February News

​I know that I often start my newsletters by talking about the weather, and that it is a true British trait to mention the forecast at every opportunity. This time is no exception as it has been so incredibly wet here that half our garden is underwater and the local birds think we are creating a new pond for their pleasure! Squelching up and down the garden on my frequent to and fros from the house to the my studio I am hopeful that some drier weather is not far away and that the optimistic crocuses, daffodils and tulips will not drown before they get a chance to show off their lovely flowers.
 
On the crochet front I have been busy woking on a new CAL design and am really enjoying playing about with shapes and patterns - I am trying to keep things relatively easy so that it will be a good project for beginners, but still rewarding for those of you who are crochet experts! It is nice to be back designing a large project and I am already excited about revealing it to you in the autumn - so long as all goes to plan!
 
So far February has been slow and steady, with no stand out moments really other than that Knit For Peace are now inviting enquiries about our planned workshop trip to India in 2027. You can find more information about this and all our other news in the email below. 

I find playing around with crochet motifs incredibly rewarding and it is just lovely when things work out pretty quickly, however it can be really frustrating when things don't come up quite how I had imagined they would. Sometimes it is the simplest of pieces that become the most challenging to design, but as I said already, I have been enjoying playing about with new block designs for my next CAL this week.
 
I am still putting the edging onto my blanket version of the Majorelle cushion cover design. I have to admit that I am struggling with the repetitive nature of the border and the constant stitch counting for the pattern writing, so it is a job I keep putting off! I am so close to finishing that I really must get on with it this weekend. 

With all this seemingly never ending dull and wet weather I have been dreaming of warmer days and brighter light, leading me to go back through images taken on trips to India in particular. I last went there in 2023 and the pull to go back is now getting quite strong, so I was really excited to be invited by Knit For Peace to tutor my fifth residential workshop at the Green Hotel in Mysore next year. 
 
More information about the trip will be available soon, but if you want to be among the first to register your interest in joining me, you can do so by contacting the charity via this link. The holiday will run from 22nd January through to February 4th/5th 2027. You can find more images taken on previous trips to Mysore with Knit For Peace on the Janie Crow Lifestyle instagram feed. 

Last weekend I spent a fabulous couple of days with a group of amazing women, surrounded by good food, wine and lots of yarn! We had the best time and it was such a pleasure to be part of this fabulous group of inspirational women. Whilst away it was particularly exciting to be gifted a copy of Jeanette Sloan's amazing new book Beaded Colourwork. It truly is the most beautiful book featuring lots of amazing projects that showcase just how fantastic and effective beads can be when added to knitting.
 
You can find the book, published by Laine and featuring the most beautiful model and glorious photography, available on a back order basis on Jeanette's website here. Don't be put off that the webpage says the book is out of stock, you can still order it and Jeanette will send it to you once she receives more stock soon.

I designed the Majorelle cushion and project pouch for last year's workshop trip to Morocco with Stitchtopia. The design was inspired by the giant cacti found in the exotic Jardins Majorelle, which once belonged to Yves Saint Laurent and are now an essential visit when in Marrakesh.
 
My project uses the fabulous little 25g balls of Rico Ricorumi 100% cotton yarn, which is just perfect for smaller projects. I have used ten shades of yarn and some fabulously colourful beads from the Debbie Abrahams range to add a decorative touch to the designs.
 
Unfortunately we have hit a series of delays with the delivery of yarn for the Majorelle kits that we have sold through on a pre order basis. Rico have promised us that it will arrive with us early next week, and we now have the beads in stock too, so we should be able to get pre-ordered kits out to you very soon. We are so sorry not to have got these posted sooner and not to have had more stock. Sadly it looks like it could be at least six weeks before we can put our next batch of kits up for sale. 
 
I have already seen quite a few versions of the project made by people using yarns from their stash and you can source the yarn and beads individually from other retailers, so if you fancy having a go at making Majorelle you can find the patterns in UK and US terms as paper copies via our shop and as downloads via Etsy and Ravelry. 

We currently only have a couple of kits that are out of stock and Andy tells me that most other kits have good stock levels. The Marrakesh version of Persian Tiles (shown above) is back in stock and we also have a good stock level of the original and light blue versions.
 
The ever popular Eastern Jewels colourway of Persian Tiles, created by Lucia Dunn, is currently out of stock, but if you like Lucia's eye for colour then you might want to consider the Fiori version of my Fields of Gold blanket, which is shown below. This is one of my favourites and I am really excited to be working with Lucia on a couple of new recolouring projects over the next few months.

My Frida's Flowers crochet along design is a decade old this spring. It is amazing how fast that time has gone, especially as I still think of it as a relatively new design! Working with Stylecraft means I can release free to download crochet along projects every few years and it is fabulous that they keep these patterns in place for the benefit of future crochet enthusiasts. You can find the free patterns for Frida's Flowers by following this link to the Stylecraft website and clicking on your chosen language. 
 
I remember quite vividly that we first showcased the CAL at the Unravel Festival in Farnham in 2016. We have loved exhibiting at the show in the past, and it is always fabulous to interact with lots of yarn lovers! Unravel is on this weekend if you fancy a visit. Tickets are sold out for today, but you can still get them for Saturday and Sunday - you can find more information by following this link.

The Stitch Festival will take place at London's Business Design Centre in March. We have secured a discount code that will enable you to get £2 off the price of standard admission tickets on each day of the show except Saturday. The offer code is JANIECROW26 and it is valid until 8th March. We won't be exhibiting at the show this year, but Sarah and I are going to visit on Saturday 21st. If you want to find more information about the show click here. 
 
We will be exhibiting at Wonderwool Wales at the end of April. We have been doing this show for many years now and love it! We are really looking forward to the event this year as the show is celebrating its twentieth birthday so it should be extra special.
 
Helen Ingram of Woolly Chic will be hosting her Summer Craft Party evening event at Hitchin Lavender in June. I have wanted to go to this for the last couple of years as it looks like such a fun event, so I am really excited that my lovely friend Juliet has secured a couple of tickets. If you want to go too, you can find more information here or on Helen's Instagram account here.

We are aware that today is Friday the 13th, but we don't believe in unlucky dates here at Janie Crow, and actually it is clearly very lucky for some as I have been told it is the cheapest and quietest day of the year to fly! We are also not big fans of the saints day that begins with the letter V that happens tomorrow and so, instead of celebrating that, Emma has decided that we should all embrace the concept of Galentines instead. If you haven't heard of this concept before, let Emma enlighten you: 
 
‘Glalentines was the construct of the brilliant Leslie Knope from the sitcom Parks and Recreation in 2010. Leslie (played by Amy Poehler) was a glorious character and her enthusiasm and tenacity was inspiring. She had great affection, and admiration, for the women in her life and so she celebrated them on the 13th of February with ’Galentines'….'
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To celebrate our female friends and family, Emma is inviting you to tag them over on our Instagram feed and tell us why you love them! We will pick some winners at random and you and your named ‘Galentine’ will receive a PDF copy of both of the projects featured in the post – Sunshine & Showers and Indigo Dreams.
 
Emma has also started to write more posts on the Janie Crow blog. In the newest one she reflects on the month of January and all the positive things it brought to her. Yes, I know that the word January doesn't often go with the word positivity, but she has managed to find quite a few good things to mention, so do take a look! 

Over the last few months, especially over Christmas, Andy and I have both put on a few kilos, and so, as my jeans are feeling more than a little snug around the waistline and Andy says he is feeling a little wider around the middle too, we have embarked on a four week shred in an effort to shift those pounds before the spring. It is so easy to start eating a little more and moving less at this time of year when the lure of the settee with a glass of wine and a bowl of peanuts is hard to resist, so it is not surprising that many of us get a little heavier. 
 
Over the last couple of weeks we have been having lots of meals with extra vegetables and have been trying to find seasonal recipes that use native British grown veg rather than things that have been flown half way across the world. I am a big fan of green and leafy things like spinach and kale and there are so many recipes that feature cauliflower these days, that adding more of these vegetables to our meals hasn't felt like a hardship. We have a book by Riverford, that has some great winter vegetable recipes, so we have been using it a lot. You can find the book by following this link or by clicking on the image above.
 
Leeks are also really good at the moment. They go fabulously well with white beans, so you can make really yummy soup and casserole type meals with them. I recently made this creamy sausage, leek and bean stew by Sophie Ward and it was delicious.

There hasn't been a huge amount of colour going on outside so we have been trying to bring as much brightness to the inside of the house as possible. I picked some fabulous pink camellias from my Mum and Dad's garden and they look so pretty arranged in a shallow bowl. Andy has been really good at keeping hyacinths flowering too and it's always nice to pick up a small bunch of daffodils from the supermarket - even if they are already trying to entice us with Easter Eggs too!!!

After a really busy week, the prospect of a duvet day feels incredibly inviting. Instagram must have read my mind yesterday evening as this cute little video by India Rose Crawford popped into my feed. It is just so lovely and definitely made me hanker after a lazy day in bed!
 
It's set to get quite a bit colder here over the next few days with a snow and ice warning in the forecast, so it looks like it will be a weekend of hunkering down with my crochet and a few movies. I hope that whatever you get up to that you stay safe, well and warm….