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Flaming June? Not Here In North London!

14/6/2019

Janie's Friday Feature - June

Welcome to this week's Friday Feature Newsletter - the Janie Crow equivalent of a Sunday supplement magazine....

I hope this email finds you all well and that those of you in the UK are not struggling too much with this terrible wet weather. We now have a pond in the back garden where the lawn used to be and I wouldn't be at all surprised to arrive home and find a couple of ducks paddling around! Hopefully some calmer weather is on the way and things will start to dry out over the next couple of days. Fingers crossed!

I love the summer and usually adore the month of June with it's long days and light evenings. The recent weather has meant there have been no evening meals in the garden or even a cheeky coffee out there in the morning before we come in to the studio, but it has at least meant that there has been a little extra time for crocheting on the sofa - something I never tire of doing! I am working on a scarf/shawl version of my Magic Circles design using Eden Cottage's Milburn DK. It is coming up a real treat. I have put a sneaky peak image below, but as soon as I have it completed I will show you some in more detail and will update the pattern accordingly.

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.....

'Some people feel the rain. Others just get wet.'
- Bob Marley -

What's New?

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!

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.

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.

Crochet Trends for Summer 2019

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.

I am going to use the Primark crochet top (shown above) as my example.

It is £8. It is made from 8 Granny Squares. Nothing complicated there then, but it looks like each square has in the region of 8 rounds and there are a total of 8 of them. I reckon I could knock 2 squares out and sew my ends in in about an hour, so the squares alone would take me 4 hours. Then there is the sewing up, the straps and the fringing, so I doubt I could produce something like this in the space of a day, even if I sat the whole time working on it.

If Primark are selling this top for £8 logic tells me that they have probably paid far less than this as they are looking to make a profit. Profit on trade to retail is usually half, so, as the company that produced this top for Primark have had to cover the yarn cost and perhaps the shipping cost, it is probable that the crocheter has received less than half again.

I have done a quick search of minimum wages to put these figures into perspective. In China the living wage is officially the equivalent of somewhere between £1.60 and £1.95 an hour and in India it is estimated at an average of about £6 a day depending on the state, so once again, it doesn't take a mathematician to work out that the skilled crafts people making these crochet items are earning no where near the amount that they should be in relation to Primark's price point.

Things like this throw up lots of dilemmas, as we could argue that at least the crocheter has a job, at least they are earning something, but I personally think it is a huge concern that the fashion industry continues to rely on cheap and cheerful unsustainable items that in turn have a detrimental effect on those who work at the point of production and on our planet. The textile industry is the 2nd largest polluter on the planet, so perhaps the point I am best to make here is that if you fancy a lovely beach sun top of lacy cover up, rather than go out and buy a crochet item, you would be better off, in mind, body and soul, to have a root through your stash and make something yourself.

There are loads of inspiring images of sun tops and beach wear, with many patterns showing up on free on line pattern sites, so I am sure it won't take much effort for you to find something suitable. You could take a look through old pattern books and magazines. I would love to see if you come up with anything, so please send some pics if you do!

Discovery of the Month

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.

Tip of the Month

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.

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.

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.

It's nearly the weekend!

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....

A Very Quick Thank You..... <3

7/6/2019

Janie's Quick Hello!

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....

It's All About The TWIST!

31/5/2019

Janie's Friday Feature

Welcome to this week's Friday Feature Newsletter - the Janie Crow equivalent of a Sunday supplement magazine....

The calmer vibe has continued over the two weeks since I was last here and I have settled down into some satisfying design work at last. I have said it before, but I love this time of year when the spring shows are over and there is time to sit down and concentrate on some new inspiration. I already have quite a bit to show for the last fortnight, so have my fingers crossed that the enthusiasm continues into the next few months! I have previously promised you a couple of new crochet along designs and seem to be on track for one of these at least, so I am hoping that both do make it to fruition over the next few months!

We had a lovely celebration for Summer's 21st birthday a few weeks ago and the party theme continues this week as I turned (a rather whopping) 50 years old yesterday! We celebrated by going to see the Van Gogh exhibition at The Tate and by popping into Bonhams on Bond Street to see some of the costumes from the Ballet Russes (from Firebird) that are on display to coincide with a Russian Art sale. It is school half term break so it was really busy in town, but the weather was good and the city had a great vibe, so we had a lovely day!

I will be teaching a day workshop in Norfolk tomorrow and will be at Black Sheep Wools in Warrington for 2 days next week, so I have been busy prepping some workshop kits. I am thinking of scheduling some day workshops closer to home in the future and hope to have some news of this later on in the year.

As always, if you want to get in touch please hit reply and tell us what is on your mind, but for now, grab a cuppa, put your feet up and spend 5 minutes in my company before the excitement of the weekend ahead starts.....

'When the power of love overcomes the love of power the world will know peace.'
- Jimi Hendrix -

What's New?

My crochet along style pattern book Bohemian Blooms is about to head off for a reprint. We have sold almost 3000 copies of the book, which is amazing and far beyond the number we thought we would ever print. I have been working on a new blanket layout using a different yarn brand and I have also had permission from another Stylecraft Blogstar to release her recoloured version of the design, which uses Stylecraft Special DK, as a downloadable document. The information on both of the new colour ways will be available via my web site later on in the summer.

We have just 20 copies of the Bohemian Blooms book left in stock, so if you want to grab one while we still have them you can follow this link to the shop.

I will be contacting the winners of the Delft Colouring in Competition over the next few weeks and the winning blanket designs will be revealed later on in June. We had a great response to the competition and I cannot wait to show you the lovely completed blankets. The colour swap documents for the winning entries will all be available as free downloads from my web site and stockists may well have yarn packs for you to purchase, so do look out for more information soon.

As I said in my introduction I have been working on some new CAL designs, one of which is a crochet wrap project that will be featured in Inside Crochet magazine, starting in the July issue. The crochet along will run for 4 months and I have used Stylecraft's Bellissima DK for the project, which has been inspired by the designs of a rather famous historical interior designer. I am really pleased with the design and I am really looking forward to being able to show it to you soon.

Whilst sitting in the hairdresser's last Saturday I stumbled upon a Dolce and Gabbana advert in a magazine that features the crochet bra top and skirt that I (and many of you) feel bear a strong resemblance to a few of my designs. You may remember me telling you about this a few months ago and many of you have been asking about it, so I thought I should update you.....

I was extremely lucky to be given some free legal advice by some top Fashion IP lawyers and as a result I have decided not to take this copyright infringement any further. I have been advised that Dolce and Gabbana are a huge company who have a reputation not only for copying small designers, but also of counter suing people like me who make an attempt to challenge anything! This is a bit sad and it isn't right, but I feel it is now time to draw a line under this and move on as the last thing I want is to get tangled up in a legal mess!

I have decided that rather than feel bitter and twisted about the copying I should feel flattered and wear it as a badge of approval, after all, how cool is it to see parts of my Frida's Flowers, Lily Pond and Bohemian Blooms CAL designs on the catwalk and in national magazines! Going forwards I will be making sure that all my patterns carry a good copyright notice and of course I will also be keeping a firm eye on D&G designs in the future!

Thank you to all those of you who copied Dolce and Gabbana into tweets, Instagram and Facebook messages. Your support has been incredible.

Instagram of the Week

My Instagram favourite this week is Bryony aka 'Tickover' whose feed you can find by following this link. Bryony is a hand stitch designer who creates embroidery pieces that are designed to make you think about ethical issues within the fashion and textile industry. This is a subject that I keep coming back to and so I was really drawn to Bryony's clever pieces, which you can find for sale in her Etsy shop.

Bryony says:
'I started Tickover to merge my enjoyment of embroidery and my frustration at hidden aspects of the fashion industry. I aim to raise awareness about issues such as human rights and environmental violations, whether the need to eradicate modern slavery or stop making clothing out of plastic.
Some profits from each piece will be donated to charities that help aid these causes such as Labour Behind the Label and Extinction Rebellion.
There is so much that we all have to learn in this field, I invite you to join the conversation, ask questions, demand transparency and take small steps to help make the world a safer place for all.'

If you are interested in Instagram feeds like Bryony's then you might also want to take a look at the feed called Fashion Revolution, which you can find here.

Tip of the Week

I am not really sure if this classifies as a tip or rather some advice.

In my last newsletter I talked about substituting yarn and it has been great to hear how the information has helped many of you. One thing I didn't touch on in my piece was the difference between the twist of yarns. This has been something that has been chatted about quite a lot recently on social media, so I thought it would be good to include a little information about this in in today's newsletter.

So, 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.

It's nearly the weekend!

As I have said already, I am teaching a workshop in Norfolk tomorrow, so I am keeping my fingers crossed for a smooth drive there and some good weather. I think the forecast is pretty good for the whole weekend, so hopefully Sunday will include some time in the garden - the grass is looking like it is in need of a cut yet again!

I will be back on June 14th with the first of my monthly newsletters, but if I have any exciting things to tell you about before then I may well send you a cheeky little email one of the Friday's between now and then, so do keep an eye on your inbox.

I hope that whatever you have planned that you have a fabulous weekend.

How To Substitute One Yarn For Another

17/5/2019

Janie's Friday Feature

Welcome to this week's Friday Feature Newsletter - the Janie Crow equivalent of a Sunday supplement magazine....

I have returned from the lovely trip to Ireland last week with a slightly slower frame of mind and so have spent the week pootling around at home and at the studio in a far more leisurely way than usual. It has been really good to take things a tad slower and appreciate more of the things around me.

It is another week with a big birthday in it as our daughter Summer Rose turns 21 today - she shares her birthday with my Dad (who is 85 today) so it is a double celebration. With all that we have planned for the weekend I think my calm frame of mind will be short lived, but who doesn't love an excuse to party?

I spent the first few days of this week looking through and replying to the email responses to the Friday Feature that we have received over the last few weeks. Sarah and myself have now replied to all of them, so if you have been expecting a response and have not seen anything it might be an idea to check in your spam folder in case our emails have landed there - this does happen from time to time.

We had a lot of feedback about the 'What's Milk Got to do with it?' piece from a few weeks ago, with many of you agreeing that small, continuous steps to change our habits have got to be the way forward in regards to helping our environment recover from the abuse mankind has given it.

One of the things that the article raised was a point about making your own decisions about what yarns you want to use in a project and it prompted a few emails from people asking how to substitute yarns within patterns, so I have decided to make this topic the focus for this week's main article, which you will also find further down this email, along with the usual features, such as Instagram favourite of the week.

As always, if you want to get in touch please hit reply and tell us what is on your mind, but for now, grab a cuppa, put your feet up and spend 5 minutes in my company before the excitement of the weekend ahead starts.....

'Tortoises can tell you more about the road that hares.'
- Khalil Gibran -

Making Yarn Substitutions

I talked a few weeks ago about the importance of making yarn choices based on your own views and made the point that I am continuing to think a little more about the yarns I choose to use in my future designs. This prompted a flurry of emails that asked about how to make yarn substitutions when working from a pattern, so I hope that some of you will find the following information useful. I have written the piece in general terms so it does not specifically link to any of my designs and can be used for most projects (knit or crochet) that you come across....

Yarn Length: If you are substituting yarn it is important that you find an alternative that achieves the correct tension and has enough total length of yarn for the project.

The first rule is to not assume that every ball of yarn has the same length even if it weighs the same amount.

Yarn Weight (thickness): Most yarns on the market fall into set categories according to their thickness. In the UK we have the following standard weights:

1, 2, 3 & 4ply, Double Knitting (DK), Aran and Chunky.

In the US yarn weights differ so you might find this chart helpful, although I would be a little cautious of the information it gives on hook size and guage in regards to crochet.

The second rule is to source a yarn as close to the right weight as possible.

Tension (Guage): Yarns within each weight category should conform to the same standards, one of which is the suggested knitted or crocheted tension. Most ball bands will show you the suggested tension for knitting which is 22 stitches and 30 rows measured over 10cm [4in].

Yarns sit within the categories to make it easier to ensure that things come up the right size. This is especially handy when substituting yarn, as, in theory, a DK weight yarn should achieve more or less the same tension regardless of brand or fibre content. The ball band on the yarn should give you the suggested tension and also a needle or hook size that this tension is to be achieved on. For a standard weight DK this is usually a 4mm (US G/6) knitting needle or crochet hook.

If you have time to play about with a few yarn alternatives then it is a good idea to make a tension piece to see whether your new yarn can closely match the tension of the original yarn - it might be worth using different hook or needle size to do this. If you do not have time to do any sampling then you will have to rely on the information given on the ball band.

The third rule is check the tension.

Think about how yarn behaves: When looking for a substitute yarn it is worth taking a bit of time to analyse the yarn used in the original pattern. For example, if you have chosen a pattern that shows something made up in a mohair (hairy) yarn, it could look quite different made up in a smoother yarn and visa versa. Similarly, if you have chosen a pattern because the item in question looks light and drapey then it could look totally different made up in a heavier feeling yarn.

The fourth rule is to analyse the fibre content.

These four steps lead us into....

The Maths

but don't worry - it isn't scary!
Once you have taken all the steps above and have chosen your yarn it is time to do some simple maths, but you can only do this if you know the length of the yarn used in the original pattern. If the yarn length is not listed in the pattern then try to find the information on line or at your local yarn shop.

Step One: work out the total length of yarn used in the original design. You can do this in either metres or yards depending on what the pattern and ball band for the yarn is written for. (If you need to do a conversion from metres to yards or visa versa you can use the information on how to do this that is written at the end of this piece)

So, let's say that the yarn listed in the pattern comes in 100g balls that are 298 metres long and that you need 12 balls.

Multiply the length (298) by the number of balls (12)

298 x 12 = 3576

This is a total yarn length of 3,576 metres needed to complete the project.

Step Two: Divide this number by the length of your substitute yarn.

Let's say the new yarn comes in 50g balls that are each 125 metres long.

The total yarn length (3,576) divided by the substitute yarn length per ball (125)

2576 divided by 125 = 28.60

This means the yarn usage is between 28 and 29 balls.
(it is always worth over estimating and rounding to higher amounts rather than lower in case you run out)

So that's it - having followed the first four rules and then taken the next two steps you can work out how to successfully substitute one yarn for another. In my example, for a pattern that uses 12 x 100g yarn at 298 meters length, you would need 28 or 29 50g balls of yarn that is 125 meters.

Swapping metres to yards and visa versa
Metres are approximatlely a tenth longer than a yard, so in turn a yard is approxinately a tenth shorter than a metre, but to do the maths properly the magic number you need to remember is

1.09

To get metres to yards you need to multiply by this number and to get yards to metres you need to divide by this number.

So, if you have a pattern that quotes yarn amounts in yards multiply the amount by 1.09 to find the meterage:

eg: 200 yards of yarn divided by 1.09 = 183.4 meters

If, on the other hand you have a pattern that requires 100 metres of yarn, but your yarn label quotes yards, divide the amount by 1.09 to find the yards:

eg: 100 meters of yarn x 1.09 = 109 yards

Instagram of the Week

I have featured Lizzie Montgomery as my Instagram favourite of the week before. I love her artistic and inspirational feed and I adore the fact that she is an avid crocheter, so I don't really know how I have not stumbled across another of her accounts before this week - especially as the feed is already followed by Sarah!

The feed in question is called Fashion Textile Gallery and you can find it by following this link. I am in love.....

Tip of the Week

The email below was sent to us by Jenny Stanistreet in response to our recent newsletter pieces about the sustainability of our yarn choices. I felt that Jenny's email made some valid points about using up your stash and so I asked her if it would be ok for me to share it - and she agreed:

'In your Friday feature (26 Apr) you talked about the modern-day phenomenon of 'stash'. Yes, we're all guilty. Maybe a way of easing the conscience (and storage angst) is to use some up in aid of charitable organisations.

A web search can bring up many charities etc that welcome knitted/crocheted goods. I crochet basic beanies and scarves for Knit for Peace (thanks to publicity you handed round at a Black Sheep Wools workshop a few years ago). They're quick and relaxing to do; they use up small balls; and I've found that box-loads are reasonably low-cost to send via Hermes.

For really tiny oddments, the I nnocent Smoothie Big Knit 'hats' can be great fun; there are crochet versions, too. Age UK charity shops take them, or I think you can post them to Innocent.

Just a thought!' - Jenny Stanistreet

Marina Kelly - Crochet Necklaces

I am always on the look out for talented crocheters to become part of my team of 'home makers' to produce my sample blankets and shawls. I am really lucky to have some really expert crocheters who always send me the most beautifully executed work and who I know I can rely on to produce absolute top quality pieces. Without the help of these expert crocheters I would never be able to create my designs in the time scales I do and to the same quality, so I am incredibly grateful to all of them for their help.

Marina Kelly is one of my team. Her work is always incredibly neat and beautifully presented and so I was really excited when she told me that she wanted to show me some of her own design work. We finally had the chance to meet up at Edinburgh Yarn Festival in March where I was totally blown away by what she had brought to show me.

I am now incredibly proud to have some of Marina's amazing crocheted necklaceson sale on the web site. Each of the beautiful designs is a one off piece and they are all made using incredibly fine threads and traditional methods to create fabulous contemporary pieces.

Marina is very modest about her work and in my view she has priced these pieces too low given the amount of time she has spent designing and making them. Other crochet necklaces like these can cost closer to the £150 mark and will most likely have been made outside of the UK, so I think anyone who manages to nab one of these five stunning one-off pieces would be incredibly lucky to get their hands on such a fine piece of craftsmanship.

Do you like 'Making Up'?

We are looking for someone to help one of our customers, Lally, put together some crochet motifs in order to make a garment. Finishing is one thing that a lot of crocheters dislike as it is common that people find the process of making the crochet motifs pleasurable and not the sewing up or crocheting together.

If you like this process and would like to help another crocheter get a professional finish on her garment then please let me know so that I can forward your details directly to Lally.

It's nearly the weekend!

Over the last 18 months I have sent out more than 70 Friday Feature Newsletters. The Friday Feature is really important to me. I have thoroughly enjoyed writing them and especially love getting your feedback, but I have decided it is time to make a few changes. The next newsletter will drop into your inbox in a fortnight's time and then, from mid June onward, the Friday Feature will be sent monthly instead of weekly. Smaller, more specifically focused emails will also be sent to you when I have new releases or special events to tell you about. These will also arrive on a Friday afternoon, so do continue to check your inbox as you head into future weekends.

The weather forecast is looking a little dismal for the weekend here in North London, but I hope that wherever you are and whatever you have planned you do have a great time.

A Gem Of A Trip To The Emerald Isle

10/5/2019

Janie's Friday Feature

Welcome to this week's Friday Feature Newsletter - the Janie Crow equivalent of a Sunday supplement magazine....

Yesterday my parents celebrated their Wedding Anniversary - they have been married for 55 years, which means that it was their Emerald Anniversary, so it has been a real coincidence that I have spent this week in Ireland - the Emerald Isle - on a fabulous trip with a group of knitters. We have had a really great time away in the West of Ireland and you can read more about our trip lower down this email.

Thank you for all your feedback on last week's newsletter where I re-featured the piece entitled 'What's Milk Got to do with it?' After our blip with our full mail box the week before it was a relief to hear from so many of you and I promise I will be replying to your emails once I am back from Ireland next week.

I hope that you have all had a good week and that you are looking forward to another great weekend....

'Love is an emerald,its brilliant light wards off
dragons on this treacherous path.'
- Rumi -

Knitting in the West of Ireland

One of the first Rowan garments I ever made was an intricately cabled tunic in cream hand knit cotton. I wore the sweater for years and still have it tucked away somewhere. I suppose I knitted it around twenty years ago and so trends have changed a lot over the years, with cable knitting coming in an out of fashion every now and again. The trend more recently seems to be for colour work and hand dyed, interesting yarns rather than intricate cable work, but there are a handful of designers still championing cable knitwear.

I did not hesitate for a second to accept the offer of accompanying a group of knitters to Ireland when Arena Travel asked if I would tutor a workshop trip there. In the lead up to the trip, which left the UK last Sunday, I thoroughly enjoyed working on a cable knitted project for the group to make while we have been away. The resulting cabled cushion cover design is shown below.

The design uses Rowan Superwash Worsted yarn, which I think is the same yarn that Rowan are about to use in their new Knit Along project that has been designed by Martin Storey and which is bound to feature some cabling.

There have been 12 knitters on the trip with me, plus Teresa, our tour representative and over the course of the last 5 days we have visited some wonderful knitting orientated places and seen some amazing countryside and stunning views. The trip has included 2 full days of workshops where the group have worked on their projects and an amazing trip to the smallest of the Aran Islands where we did some knitting with local knitter Una, who also runs a lovely cafe.

During our workshop Una showed us how to work a knitted cable design using 2 cable needles and then showed us a trick for cabling without a needle, which was a bit tricky, but fun to do! After the workshop we were taken on a wagon ride around the amazing island to see how islanders had cultivated the rocky landscape in order to survive there. The island was a real inspiration, especially the church yard where Celtic crosses such as the one below were in abundance.

On Wednesday we travelled to Galway where we went on a walking tour to learn the history of the city and then we went across country to Connemara to visit a sheep and wool centre where we were shown the traditional textile crafts of spinning, weaving and the cable knitting heritage.

Yesterday was our final day workshop with many of the participants continuing to work on their Aran inspired projects, whilst also learning how to make neat button holes and sew up their knitting using mattress stitch.

The trip has been incredibly inspirational for me and I am now itching to get back to the studio and see what I can do with crochet in relation to cable designs. We visited some great places on last year's Arena trip around the coastline of Scotland too, which also got be thinking about cabled designs, so I am hopeful that it is now time for these ideas to make it onto my hook!

If you feel inspired to knit some cable designs then I recommend you take a look at the work of the following designers:

Alice Starmore

Debbie Bliss

Martin Storey

Instagram of the Week

I have left the reference to Instagram in the title of this feature this week because if you follow the Instagram link it will lead you to the designs of Lucy Hague, who is an amazing knitted cable designer based in Edinburgh.

It is clear from Lucy's feed that she does not update her Instagram account all that often, but I am sure you will agree that the images of her work that are on the feed are more than enough temptation to lead you to her incredible designs on her web site, such as the Durrow shawl, shown above, and the Malgven shawl shown below. You can find patterns on Lucy's site by following this link here.

Colour Palette of the Week

I have taken this week's palette from an image taken at the Cliffs of Moher in Ireland. We visited them on Sunday and were treated to glorious sunshine on our visit, but I am sure it could have been very different in the rain and wind!

The cliffs are absolutely stunning, with lots of sea birds busy nesting on the cliff face and lots of lovely wild flowers growing precariously on the edges.

Tip of the Week

This week's tip is for knitters and crocheters alike as it is in regards to hand care and posture.

It goes without saying that we all love our hobbies and that as knitters and/or crocheters, we will use much of our spare time working on our projects, however, it is possible, especially as we get older, to over do it and end up with sore hands, wrists, elbows and neck/shoulder joints.

Keeping our hands and fingers moving is really good for the joints, but it is really important that we do not over do things by spending too much time knitting and crocheting - however much we love it!

Crochet design is my job, so people are often surprised to hear that I actually only crochet for about 2 or 3 hours a day and some days not at all. In fact it may well be that as a designer I crochet less than those of you who are working through my patterns as a hobby. The reason I restrict myself is mostly due to the fact that I need to slot in time for pattern writing, checking and step by step photography, but it is also because I know that I will suffer with sore hands and a sore neck if I consistently do more than this a day.

When working through a design I often set myself a timer on my phone to remind me to move every half hour or so and I really do suggest that you get into a habit of doing a similar thing. A kitchen timer is perfect, or if you have a Fitbit, you can set this to remind you to move too. I also do some basic stretches and hand exercises such as those that you can find here.

In the colder months I suffer with sore hands more and so have taken to wearing wrist warmers and have really noticed a difference in the severity of my joint pain as a result. Wrist warmers are really easy to make and are brilliant gifts, so it might be a great idea to start making some to match your outfits or to give as presents. You can find some free crochet patterns here.

Norwegian knitwear company Oleana do some really great ready made wristlet designs too. I bought a pair of these about 8 years ago when I first visited Norway - I mis-calculated the currency and so was really upset to find that I had spent what I thought was a fortune on a pair of tiny wrist warmers, but they have been worth every single krone!

Remember that knitting and crocheting should never hurt and wrist straps and hand supports may only mask a problem and make it worse in the long run. If you are experiencing some pain, be sure to take a break and if the pain doesn't subside, then go and see someone about it!

It's nearly the weekend!

Hopefully by the time you are reading this newsletter my journey back from Ireland will be almost over and I will be close to home. I love travelling and feel so lucky to have been away with a fabulous group of knitters this week, but it is always good to come home - hug the kids, sleep in my own bed and make a good old cup of London splosh!

Once again I think home orientated things are on the cards for the next few days. The garden was really beginning to burst into life before I left home last weekend, so I am hoping that the weather will be good enough for me to spend time out there. Andy has started work on building a retaining wall for the front garden while I have been away - we have neglected the front of the house for a long time so it is in need of quite a lot of TLC, so I am guessing sand and cement will be on the cards!

Wherever you are and whatever you have planned I hope you have a great weekend too.

Another Bank Holiday On The Horizon

3/5/2019

Janie's Friday Feature

Welcome to this week's Friday Feature Newsletter - the Janie Crow equivalent of a Sunday supplement magazine....

I hope this week's newsletter finds you well and (if you are in the UK anyway) that you are looking forward to another bank holiday weekend. They seem to come thick and fast in the spring don't they - and then we have a big gap through until August before we get another one - it is a bit like London's buses - you wait ages for one and then they all come at once!

We had a great time at Wonderwool Wales last weekend and would like to thank those of you who braved the weather and made it to the show. We did have a really great weekend despite the drizzle and it was so nice to see so many of you. Quite a few people came on the stand to chat about last week's newsletter piece (where I talked about using yarn in a more ethical way) and so I was surprised to find that we had received no feedback to the piece in email form. We tend to get a lot of feedback from the Friday Feature every week and so it did seem a little strange for it to be so quiet. When we got back to the studio on Monday we realised that the email in box for Janie Crow had become so full that it had refused to take anymore mail from last Friday onwards, so we soon realised why it had been so quiet!

So, with this in mind, and because this week we have imported a large number of new followers to the newsletter list as a result of the Delft competition, I have decided to leave last week's main feature 'What's Milk Got to do with it?' in this week's newsletter along with all the other features, so that you can get back to us with your comments if you wish. I know that some of you received 'in box full' messages last week, but think that some of you may not have had notification of the problem at all, so please, if you did email us and not get a reply, do resend your comments.

'We have forgotten how to be good guests, how to walk lightly on the earth as it's other creatures do.'
- Barbara Ward -

What's Milk Got to do with it?

On the occasions that I ventured into social media platforms over the Easter weekend and especially on Easter Monday I saw a lot of chatter about Earth Day and so I felt that the Friday Feature newsletter would be a good opportunity to revisit some of the things I have talked about in the past in regards to the yarn industry, us as knitters and crocheters and what impact our hobby has on the world around us. I would really love to hear your feedback on this piece if you have time to respond.

Over the last year or so I have been thinking a lot about the ethical use of yarn. It is a subject that I talked about a few times when I first started writing the Friday Feature newsletter and it is something that I find my mind returns to over and over and yet I still don’t know quite where I stand on this subject or what I can do within my role as a designer in the yarn industry to have a positive effect on the world around me.

In this week's piece I want to try and explain my dilemmas and share with you my thoughts on making good yarn choices.

There is no denying that we should all be looking at making better choices in regards to pretty much everything in order to be kinder to our planet. Over the last couple of years I have been making some changes to the way I do things, but with many of the new choices I have made, I have then worried that the new decisions are like a drop in the ocean compared to what I could be doing and might not in fact be as positive for the environment as I think they might be.

I am going to use milk as my example of how my ‘ethical’ choices present me with new dilemmas: I know it sounds a bit strange to use milk as the example, but I am hopeful that it will illustrate my point perfectly……

A few years ago we started having the milk delivered so that we are not constantly throwing away plastic cartons. I found the left over 4 pint milk cartons from supermarket bought milk so obviously wasteful, so it seemed logical to make the switch to bottled milk. I made the choice and I have to say, having the milkman (and it is a man) deliver fresh milk to the door in glass bottles that I then wash and return to him, makes me feel happy and I hope that it is a good, environmentally friendly decision.

But then I worry…..

Is our carbon footprint in relation to our milk use now higher than it was originally because it is being delivered directly to our door? Are the milkmen being paid enough? Are the dairy farmers getting a bad deal? Are the cows being looked after properly? Should I seek an alternative to my milk delivery? Should I revert to buying supermarket milk and accept that the plastic cartons are sent to be recycled? Should I choose soya milk or almond milk instead, despite the implications that their crops use huge amounts of water and that the milk itself is massively processed and STILL comes in plastic lined cartons? Is milk ethical in the first place?

So, as you can see, with just one decision there appears to be so many other things to consider and probably each of you would be able to provide a strong argument for and against my milk choice.

For now we will continue to have the milk delivered and I think (as I have already said) that, in the end, I am happy with my choice. Cows milk uses a lot of water to produce but has the added benefit of by products such as meat and leather. We don’t have to recycle plastic waste cartons and my milk delivery, when added to all the others in my area, creates a job for someone. I think this sits well with my conscience and I am happy with my milk choice.... for now any way.

Making a change to the way we get our milk has been one of the small changes we have made, along with reverting back to using bars of soap instead of plastic containers filled with shower gels and hand wash and purchasing recycled loo roll wrapped in paper rather than plastic bags to name a few. These are all small changes that I hope will add up over the years,

But then I worry.....

At the same time as making these changes within my personal and home life, what am I doing, as a designer, to help the environment and what is my industry doing too?

On Monday (Earth Day) I saw quite a lot of posts by Indie yarn dyers in particular about the benefits of wool or natural fibres over man made alternatives, with posts suggesting that crafters using acrylic, for example, need to be more careful about their yarn choices. The conversation really got me thinking about the number of dilemmas that come to surface when blanket statements like 'buy less acrylic' and 'choose natural fibres' are aired - and here is a list of the reasons why....

Fibre Content: Acrylic yarns are hugely processed and are basically made from plastic. It has been proven that acrylic fibres shed tiny filaments into the water system when washed and worn. Many 'natural' yarns, such as Bamboo, also undergo an intensive method of production. Cotton is the thirstiest crop on the planet and much of it is produced in very poor countries where workers rights are incredibly bad. And, how exactly should we feel about things like silk?

Production Process: Many wool yarns on the market are in fact sprayed with a plastic solution to prevent them from pilling. If something says 'Superwash' then the chances are that it has been sprayed within the processing method.

And then there is the dying process - another whole bunch of dilemmas!

Big companies have to adhere to stringent rules in regards to the way they use and dispose of dyes and fixing agents. Are these 'rules' adhered to by Indie dyers who are busy creating beautiful colourways of yarns from home? Are these dyers all careful about how they deal with their waste water and dye? Are they using large amounts of cling film and microwave energy to fix the dye in their skeins?

Where are yarns coming from? The current trend for British Wool, for example, has led to lots of it being bought by yarn producers in other parts of the world who process it and resell it as a British product despite it's high carbon footprint and the fact that much of the processing has taken place in another country. Man made fibres are often made in Turkey and the Far East so have an equally poor carbon footprint.

Trends: Fashion plays a key role in what we all, as consumers, are made to feel we need. Indie dyed yarns are currently really popular, but come in at a high price point compared to main stream yarns. Man made fibres are cheaper and more commonly available. They are more consistent and more easily replaceable should we run out or need to make any changes to what we are working on. I guess this point also leads onto materialism, something I am going to touch on a little further down this post.

Is there a snobbery linked to yarn use? Or is that a whole other conversation?

OK, so LOADS of dilemmas for all of us and I hope that some of the things I have said might help you to make your yarn choices a little more consciously, but increasingly I feel that as a designer, I have an obligation to look at these points a little deeper...

As a crochet designer I do not produce an actual commodity. I am not a yarn producer, but I am supported by quite a few; some of them are mainstream and some of them are smaller Indie dyers. Whilst I do not create an actual item I do, via my crochet and hand knit patterns, create a reason for people to want to purchase yarn. Does my design choice in my patterns therefore mean that I am responsible for creating a ‘want’ in more people for acrylic yarns, or are people making their own choices based on my yarn suggestions? Are crocheters substituting man made mixes for wool or other natural yarns or are they sticking to my suggestions and therefore are my designs creating a desire for more and more plastic?

This is a huge dilemma for me, but I can see that going forwards I have to really think about my yarn choices, and therefore the choice of anyone else who uses my patterns.

I totally understand the backlash against man made fibres, but, if people are making things to last and which they will have for a long time, does that make it OK to use them?

I find the ‘don’t buy acrylic’ comments a little difficult to digest too. We all have a budget, some have a bigger one than others and as crochet is particularly yarn hungry a big project can get expensive. The speed of crochet is a factor as well as projects take less time to complete. This is a topic that came up quite a few times in the conversation we had on my Instagram feed a few weeks ago and is another whole kettle of fish!

So, what is the answer?

To be totally honest, as usual I am undecided. In regards to my design, I fluctuate between only ever wanting to use high end natural yarns, to falling in love with a new yarn with man made fibre content! So I guess that for me, like with my decision to get the milk delivered, I am going to go for the slow and steady approach and make a few small changes over a longer period of time rather than make drastic changes that will present me with more and more dilemmas.

I have considered creating generic patterns that do not favour a particular yarn, but simply state the yarn weight and give a general idea of colour. Do you think this is a good idea, or would I simply spend my life emailing people the list of yarns I used in my crocheted sample?

If you are also thinking you might want to make a few changes, then here are a couple of suggestions that might help:

If you are used to doing speedy repeated stitch blankets, for example, then you might want to consider doing something a little more complicated that will take more time and therefore use less yarn in the long run, while also pushing your skill level.

I am not going to say don’t buy acrylic, but I will suggest that you buy less of it. Actually, I am going to say buy less of EVERYTHING! We are constantly being told we need stuff when we don't, so try not to be tempted by the pressure to have more and more. The word 'stash" in regards to yarn is a new concept and is one that our Grandparents generation certainly didn't use. I am pretty sure my Grandparents never had a stash of anything in their whole lives, instead things were reused and everything was thought about before it was thrown away.

Do a bit of real stash busting! (Mystical Lanterns is the perfect choice for this!) Try to really think about your yarn stash and ask whether or not you actually need to be buying more. Look through your stash before you go out to a show or a store and use up part balls and left overs within new projects.

It might also be a good idea to mix your projects up a bit. Maybe, if you are on a tight budget you could choose to work on an acrylic project, but, while you are working on that one you could be putting some pennies away over a few weeks in order to save up for a project that will use higher end yarns next time round?

Going forwards I am definitely going to be more careful about my yarn choices, but I think that we should all be wary of feeling guilty in regards to the choices we have made, or will make again in the future. One of the reasons I have chosen to work with lots of yarn companies over the years is that I feel each project is suitable to a different yarn and I don't see why your choices as consumers should be any different.

This has been a long main piece this week and I am sure that in places I have repeated myself and waffled a little, but if any of it strikes a chord, or you want to discuss a particular part, please get in touch.

* Just a quick word in relation to the images I have used in this piece. I chose the images of yarns from various on line stores purely because I think they are lovely images and not for any deeper reason. If you click on the images you will be taken to the linked web store. I chose the image of the Milkman towards the top of the piece because it reminded me of my Granddad - who was a milkman!

Instagram of the Week

I found Lindell and Co on Instagram this week. Their images are so divine that I couldn't choose just one!

Colour Palette of the Week

Like my Instagram favourite I struggled to decide between palettes this week and so have posted 2 below. Both images come from a store called Ian Snow.

If anyone fancies getting me the settee (or indeed any of the other items of brightly coloured furniture this store has in stock) then I would be a very grateful recipient!!!!

Delft Colouring Competition

Voting in the Delft colouring in competition closed this week. If you took the time to go on the web site and cast your vote - thank you very much! We received a huge number of votes and will be revealing the winners in a few weeks time, so do look out for more information soon.

When we chose the finalists we made the decision to have all five versions made into blankets as we really liked all of them and obviously couldn't predict which one of my recoloured Delft Blanket designs would be the ultimate winner. I have to say that ALL the finalist's blankets look lovely and I am really looking forward to revealing them to you properly soon - for now you will have to make do with the teaser image above!

The three winning entries will be included in an updated version of my brochure pattern from the summer time onwards and the colour ways for all 5 finalists will be available as downloads from my web site then too.

Tip of the Week

I realise I have been a bit lax in regards to tips and had completely forgotten that my aim had been to include a tip a week in the newsletter. I think I deleted the boxes one week when I didn’t have a tip and completely forgot to put it back in!

So this week I have a very quick tip for you in regards to the way you choose to work through a pattern.

Patterns are usually written in a certain order. Knitting patterns for garments, for example, start with the body, progress to the sleeves and finish with the making up instructions. My patterns tend to have the main motifs first, followed by the filler or half motifs.

Just because a pattern is written this way doesn't mean that you always have to follow the order of making.

Analyse a pattern before you start and work out which parts of it are suitable for different times. For example sleeves and easy bits of crochet would be perfect for journeys or for working on in front of the TV, whereas harder bits may need a little more concentration and therefore might be better off made at a time when you know you will not be disturbed.

I also always suggest that garments are put together as you go along, rather than all the making up happening at the end of the project. It is also a good idea to make repeated motifs for large projects like blankets in a production line fashion rather than one at a time. this way you are more likely to memorise the pattern and end up with all your motifs the same size.

It's nearly the weekend!

I will be heading out to the West of Ireland on Sunday to accompany a group on an Arena Stitchtopia tour. I am really looking forward to the 6 day trip and have been busy brushing up on my knitting skills in preparation. It has been a really long time since I worked a knitted cable design and so I really enjoyed doing some knitting for a change, even if at times it was a little challenging holding two needles instead of one hook!

The project from last year's Stitchtopia trip to Scotland and the Faroe Islands, the Streymoy cushion cover, is now available as a pattern from my on line store and Just Knots has yarn kits available for this project with the pattern included for free. The pattern is available at retail and trade so you might well find it at your local stockist too or you could take a look at our stockist list to find one near to you.

I am always saying about how quickly time speeds past us. The weeks and months do fly by and I guess that is a sign that we are all busy and happy, but nonetheless it is a bit of a shock when big birthdays seem to appear out of nowhere. The fabulous Mr C turned 50 on Tuesday and so this week has been a bit of an on going celebration of the fact that he made it this far!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ANDY!

I hope that whatever you are doing you have a fabulous weekend and I look forward to seeing you here again next Friday when I will be sharing some images from my trip.

What's milk got to do with it?

26/4/2019

Janie's Friday Feature

Welcome to this week's Friday Feature Newsletter - the Janie Crow equivalent of a Sunday supplement magazine....

Because of the bank holiday Monday here in the UK this week I have spent the last few days thinking it is a day earlier than it actually is. Today feels like it should be Thursday, but of course it is Friday and here I am again with a newsletter.

We spent the bank holiday weekend in the garden and doing family things. We have an elderly neighbour to one side of our front garden who is unable to cut his trees down, so we spent a couple of days pruning those and got so carried away that we gave the pear tree in the back garden a much needed chop too! Cutting the branches made all the lovely blossom fall off though, which was a shame, but I am hoping that the tree, which hasn’t given us much fruit the last few years, will find a new vigor and give us some lovely juicy pears in the late summer time.

It was so lovely to have a full four days at home over the Easter break and I have to admit that it has made this week at the studio feel like harder work than usual, but on the whole it has been a positive few days with a couple of really exciting things cropping up that I am looking forward to telling you all about in the future.

You may have noticed that I have been taking a little bit of a break from social media. With my last phone update came a new feature that is a notification that tells me how much time I am averagely spending on my phone a day and I have to say, I was totally horrified by the results I kept being given, so I have been making an effort to put my phone down - something I am always telling my kids to do!
here to edit.

On the few occaisions that I did venture into social media platforms over the Easter weekend and especially on Monday I saw a lot of chatter about Earth Day and so I felt that this week's newsletter would be a good opportunity to revisit some of the things I have talked about in the past in regards to the yarn industry, us as knitters and crocheters and what impact our hobby has on the world around us. I would really love to hear your feedback on this peice if you have time to respond.

As I told you last week, the JANIE CROW web shop is finally up and running and you can find a link to the shop here.

The shop features paper pattern brochures for my designs, download patterns and my books and I have also added some lovely shawl pins, clasps and closures made by a company called Jul, who create beautiful accessories, bags and housewares in leather and metal. I will be adding to this range over the next month or so, so do keep an eye on it.

All that is left for me to say in this introduction is that I hope you will enjoy this week's Friday Feature Newsletter and that, as always, if you have anything you want to say, please hit reply!

'We have forgotten how to be good guests, how to walk lightly on the earth as it's other creatures do.'
- Barbara Ward -

What's Milk Got to do with it?

Over the last year or so I have been thinking a lot about the ethical use of yarn. It is a subject that I talked about a few times when I first started writing the Friday Feature newsletter and it is something that I find my mind returns to over and over and yet I still don’t know quite where I stand on this subject or what I can do within my role as a designer in the yarn industry to have a positive effect on the world around me.

In this week's piece I want to try and explain my dilemas and share with you my thoughts on making good yarn choices.

There is no denying that we should all be looking at making better choices in regards to pretty much everything in order to be kinder to our planet. Over the last couple of years I have been making some changes to the way I do things, but with many of the new choices I have made, I have then worried that the new decisions are like a drop in the ocean compared to what I could be doing and might not in fact be as positive for the environment as I think they might be.

On Monday (Earth Day) I saw quite a lot of posts by Indie yarn dyers in particular about the benefits of wool or natural fibres over man made alternatives, with posts suggesting that crafters using acrylic, for example, need to be more careful about their yarn choices. The conversation really got me thinking about the number of dilemas that come to surface when blanket statements like 'buy less acrylic' and 'choose natural fibres' are aired - and here is a list of the reasons why....

Fibre Content: Acrylic yarns are hugely processed and are basically made from plastic. It has been proven that acrylic fibres shed tiny filaments into the water system when washed and worn. Many 'natural' yarns, such as Bamboo, also undergo an intensive method of production. Cotton is the thirstiest crop on the planet and much of it is produced in very poor countries where workers rights are incredibly bad. And, how exactly should we feel about things like silk?

Production Process: Many wool yarns on the market are in fact sprayed with a plastic solution to prevent them from pilling. If something says 'Superwash' then the chances are that it has been sprayed within the processing method.

And then there is the dying process - another whole bunch of dilemas!

Big companies have to adhere to stringent rules in regards to the way they use and dispose of dyes and fixing agents. Are these 'rules' adhered to by Indie dyers who are busy creating beautiful colourways of yarns from home? Are these dyers all careful about how they deal with their waste water and dye? Are they using large amounts of cling film and microwave energy to fix the dye in their skeins?

Where are yarns coming from? The current trend for British Wool, for example, has led to lots of it being bought by yarn producers in other parts of the world who process it and resell it as a British product despite it's high carbon footprint and the fact that much of the processing has taken place in another country. Man made fibres are often made in Turkey and the Far East so have an equally poor carbon footprint.

Trends: Fashion plays a key role in what we all, as consumers, are made to feel we need. Indie dyed yarns are currently really popular, but come in at a high price point compared to main stream yarns. Man made fibres are cheaper and more commonly available. They are more consistent and more easily replaceable should we run out or need to make any changes to what we are working on. I guess this point also leads onto materialism, something I am going to touch on a little further down this post.

Is there a snobbery linked to yarn use? Or is that a whole other conversation?

OK, so LOADS of dilemas for all of us and I hope that some of the things I have said might help you to make your yarn choices a little more consciously, but increasingly I feel that as a designer, I have an obligation to look at these points a little deeper...

As a crochet designer I do not produce an actual commodity. I am not a yarn producer, but I am supported by quite a few; some of them are mainstrem and some of them are smaller Indie dyers. Whilst I do not create an actual item I do, via my crochet and hand knit patterns, create a reason for people to want to purchase yarn. Does my design choice in my patterns therefore mean that I am responsible for creating a ‘want’ in more people for acrylic yarns, or are people making their own choices based on my yarn suggestions? Are crocheters substituting man made mixes for wool or other natural yarns or are they sticking to my suggestions and therefore are my designs creating a desire for more and more plastic?

This is a huge dilema for me, but I can see that going forwards I have to really think about my yarn choices, and therefore the choice of anyone else who uses my patterns.

I totally understand the backlash against man made fibres, but, if people are making things to last and which they will have for a long time, does that make it ok to use them?

I find the ‘don’t buy acrylic’ comments a little difficult to digest too. We all have a budget, some have a bigger one than others and as crochet is particularly yarn hungry a big project can get expensive. The speed of crochet is a factor as well as projects take less time to complete. This is a topic that came up quite a few times in the conversation we had on my Instagram feed a few weeks ago and is another whole kettle of fish!

So, what is the answer?

To be totally honest, as usual I am undecided. In regards to my design, I fluctuate between only ever wanting to use high end natural yarns, to falling in love with a new yarn with man made fibre content! So I guess that for me, like with my decision to get the milk delivered, I am going to go for the slow and steady approach and make a few small changes over a longer period of time rather than make drastic changes that will present me with more and more dilemas.

I have considered creating generic patterns that do not favour a particular yarn, but simply state the yarn weight and give a general idea of colour. Do you think this is a good idea, or would I simply spend my life emailing people the list of yarns I used in my crocheted sample?

If you are also thinking you might want to make a few changes, then here are a couple of suggestions that might help:

If you are used to doing speedy repeated stitch blankets, for example, then you might want to consider doing something a little more complicated that will take more time and therefore use less yarn in the long run, while also pushing your skill level.

I am not going to say don’t buy acrylic, but I will suggest that you buy less of it. Actually, I am going to say buy less of EVERYTHING! We are constantly being told we need stuff when we don't, so try not to be tempted by the pressure to have more and more. The word 'stash" in regards to yarn is a new concept and is one that our Grandparents generation certainly didn't use. I am pretty sure my Grandparents never had a stash of anything in their whole lives, instead things were reused and everything was thought about before it was thrown away.

Do a bit of real stash busting! (Mystical Lanterns is the perfect choice for this!) Try to really think about your yarn stash and ask whether or not you actually need to be buying more. Look through your stash before you go out to a show or a store and use up part balls and left overs within new projects.

It might also be a good idea to mix your projects up a bit. Maybe, if you are on a tight budget you could choose to work on an acrylic project, but, while you are working on that one you could be putting some pennies away over a few weeks in order to save up for a project that will use higher end yarns next time round?

Going forwards I am definitely going to be more careful about my yarn choices, but I think that we should all be wary of feeling guilty in regards to the choices we have made, or will make again in the future. One of the reasons I have chosen to work with lots of yarn companies over the years is that I feel each project is suitable to a different yarn and I don't see why your choices as consumers should be any different.

This has been a long main piece this week and I am sure that in places I have repeated myself and waffled a little, but if any of it strikes a chord, or you want to discuss a particular part, please get in touch.

* Just a quick word in relation to the images I have used in this piece. I chose the images of yarns from various on line stores purely becuse I think they are lovely images and not for any deeper reason. If you click on the images you will be taken to the linked web store. I chose the image of the Milkman towards the top of the piece because it reminded me of my Grandad - who was a milkman!

Instagram of the Week

I found Lindell and Co on Instagram this week. Their images are so divine that I couldn't choose just one!

Colour Palette of the Week

Like my Instagram favourite I struggled to decide between palettes this week and so have posted 2 below. Both images come from a store called Ian Snow.

If anyone fancies getting me the settee (or indeed any of the other items of brightly coloured furniture this store has in stock) then I would be a very grateful recipient!!!!

Tip of the Week

So this week I have a very quick tip for you in regards to the way you choose to work through a pattern.

Patterns are usually written in a certain order. Knitting patterns for garments, for example, start with the body, progress to the sleeves and finish with the making up instructions. My patterns tend to have the main motifs first, followed by the filler or half motifs.

Just because a pattern is written this way doesnt mean that you always have to follow the order of making.

Analyse a pattern before you start and work out which parts of it are suitable for different times. For example sleeves and easy bits of crochet would be perfect for journeys or for working on in front of the TV, whereas harder bits may need a little more concentration and therefore might be better off made at a time when you know you will not be disturbed.

I also always suggest that garments are put together as you go along, rather than all the making up happening at the end of the project. It is also a good idea to make repeated motifs for large projects like blankets in a production line fashion rather than one at a time. this way you are more likely to memorise the pattern and end up with all your motifs the same size.

It's nearly the weekend!

This afternoon we are at Bulith Wells in Wales setting up for the Wonderwool yarn show that starts tomorrow. I will be teaching a Masterclass crochet beading workshop each day and it tends to be a really busy show anyway, so I am guessing we have a lot to do. I really like Wonderwool, it has a great atmosphere and I always get to see some lovely people, so I have been really looking forward to it despite the rainy weather forecast. Thank fully all the stands are inside so there is no need for anyone to get soggy, but if you are coming it is a good idea to put some nice warm clothes and shoes on as the cold has a tendency to come up through the concrete floor!

Over the last few weeks we have had our son Charlie working with us while he has been waiting to start his new job. It has been really great having him around the studio and I am so grateful to him for helping me get the web site up and running properly and for helping with all the little quirky jobs that the rest of us don’t particularly like doing - like winding yarn off for workshop kits and manipulating spreadsheets. Charlie starts his new ‘proper’ job on Monday and so, although we are all going to miss having him around at Janie Crow, we wish him loads of luck on his new adventure.

I hope that whatever you are doing you have a fabulous weekend and I look forward to seeing you here again next Friday...

4 Days Off! Yay!

19/4/2019

JANIE'S FRIDAY FEATURE

Welcome to this week's Friday Feature Newsletter - the Janie Crow equivalent of a Sunday supplement magazine....

I am so excited to be able to tell you that the JANIE CROW web shop is finally up and running! Can you believe it? It's only taken 3 months! You can find a link to the shop here.

I am also hoping to add more third party products to the site over the forthcoming weeks. I really like the idea of project bags and lovely accessories and Julie from Tilly Flop Designs has already agreed to let me have stock of her fabulous greeting cards on the site, so I will try and get this sorted soon.

Some areas of the site are still under construction and not everything has the right links yet (if any at all) so do bear with me while these final things are sorted. Hopefully everything is on schedule to be finished by the end of the month and then I can finally stop apologising for being so behind!

We have already received lots of votes in the Delft competition and the voting is open for another week, so if you haven't had a chance to look at the finalists already, you can find more information lower down this email.

I have a new design this week too - it is a hand knit cushion cover called Streymoythat I designed for last year's cruise trip around the UK and to the Faroe Islands that I tutored for Stitchtopia. The cover is knitted in the round using the fairisle technique and the design is based on traditional Faroese designs. I am hoping that some of the Janie Crow stockists will have kits for this within the next few weeks, so I will let you know if any do in case you want to purchase a yarn pack to accompany the project.

We are really looking forward to the Easter break. The forecast here in North London is looking lovely, so I am really looking forward to the break, especially as we rarely get more than one or two days at home at a time. I am not sure what I will do with myself with a whole 4 days off!

Whatever you are planning to do I hope you all have a fabulous time and, as always, if you have anything you want to tell us about, please hit reply....

'There is nothing better than a friend, unless it is a friend with chocolate.'
- Linda Grayson -

Delft Colouring Competition

We revealed the crochet motifs made from the coloured in motifs sent in by the 5 finalists in the recent Delft Colouring Competition last week. We received more than 230 entries, so choosing just 5 was pretty tough, but we are really happy with the outcome of our choices.

You can vote for your favourite by visiting my web site and following the link to the survey - it will take less than a minute for you to record your choice.

The five finalists are as follows:

Rose Garden in Bloom - Katie Mulliner, Stoke on Trent, Staffordshire.

(The inspiration is) ‘The rose bushes we had in the garden of our childhood home – they were my Dad’s pride and joy, but he still let us pick the petals to make ‘perfume’.
Sample made in Stylecraft Bellissima DK, using 6 shades.

Autumn Berries - Miss Jen Mitchell, Wellington, Somerset.

'Autumn is my favourite season, so I chose colours of rich hedgerow berries and fruit - blackberries, plums and apples, with complimentary greens.'
Sample made in Stylecraft Special DK using 8 shades.

Bejewelled - Jackie Walker, Chandlers Ford, Hampshire.

'One of my favourite computer games is Bejewelled and I wanted to create a motif that radiated opulence, warmth and glamour. Being wrapped in these colours would make me feel beautiful and shine like a jewel. I felt I needed (one row) of white to represent diamonds'.
Sample made in Stylecraft Special DK using 7 shades.

Golden Pears and Plums - Kate Wotton, Melton Mowbray, Lincs.

‘Blue is my favourite colour, so since the Delft colour scheme is already done I had to think about what I would like. I chose orchid colours as they are so vibrant and fabulous! AND – I didn’t use any blue, which was absolutely a first for me!’
Sample made in Stylecraft Special DK using 8 shades.

As I already said, you can vote for your favourite re-coloured motif by following the link here. All you need to do is pop a tick next to your chosen colour way and submit your form. Please note that you can only enter the competition once. Voting closes 30th April.

Winners and runners up will be chosen after a public vote.

The overall winner will receive a prize of £150 and a yarn colour pack to make their blanket. The 2 runner-ups will each receive a prize of £50 plus a yarn colour pack. All finalists will have their name and wording about their colour inspiration listed on the colour substitution and will be featured in Simply Crochet Magazine. The yarn colour packs for the new colour ways will subsequently be available via Stylecraft stockists. The colour substitution documents for each new colour way will also be available as free downloads via the Janie Crow web site.

Colour Palette of the Week

I found a great web site this week simply called Color Palettes and you can find it by following this link.

If you struggle to choose your own colour palettes for personal projects, web sites like this one are ideal as they present you with ready curated palettes that accompany lovely inspiring images, like those I have posted above.

It's nearly the weekend!

As I have already said, we are really looking forward to our Easter break, but next week it will be back to 'all systems go' here as we prepare for Wonderwool Walesthe following weekend. I love this show and so I am really looking forward to it - I just hope it will be a tad warmer than last year when we (and many others stall holders) resorted to wearing our display garments as it was so cold!!

We will have quite a few new items on display at the show, including the new Janis shawl and Audrey Coat that I designed for West Yorkshire Spinners earlier on this year, so if you are coming along do make sure you come and say hello!

We are hoping to spend some time in the garden this weekend - I am sure many of you here in the UK have the same plans as the weather is set to be good, but I am also hoping to find a little bit of crochet time on the sofa! I have been a bit quiet on social media over the last few weeks, simply because we have been really busy, but hopefully I will find some time to get on Instagram and upload some pics.

I hope that whatever you are doing you have a fabulous weekend and I look forward to seeing you here again next Friday...

Dance like nobody's watching

12/4/2019

Janie's Friday Feature

Welcome to this week's Friday Feature Newsletter - the Janie Crow equivalent of a Sunday supplement magazine....

The sun has been shining here in North London this week (although it is still pretty chilly) and so we are all feeling like we have a bit of a spring in our steps, especially as we head into another lovely weekend!

I have quite a lot to tell you about this week, including the fact that you can now vote for your favourite motif from the recent Delft colouring in competition. You can find more information about this lower down in the email. I have also released some new patterns this week, so you might want to take a look at that information too - I have put it in the 'What's New' section.

I was lucky enough to get one of the last 2 tickets to see a show called 'She Persisted' at Sadlers Wells on Wednesday evening. It was pretty much a spur of the moment decision to go, which was prompted by the attraction of the first of the 3 ballets, 'Broken', which was inspired by the life of Frida Kahlo. I have to admit to going along without even looking up what the other 2 ballets on the programme where, so I was really excited when I realised I was going to get to see the Rite of Spring - the music for which was composed by Stravinsky in 1913. The ballet I saw was the 1975 version danced on earth and it was pretty amazing!

I have been planning to include a piece about the Ballets Russes for ages, so it is perhaps serendipitous that the ballet on Wednesday, which was first performed by the Russian ballet company, was the push I needed to make myself settle down and write it. Because of time limitations it is not a huge piece, just the bones of it really, but I hope it will inspire you to go and take a look for more information about the spectacle of the ballets at the turn of the last Century. I think that the costume designs by Leon Bakst alone are enough to get the creative juices going..

As always, I cannot believe that yet another week has flown by and that we are on the brink of the weekend once more. Whatever you are planning to do I hope you all have a fabulous time and, as always, if you have anything you want to tell us about, please hit reply....

'Let us read and let us dance - two amusements that will never do any harm to the world ''
- Voltaire -

The Ballets Russes

At the turn of the last Century Paris was the place to be seen - it was where all the cool people were and where all the cool things happened. I am a big fan of the city and love walking around imagining what it must have been like 100 years ago when all the excitement that surrounded new artists, dancers and musicians was at it's height.

The Ballets Russes came to Paris in 1909 and caused a total sensation! The ballet company were brought to Paris from Russia by impresario Serge Diaghilev who had become frustrated by the extreme conservatism in his native country and wanted to break away. In 1906 Diaghilev wowed the people of Paris with his groundbreaking Exhibition of Russian Art at the Petit Palais, which was the first major showing of Russian art in the West and so, with this success under his belt, he consolidated the people's fascination with Russia by bringing the ballet company to town...

The Ballets Russes is widely regarded as one of the most influential companies of the 20th Century, not only because of the ground breaking choreography, but also because of all the other components that Diaghilev involved in his productions - the sets, the posters and art work, the costumes and the famous dancers, composers and influential artists and designers he employed.

Visually, the first Ballets Russes seasons were marked by the exotic designs of the Russian-born artist Léon Bakst. His bejewelled colours, swirling Art Nouveau elements and sense of the erotic re-envisioned dance productions as total works of art and as I said further up, even his costume sketches are incredible...

The images above are of costumes designed for the famous dancer Vaslav Nijinsky. The virtuosity and charisma of whom were such that no one who saw him perform, it was claimed, ever forgot him. He transformed himself for each role he danced and became as famous as the ballets themselves.

Trained in the Russian Imperial Ballet, he was an instant success on the Parisian stage from the Ballets Russes' first season in 1909. Audiences had not seen an equivalent male dancer for more than two decades. As a choreographer, he created unusually varied productions, whose style of movement differed radically from one another and from what the academic ballet audiences were used to seeing.

Both Picasso and Coco Chanel got involved with the Ballet Russes too; Picasso designed stage sets and costumes in his cubist style for the performance entitled 'Parade' in 1917 and in 1924 Chanel designed the costumes for 'Le Train Bleu', a ballet that brought together a mix of tennis players, golf champions and sun bathers seeking adventure.“a ballet combining acrobatics, satire of the period, and pantomime.” (Chanel and Her World, Edmounde Charles -Roux, p. 206)

The V&A mounted a brilliant exhibition of the costumes and posters that detailed the stories of the Ballet Russes a few years ago and, like every exhibition of high standard I have ever been to, I so wish that I had been able to visit over and over. To see the costumes, with their incredible vibrant fabrics and the amazing attentions to detail, up close and personal was incredible and I hope that one day the opportunity to see some of the items 'in the flesh' will arise again.

I hope that my 2 minute taster piece has whetted your appetite to find out more about all the amazing personalities who were involved in what must have been the most incredible performances of the Ballets Russes. There are loads of images, facts and stories that surround the ballets on the internet and there are some really fabulous books of posters and drawings. I have one that includes the costume sketches by Leon Bakst and I really hope that one day I will be able to use some of the ideas in a design.....

What's New?

I am really excited to be able to show you the crochet motifs made from the coloured in motifs sent in by the 5 finalists in the recent Delft Colouring Competition. We received more than 230 entries, so choosing just 5 was pretty tough, but we are really happy with the outcome of our choices.

You can vote for your favourite by visiting my web site and following the link to the survey - it will take less than a minute for you to record your choice.

The five finalists are as follows:

Rose Garden in Bloom - Katie Mulliner, Stoke on Trent, Staffordshire.

Autumn Berries - Miss Jen Mitchell, Wellington, Somerset.

Bejewelled - Jackie Walker, Chandlers Ford, Hampshire.

One of my favourite computer games is Bejewelled and I wanted to create a motif that radiated opulence, warmth and glamour. Being wrapped in these colours would make me feel beautiful and shine like a jewel. I felt I needed (one row) of white to represent diamonds'.
Sample made in Stylecraft Special DK using 7 shades.

Golden Pears and Plums - Kate Wotton, Melton Mowbray, Lincs.

I also used favourite china for my inspiration – a tea towel of my Grandmother’s decorated with gold and green squares and finely painted pears and plums.’
Sample made in Stylecraft Special DK using 8 shades.

Fiore - Debby Gould, London NW10

This week I have released the patterns for my Summer Palace blanket and the wrap version - all shown above. You can find the brochure style paper patterns via Stylecraft stockists and I will have them for sale via my web shop, which will launch properly (finally!) next week, so do look out for them.

The blanket pattern includes 2 colour ways and is written for Stylecraft Life DK, but you could choose to use any DK weight of yarn so long as you achieve the same crochet tension and have the equivalent length to my yarn amounts. The wrap version is written for Baa Ram Ewe PIP Colourwork 4ply.

Many of the Janie Crow listed stockists will have the yarn and the patterns and you can find a link to them here.

Colour Palette of the Week

My palette of the week is another one that I stumbled across on social media this week and is one that I have (again) not had to make any big decisions about in regards to colour picking. The beautiful image comes from Our Maker Life.

I absolutely love the taste of rhubarb, but I do think it is a shame that it's wonderful bright pink colouring diminishes greatly when it is cooked. I love the vibrancy of this image and the contrast of the pink with the bright green.

It's nearly the weekend!

Last Saturday I was invited to be the afternoon speaker at The East Sussex Guild of WI's annual Craft Day. As I told you, I was a little nervous as I had to speak to more than 200 WI members about my work, but I am pleased to say it went OK and that (hopefully) I was able to enlighten a few of the attendees about the delights of crochet!

This weekend is set to be a bit quieter and I have a full 2 days on the bounce at home - something that rarely happens! Andy and I made a pact at Christmas that we would spend more of our time and effort looking after our little house, so this weekend I am planning on having a good old sort out and maybe getting the paint out again.

I have popped an image of my newly painted hall walls above - it may have taken me almost 3 months to finish 3 coats of paint on a tiny hallway, but I am rather proud and love my new 'Jaipuresque' colour scheme.

I hope you all have a smashing weekend...

It's cool to Crochet - again......

5/4/2019

Janie's Friday Feature

Welcome to this week's Friday Feature Newsletter - the Janie Crow equivalent of a Sunday supplement magazine....

If you have been receiving the Friday Feature for a while then I imagine that you are able to predict that week after week I will start off by saying what an incredibly busy week it has been here at Janie Crow. I do feel this is becoming a bit of a predictable starter, so seriously, if any of you know a way of creating more hours in a day and more days in a week, please let me know!

I have been busy getting a new design ready to be tested by a crocheter this week. I like writing my own patterns and the process of taking the step-by-step images, but I do tend to misjudge how long this can take, so once again I am here with a speedy hello, rather than a full size Friday Feature.

Last weekend, as promised, I did manage to kick start a really interesting discussion thread in regards to the reputation of crochet vs knitting on my Instagram feed. Many great points were raised and discussed, so if you are interested please head over to my IG feed and take a look. Thank you too to all those of you who took the time to email us on this subject too.

I have left the 'Poor Cousin' and the 'What's New' features from last week's newsletter in place this week. I know it is a bit of a cop out, but hopefully there might be items from last week that you missed or that you want to read again! We have started adding past newsletters onto to the new web site, so you might want to revisit some of these too. You can find them here.

I hope you all have a fabulous weekend, whatever you have planned.....

'Soon I will be old and I've done precious little in this world for lack of time. I am always afraid I'll become senile before I've finished what I've undertaken ''
- Paul Gauguin -

(a cheery one for you this week!!!!!)

The Poor Cousin?

When we exhibit as Janie Crow at yarn shows we tend to get a mixed bag of reactions as people come onto the stand. There are those who come striding on to the stand, confident that their skills are up to scratch and keen to chat all things crochet. These are the die hard crocheters who have already discovered the joy of the craft and who have already made it one of their favourite pass times. We also meet the relatively new crocheters - those who want to move on to the next steps and learn new techniques to push themselves creatively. I love seeing these people on the stand - we share a common joy in our craft and it is easy to chat and share our passion.

I also really enjoy meeting another group of crafters - the knitters who never imagined that 'crochet could look that good'. We get comments like '...at first I thought it was knitted, but then realised it was crochet....', comments like these are often followed by reminiscent stories of Grandmothers crocheting blankets by the fire, or dabbling with making Granny Squares as a 'phase' back in the 70's! I love the fact that seeing my crochet designs has sparked a reaction in these people and I am always extra happy when they say they have been inspired to go home and pick up a hook again.

And then, there is another group......

Those who walk past the stand and say, 'Ew! it's crochet!' or that say (after close inspection of one of my crochet designs) 'oh yes I can see how she's done that' and carry on walking, noses slightly turned into the air.

I used to get really offended and defensive of my craft and I have always disliked the fact that as a crocheter my skills appear to be considered inferior to those of a knitter, but more recently I think the reactions have actually made me a more resilient designer and more determined to show people what a creative and beautiful craft it could be. That aside, I cannot tell you how chuffed I was to see that someone finally voiced the apparent division between the kudos of being a knitter vs a crocheter - her name is Gaye Gillespie and she is my hero!

Gaye (aka GGmadeit) has been at the very centre of the recent important discussions on the subject of diversity within the fibre community and if you haven't come across her before then I urge you to take a look at her podcasts on YouTube and follow her on Instagram.

Last weekend GG posted a piece on Instagram that has sparked the conversation of how crocheters feel within the yarn world. Many crocheters told her that they felt that yarn store owners and vendors at shows made assumptions about spending power, yarn choices ('they only use acrylic') and skill levels when faced with a crocheting potential customer. GG made a point about there rarely being crochet samples on display to show how yarn looks when worked in different stitches and talked about how yarn labels rarely indicate hook size or tension for crocheters.

Take a look at GG's video here to listen to Gaye's thoughts and make sure you also watch her other videos about diversity.

Here is Gaye's Instagram post from the weekend:

'...Can we talk? Something has been on my heart for a while. You guys know I'm bistitchual right? Knit AND crochet. I knit more but you get my point. As we chip away at this inclusion/diversity ice are we leaving out those that don't knit? I have a large group of friends that only crochet and I often hear how they feel left out or ignored. I have heard horror stories about yarn shop visits or experiences with other knitters. Please check my stories today and join the conversation. We are a powerful community and we are making change, let's not leave anyone out.'

Gaye's comments got me thinking about WHY crochet might be viewed in the way it seems to be. I wondered if it was because a lot (and I mean A LOT) of design harks back to traditional projects - the granny square being the obvious one, and lacy doily type work being another. And then I wondered whether it was to do with the relative speed of producing large projects and the fact that crochet is yarn hungry....

I don't have any answers, but what I do think is that we have to make a point of challenging the preconceived idea that crocheting is less skilful than knitting and that we need to be really proactive in challenging the negativity that surrounds our craft.

My recent inclusion on the Fruity Knitting podcast has been really interesting in terms of people's reaction to me. At Edinburgh Yarn show last weekend it was particularly clear that people had been surprised by the historical part crochet has played (within the UK anyway) and that by me also talking about the mathematical side of the craft many knitters had a new found admiration for crochet. Of course I am not saying that one appearance on a podcast can change the way crochet is viewed worldwide, but I am so pleased to have seen these comments aired in many open forums over the last week.

The issue of diversity in terms of race and colour within the fibre community is something that we all need to be up to speed on and it's importance should in no way be hijacked by a discussion about crochet, BUT if a second (but massively less important) sub discussion is that the importance of crochet within the fibre world is also recognised then how cool is that?

What's New?

I am a really big fan of West Yorkshire Spinners - not only are they a lovely bunch of people, but they are also continuously busy creating products that I really love - one of which is the new Colour Lab DK yarn, a beautifully bouncy 100% British Wool made in Yorkshire. The yarn comes in a fabulous range of shades and as soon as I saw them I knew I wanted to make something using the range - how fortuitous then that they asked me to contribute some new crochet designs to their brand new range of patterns!

I have wanted to design a 'proper' garment for a while and have carried the idea of a swing jacket around in my mind for ages. The design brief from WYS gave me the perfect opportunity to test my design and I am really really pleased with the way this project - Audrey - turned out. I think it would look really lovely worn over an evening gown or summer dress on a chilly evening - the yoke has a beaded detail to give an extra bit of sparkle.

The Janis shawl, shown above, is an example of me once again playing with tessellating shapes and I love how the motifs combine to make different patterns when joined. The design uses 4 shades, but I think it would look amazing multicoloured too!

I know that Just Knots have stock of the yarn and the patterns, but I am sure many other stockists have them too!

Colour Palette of the Week

My palette of the week is not shades taken from an image, but instead it is the lovely new yarn colours that Caerthan of Triskelion Yarns has shared this week.

The yarn shades are from the brand new Maritime Colourway Collection that Caerthan will be releasing soon. I love the Triskelion range of yarns, which are known for their depth of colour and high end yarn composition and I think these new softer shades are just gorgeous!

Instagram Favourite

My Instagram favourite this week is textile designer Jose Dammers. I am a big fan of Jose's work, which mostly concentrates on crochet portraiture. Jose is incredibly clever with her colours and her stitching and creates some amazing pieces of work.

Be sure to check out Jose's portraits of Van Gogh, Frida Kahlo and David Bowie, to name just a few!

It's nearly the weekend!

I am looking forward to being the afternoon speaker at The East Sussex Guild of WI's annual Craft Day tomorrow afternoon. I am a little apprehensive as it is likely to be the biggest audience I have ever stood up and spoken in front of and I have to admit at times this week I have been more than a little distracted by the prospect of talking to somewhere in the region of 200 people. I will let you know next week how I get on!

Sunday is shaping up to be a home day. I finally managed to get the decorating in the hall way at home finished last weekend and have sorted some intricate little paintings that I bought in India a few years ago into some new frames, so it would be good to get those hung up. I have really neglected my little house lately and I find that more and more it is the place I want to be the most, so I am hoping that Sunday will be a day for homey things, a glass or two of wine and (of course) some crochet!

I hope you all have a smashing weekend...

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JANIE'S BLOG

Janie's Friday Feature - June

'Some people feel the rain. Others just get wet.'- Bob Marley -

What's New?​

Crochet Trends for Summer 2019​

Discovery of the Month​

Tip of the Month​

It's nearly the weekend!

Janie's Quick Hello!​

Janie's Friday Feature​

'When the power of love overcomes the love of power the world will know peace.'- Jimi Hendrix -

What's New?

Instagram of the Week

Tip of the Week​

It's nearly the weekend!​

Janie's Friday Feature​

'Tortoises can tell you more about the road that hares.'- Khalil Gibran -

Making Yarn Substitutions​

Instagram of the Week​

Tip of the Week

Marina Kelly - Crochet Necklaces​

Do you like 'Making Up'?​

It's nearly the weekend!​

Janie's Friday Feature​

'Love is an emerald,its brilliant light wards offdragons on this treacherous path.'- Rumi -

Knitting in the West of Ireland

Instagram of the Week

Colour Palette of the Week

Tip of the Week

It's nearly the weekend!

'We have forgotten how to be good guests, how to walk lightly on the earth as it's other creatures do.'- Barbara Ward -

What's Milk Got to do with it?

Instagram of the Week​

Colour Palette of the Week​

Delft Colouring Competition

Tip of the Week

It's nearly the weekend!

Janie's Friday Feature

'We have forgotten how to be good guests, how to walk lightly on the earth as it's other creatures do.'- Barbara Ward -

What's Milk Got to do with it?

​Instagram of the Week

​Colour Palette of the Week

Tip of the Week

It's nearly the weekend!

JANIE'S FRIDAY FEATURE

'There is nothing better than a friend, unless it is a friend with chocolate.'- Linda Grayson -

Delft Colouring Competition​

Colour Palette of the Week

It's nearly the weekend!

Janie's Friday Feature

'Let us read and let us dance - two amusements that will never do any harm to the world ''- Voltaire -

The Ballets Russes

What's New?

Rose Garden in Bloom - Katie Mulliner, Stoke on Trent, Staffordshire.

Autumn Berries - Miss Jen Mitchell, Wellington, Somerset.

Bejewelled - Jackie Walker, Chandlers Ford, Hampshire.

Golden Pears and Plums - Kate Wotton, Melton Mowbray, Lincs.

Fiore - Debby Gould, London NW10

Colour Palette of the Week

It's nearly the weekend!

Janie's Friday Feature​

'Soon I will be old and I've done precious little in this world for lack of time. I am always afraid I'll become senile before I've finished what I've undertaken ''- Paul Gauguin -

The Poor Cousin?​

What's New?

Colour Palette of the Week

Instagram Favourite

It's nearly the weekend!

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'Some people feel the rain. Others just get wet.'
- Bob Marley -

What's New?

Crochet Trends for Summer 2019

Discovery of the Month

Tip of the Month

Janie's Quick Hello!

Janie's Friday Feature

'When the power of love overcomes the love of power the world will know peace.'
- Jimi Hendrix -

Tip of the Week

It's nearly the weekend!

Janie's Friday Feature

'Tortoises can tell you more about the road that hares.'
- Khalil Gibran -

Making Yarn Substitutions

Instagram of the Week

Marina Kelly - Crochet Necklaces

Do you like 'Making Up'?

It's nearly the weekend!

Janie's Friday Feature

'Love is an emerald,its brilliant light wards off
dragons on this treacherous path.'
- Rumi -

'We have forgotten how to be good guests, how to walk lightly on the earth as it's other creatures do.'
- Barbara Ward -

Instagram of the Week

Colour Palette of the Week

'We have forgotten how to be good guests, how to walk lightly on the earth as it's other creatures do.'
- Barbara Ward -

Instagram of the Week

Colour Palette of the Week

'There is nothing better than a friend, unless it is a friend with chocolate.'
- Linda Grayson -

Delft Colouring Competition

'Let us read and let us dance - two amusements that will never do any harm to the world ''
- Voltaire -

Janie's Friday Feature

'Soon I will be old and I've done precious little in this world for lack of time. I am always afraid I'll become senile before I've finished what I've undertaken ''
- Paul Gauguin -

The Poor Cousin?