ball project folder along with a colour chart and other notes - you can find the project folders by clicking on the photo How to find out daily temperatures: You could use a thermometer in your garden and check it in the hottest part of the day or choose an online weather service set to your location and record the highest daily temperatures from there. How to calculate the average monthly temperature: Add all the temperatures for the month together and divide the resulting number by the number of days in the month. Gather everything you need ready to get started on January 1st 2025 Equipment: 4mm (US G/6) crochet hook Stitch markers Large eye darning needle Small labels to number your squares - you could attach them with a safety pin Notebook Patterns: You can find the free written pattern and charts for the motifs via the Spirit of Flora page here Yarn key - you can download a template here Temperature recording chart - you can download our version here We will post a suggested blanket layout in future blog posts. Yarn: We can't tell you how much yarn you will need as this will be dependent on how many colours you decide to use and the temperature fluctuation where you are, but it would be sensible to start with yarn that you know is easy to obtain should you require more of any colour. For our sample we used the amounts listed in the table below for the squares and used up leftovers for the borders.  How to allocate days to the rounds: For the weekly blocks we used the pattern for the completely plain square and made the Foundation Round and Round 1 on Day 1 and then worked a single further round on each of the following 6 days. The (monthly) floral blocks were made using Saffron for the centre and the petals were made using the yarn shades that represented the lowest and highest temperatures for the month. The rest of the square was made in the colour representing the average monthly temperature. See the image below for guidance:  Get started!
If you fancy making your own temperature blanket next year we will be posting regular help and advice here on the blog and on our social media channels. If you would like to join in, remember to start recording your temperatures from the 1st January 2025. You might choose to record a week's temperatures and then make your block in one go, or you may decide to work a round every day. It is all about completing the project in a way that works for you! We will be posting more as new temperature blankets take shape and we'd love to share some of your progress too, so please post your photos on social media and remember to tag them with #janiecrowtempblanket25 So what do you think? Are you in? Drop us a comment below if you plan to take part and of course, do ask any questions as we'd love to get them all answered before we start! HAVE FUN! Emma & Gemma xx   As we head into the last few weeks of 2024 we are looking forward to the holiday season and the chance to enjoy a break. This year Andy and I have less planned that usual - we have kept it that way on purpose to try to avoid getting poorly as we always seem to pick up some kind of a bug or illness over the festive period. I like to be busy and often overload our time off with lots to do, so it seems a bit strange to have fewer plans than usual this year, but hopefully it means we will stay well and that the lurgy will leave us alone! Before we break up for our annual leave next week there is still a lot going on here at Janie Crow as we put the finishing touches to a few new projects and get everything shipshape for the new year. There are still five days until the last UK postage date for second class mail, so if you are still looking to start a festive project, or you want to grab a yarn kit so that you can start a new project over the break then read on for more information.  We still have a few kits left for my Beaded Pine Winter Mitts. I made the mitts for a festive workshop last year and we have updated the pattern to include three sizes instead of just one. You can find the kits for sale by following this link, or you can purchase the pattern separately if you want to source your own yarns and beads. If you want to work from download copies of the pattern you can find them via Etsy here and Ravelry here.   I first saw an example of my Mystical Lanterns design made into a pelmet at the wonderful Folklore Yarns in Belfast, while visiting during a Stitchtopia workshop trip en-route to Iceland a couple of years ago. It looked amazing among the yarny treasures there. This week my friend Ros sent me the fabulous image above that shows her version of the design decorating her festive candelabra. Ros says she still has some holly to add - but doesn't it look great already! Emma has written a blog post that explains how to make the Mystical Lanterns pelmet and you can find it by following this link. We have lots of patterns for festive projects, many of which are fabulous stash busters and won't take too much time to make, so if you are still in the crafty mood you can find them by following this link or by clicking on the images below:  Beaded Decorations  Festive Decorations  Festive Mini Stockings  Twinkle Bunting  Halley Pouch  Glitzy Stocking  We have kits in stock for the Summer Palace Wrap, which includes yarns from the gorgeous Baa Ram Ewe range of Pip Colourwork which is a 4ply British wool and those for the Magic Circles Scarf, both of which are shown in the image above. The Magic Circles scarf is made using Eden Cottage's gorgeous Bluefaced Leicester and Silk DK weight yarn called Milburn, which is just gorgeous to work with.   Emma and Gemma have spent the last couple of months working on an exciting new project which is coming very soon. The project involves crocheting pieces over the course of next year and all the information about it will be released next week, so do keep an eye on our blog and social media channels. Maybe the image above will give you the tiniest clue of what Emma and Gemma have planned!  I was so lucky to tutor an amazing textile workshop trip to Peru during the summer. It is a truly incredible country, and I adored it! When I was designing the project for the workshops I was very mindful of not copying traditional patterns and I wanted to keep it relatively simple.  The Catalina pouch is mainly worked in panels so that the project is portable and easy to work on while travelling. Crocheting just a few stitches in rows can be quite quick to do and using stitch markers will help you keep track of your row count.  Peru has an amazing heritage of textile and yarn production, so I decided it was suitable to use a beautiful yarn that includes alpaca fibre from Rowan Yarns. I also used some lovely beads from the Debbie Abrahams range which, I think, give the project an extra special quality. The project uses 7 shades of yarn, but you could use fewer, or make it a stash busting project and use as many colours as you fancy! You can find more information by following this link.  For the last few years Emma and I have devised a social media plan to cover the period between Christmas Day and Epiphany, which falls on the 5th January - this is the period commonly known as the twelve days of Christmas.  This year we have put together a plan that we are calling The Twelve Days of TLC, which basically means that we have come up with suggestions for a series of activities that we hope will help you feel relaxed and well looked after over the festive period. Almost all of the items on our list are free to complete. Some will take a while and may involve you heading outside, but many of them only take a little bit of time and are home based so that you can squeeze them into your busy schedules. The Twelve Days of TLC list will go live on the blog next Friday (20th December) so that you can forward plan any that you fancy doing, but we will also be posting each of them daily on our social media channels. I hope there will be something on the list that will bring you joy and solace over the festive period.  We will be exhibiting at two yarn shows quite early in the New Year so you might want to add the dates to your diary!  We will be at Waltham Abbey Wool Show on Sunday the 19th January. You can find more information about this day long show and also a list of the workshops that are available by following this link or by clicking on the image above  After, what I think might be a six year absence, we will be returning to the Unravel show in Farnham in February. Tickets for the show are £12 in advance and £16 on the day. You can find more information by following this link.  I made a really good Ottelenghi recipe at the weekend, but had no luck whatsoever with a Paris Brest!  I love aubergines and have a bit of a thing for cheese, so I just knew that the recipe for aubergine and ricotta dumplings cooked in a tomato sauce would be a winner - and it sure was delicious! You can find the recipe by following this link. The only change I made was to oven bake the dumplings before adding them to the sauce rather than frying them in (even more) olive oil! Paris Brest is a desert made with choux pastry and whipped cream and I had planned to make one to take to a friend's festive get together last Sunday. I have always been successful with choux pastry, but I ended up over thinking the process last week and the result was a greasy ring of batter pudding, rather than a lovely crispy choux ring! The batter went in the bin (I hate doing that!) and I made a pear, stem ginger and whipped cream sponge to take to the get together instead, but I will be having another go at Paris Brest over Christmas as I hate to be beaten by a recipe!  We have got a bit more organised on the book suggestions front and so going forwards Gemma will be reviewing a book a month. She has kicked off by reviewing 'Learn to crochet Gansey Dishcloths' over on the blog, so do head over to take a look at what she thought of it.  The book is widely available online, but if you are in the UK you can purchase it via Search Press and receive a 20% discount and free delivery, by using the discount code DD88 and  We will be taking some annual leave from Thursday 19th December through to Thursday 2nd January. The website will be open for orders during this period, but items will not be dispatched until we return from our break.  You can find a list of the last postage dates before Christmas on the Royal Mail website by following this link. Wednesday the 18th December is the last posting date for UK second Class mail - this will also be our final mail pick up date before Christmas here at Janie Crow. Anything ordered after the 18th will not be sent until we return from our annual leave in January.   We are so excited to have been nominated in two categories of this years’ Yarn Industry Awards hosted by Craft World. Thank you so much to all those of you who took the time to nominate us. We are beyond proud to be listed in the Best Independent Pattern Designer category and the Best Online Personality one. If you would like to place your votes for your favourite designers, yarn stores or brands then follow this link or click on the image above. Just by placing your votes you can be in with the chance of winning a fabulous yarny prize!  I love knowing that my designs have been the catalyst for people wanting to learn to crochet and this week I received a fabulous email from Monique. I have asked her permission to share her story with you guys as I think it is just so great!  Dear Janie, My name is Monique, I am 57 and live in Amsterdam. I want to thank you for your incredibly beautiful design of the Fruit Garden blanket. I started the project in March this year and finished it last month, in November. It was such a joy to crochet these beautiful motifs, and the result is absolutely stunning! I am so pleased with it and enjoy the sight of it on my sofa every day. I would like to tell you how I found you, because it is a nice little story. It was about two or three years ago, on a vacation in France, when in this little french town I saw a handicraft shop window that displayed a beautiful crafted tapestery (with a ticket: not for sale) with all sorts of flowers. I was fascinated by it. I thought it was a crochet piece, and at that moment I decided I wanted to learn crochet. I had been knitting for some years but here I saw these beautiful creative motifs that were never to be achieved by knitting. Unfortunately the shop was closed, and I could not find out more about this work. I started learning the basic stitches and made two potholders granny-style. After that, I was looking for a project that would teach me more. Still curious about the french tapestry, I uploaded the picture that I made of it to Google, and that is how I found your website. I was immediately captured by the Fruit Garden blankets. At first, I hesitated, for this was not intended for beginners. However, I started watching the first video, and tried the first motif with some scrap yarn. That gave me confidence to order the yarn and start with this journey, which I could not have done without your clear and extensive video instructions. It was only when I had put the inner panel together, that I noticed that this was exactly the blanket that I had seen in the french shop window. I have enclosed a picture of that blanket, and one with myself on my own blanket. Again, thank you so much! I have learned so many things on this crochet journey with you. I have bought your Fruit Garden crochet book and my husband gave me as a birthday present your complete crochet handbook with autograph. I am looking forward with confidence to start a new project. Best wishes, Monique Jelmorini'  I am looking forward to a relatively quiet weekend, and hope to make some progress on the Christmas shopping and gift wrapping front over the next few days. I think I am nearly there, but it will definitely be a case of making a list and checking it more than twice as there is always stuff I have forgotten to do!
I am hoping to squeeze in a bit of knitting as my garter stitch waistcoat projects has been very sadly neglected over the last few weeks! The weather is so dismal, but at least it is the perfect backdrop for a bit of cosy crafting on the sofa! I hope to be back in your inbox in a couple of weeks time when we will be in that confusing Twixmas period when we don't really know what day it is and definitely don't fancy any more sprouts! Don't forget to look out for the information about Emma and Gemma's new project and check out my Twelve Days of TLC list from Friday 20th. As usual I hope you have a great weekend planned and that the festive holidays will also bring you good cheer! Janie x  It is feeling really festive here at Janie Crow HQ and, as the last postage dates start to loom, I decided to squeeze in an extra email to let you know about a few things that might take your fancy in the lead up to Christmas.  Yesterday we released another new pattern called Beaded Pine Winter Mitts. I made the mitts for a festive workshop last year and we have now updated the pattern to include three sizes instead of just one. We have created some kits for this design as they would make a perfect project to work on in the lead up to Christmas and you could always give them away as a gift if you get them completed in time! You can find the kits for sale on a pre-order basis by following this link, or you can purchase the pattern separately if you want to source your own yarns and beads. If you want to work from download copies of the pattern you can find them via Etsy here and Ravelry here.   I designed Mystical Lanterns back in 2016 and the blanket, scarf and shawl continue feature within the list of our most popular designs here at Janie Crow. Last week Emma decided to showcase another iteration of the much-loved motif, this time in the form of this gorgeous pelmet. I first saw an example of this in the wonderful Folklore Yarns in Belfast, while visiting during a Stitchtopia workshop trip en-route to Iceland a couple of years ago. It looked amazing among the yarny treasures there. During a subsequent workshop in France in October last year, our lovely friend Rosemary made the version that you see in our pics. She used Stylecraft Organic Cotton DK in multiple colours (we think there are eight in the design) and adorned it with some gorgeous bells and elephant charms that she bought on Knit For Peace trip to India, as well as the little mirrors in the centre for added twinkle! Emma has written a blog post that explains how to make this lovely Mystical Lanterns pelmet and you can find it by following this link.  We are so excited to have been nominated in two categories of this years’ Yarn Industry Awards hosted by Craft World. Thank you so much to all those of you who took the time to nominate us. We are beyond proud to be listed in the Best Independent Pattern Designer category and the Best Online Personality one. You can vote for all your favourite designers, yarn companies, websites, shops and brands by following the link here. By submitting your votes you could win a yarn bundle worth £450!   Last week we released a beaded pouch design called Halley, named after the famous comet. Emma suggested the name after seeing just how many sparkly beads I have managed to squeeze into this crochet bag design! I chose three yarn shades for my bag and two bead colours, but you could simplify things by using one yarn and fewer bead colours, or you could really glitz things up by making each beaded hexagon a combination of yarn and bead colours, or you could just make a couple of the beaded hexagons and use them to decorate your Christmas Tree! You can find a reel that shows the bags in close up over on our Instagram feed and you can find more information here.  We now have kits in stock for the Summer Palace Wrap, which includes yarns from the gorgeous Baa Ram Ewe range of Pip Colourwork which is a 4ply British wool.  We also have kits for the Magic Circles Scarf, which is made using Eden Cottage's gorgeous Bluefaced Leicester and Silk DK weight yarn called Milburn. This is a really high end kit, so you may want to add it to your Christmas list! Don't forget we have lots of patterns for festive projects, many of which are fabulous stash busters and won't take too much time to make. You can find them by following this link or by clicking on the images below.  Glitzy Stockings  Beaded Decorations  Festive Decorations  Festive Mini Stockings  Twinkle Bunting There are still twelve days until the last postage date for UK Second Class, but we know that the post can start to slow down as we get towards the big day, so if you are in the UK we recommend that you order from our site a few days before the 18th December in order to try and guarantee that your items arrive in time. For other countries we suggest you take a look at the Royal Mail Last Postage Dates before making an order. We will be closed for annual leave from Friday 20th December through to January 6th, but you can still order from our site and our post will recommence in the new year. Despite being officially 'off' work, our social media platforms will be busy as we have lots of posts planned, so hopefully you won't miss us too much! I heard about this fun project on the radio this week and thought you might also like to find out how and why a group of knitters chose to make a Festive Sweater for a huge salt gritter! I will be back in your inbox next week with my December newsletter and hope that you have a nice weekend planned....  Welcome to our new Book of the Month blog series where I'll be exploring some of the latest publications in the world of crafting, and perhaps further afield, who knows! As December is the season for giving, I tried to find a book that might be inspiration for handmade gifting and I chose 'Learn to Crochet Gansey Dishcloths' by Britt Schmiesing, published in the US by Annie's in June 2024 (ISBN 978-1-64025-643-9). The patterns are written in US terminology but there are charts for each pattern too.
The term Gansey refers to knitted sweaters that have been worn by fisherman for hundreds of years, with most coastal communities around the British Isles having a 'Gansey' derived from the original Guernsey, an oiled wool sweater originating on the island of the same name. Traditionally knit by the fishermen's wives, the patterns were often passed down through generations. According the introduction gansey crochet projects 'tend to be highly textured and feature combinations of 3-D stitching and flattering traditional stitches. The 3-D textured stitching is just perfect for scrubbing dishes!' There is also the suggestion that these dishcloths could be made as a swatching exercise for larger projects using the same stitch patterns. The book is a slim volume, coming in at just 32 pages, but I was impressed at how much information had been packed in, including a two page guide on how to read charts and a stitch guide with illustrations. There are 8 dishcloths to make and for each one there is a full page colour photograph so you can get a really good close up look at the stitch pattern. Then for each row or repeat there is a colour photo showing exactly what each should look like when completed. Each has a skill level of intermediate so this book isn't aimed at beginners. Having said that, where there are trickier stitches the book provides a QR code that can be scanned and will take you straight to a technique video for that particular stitch so even for the more experienced crocheter help is at hand if you are unfamiliar with a stitch.
I decided to have a go at the Diamond and Ladder Dishcloth, the fourth pattern in the book, using some Drops Paris Recycled Denim cotton. I liked the idea of using a recycled fibre and felt that the nature of the yarn really suited the project type. I usually work in UK terms but as there are a limited number of stitches in the pattern I didn't struggle to convert as I worked and the step-by-step photos were very helpful in providing that visual reference that I was on the right track.
Although I haven't quite finished the dishcloth I'm enjoying working through the pattern, which is clearly and concisely written. I'm planning to make a few more as small Christmas gifts. If you enjoy adding textural features to your crochet this book will definitely give you lots of ideas that you could take beyond the dishcloths and add to blankets and garments for example. Although I was slightly surprised at how slim the book was when I first received it, it certainly didn't disappoint in content. The book is widely available online but if you are in the UK you can purchase this book, and others, through Search Press with a 20% discount and free delivery, by using the discount code DD88. Search Press | Learn to Crochet Gansey Dishcloths by Annie's Publishing I'll be back next month with another crafty book review. Until then, have a wonderful festive season (with lots of time for yarn)!  |
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