Janie Crow Year in Review

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.