Quick Catch Up with Janie Crow

I have been away tutoring a workshop trip to West Yorkshire this week and so have been enjoying the company of a group of lovely knitters as we visited the Knit and Crochet Guild head quarters, Stylecraft's fabulous Mill, where we saw their yarn production first hand, and the amazing historical mill town of Saltaire. 
 
While I have been away, Gemma and Emma have been busy, brilliantly holding the fort on our social media platforms and Andy is back up to speed with sorting orders and answering your emails after a brief break, so it's nice to know that Janie Crow is in good hands.
 
It has been a busy fortnight since we were last here in your inbox and we have a few things to tell you about, including a nice stock update, so I hope you can spare a few minutes to catch up with our news. 

​We have two new yarn packs to tell you about this week. Wool Warehouse have now released the Yarnsmiths Merino versions of the Mystical Lanterns and Sandalwood blankets. We know that many of you prefer to use natural fibres and are really pleased with how these colourways have come out. 
 
The Yarnsmiths palette is a little brighter than the original Sandalwood but close enough to keep the same name and the Mystical Lanterns colourway is bright and fun. You can see them both in the images below - click on any of the images to find the yarn packs. They are currently on offer at 40% off so if you prefer natural fibres it's a great time to snap up a pack. 

The itinerary for my trip to Turkey in October next year is live on the Stitchtopia website and you can find it by following this link. There are now only a couple of spots left on the trip, so do take a look if you think it might be your kind of holiday. 
 
I am really excited about this trip already, even though it is over a year away, and I have been busy thinking about the knit and crochet projects I can design for participants to work on while we are away. 

We have a lot of kits back in stock this week and we've put a selection below, all of which can be found on the website. You can have a browse of all our stock by following this link.

Over on Instagram this month we celebrated the gorgeous Eastern Jewels version of Persian Tiles. Eastern Jewels was a collaboration between Lucia Dunn and Stylecraft and embodies the vibrant colourways Lucia is well known for as well as her way of embracing life in vivid technicolour! 
 
You can take a look at some of the wonderful makes we discovered using the tag #easternjewelsblanket by clicking here and we do currently have kits available over on our website here.

How are the temperature blankets coming along? Gemma has fallen a little bit behind, blaming the very hot weather that we've been having here in North London! We have found some great images of your work over on Instagram, which you can see below. The first photo from @soniams1 is tracking a Californian winter, while in the second photo @suelindt is showing off not one, but two blankets she has on the go! 
 
Do share your temperature blanket progress with us using the hashtag #janiecrowtempblanket25, so we can take a look at how your blankets are coming along. We'll pop it on the blog as well but in the meantime you can download the July temperature chart here. 

Over on Facebook we have been continuing with the Decade of Design series of posts and this time we focused on Frida's Flowers, which was a crochet along project released in collaboration with Stylecraft yarns in 2016. 
 
A lot of love has been shown for this design over the years and the patterns are still available to download free of charge from the Stylecraft Yarns website here. Lots of you told us that you loved making this blanket and for some of you it's your favourite JC project. 
 
Lucia Dunn worked her magic on this design too, with the incredibly pretty Primavera version of the blanket.

If you don't already follow our social media channels you can find links at the bottom of this email. Do come and join us! ​

There are lots of up and coming yarn shows around the country and UK Hand Knitting have complied a handy guide to what's on. Click on the image below or here to find out if there's a show near you. ​

Gemma's review this month was of Claire Montgomerie's Granny Square Flowers Card Deck, the hotly-awaited follow up to the Granny Square Card Deck. I have one of the sets too and it is fabulous! Gemma had a go at the Peony motif, using leftovers from her Bohemian Blooms project and you can see the results in the photos below. It's very pretty. 

You can read Gemma's thoughts over on the Book of the Month blog here and if you fancy getting your hands on this or the original card deck head on over to the Search Press website. If you're in the UK you can get a 20% discount and free delivery by entering the code DD88 at checkout. ​

I'm very excited to let you know that my blanket is finished! Well, certainly most of the hard work, with just a little bit of finishing to be done. There are a couple of ends from the joining process left to be sewn in and the blanket needs blocking to smooth out a few slightly ‘lumpy’ areas. Here it is in all its glory, together with a few close-ups of the detail… ​

I have loved making this blanket, and writing about it each month has helped to keep me motivated. Now the next question of course is, what shall I make now? Is there another Janie Crow project you'd like to see me work on? If so hit reply to this email and let us know. ​

This week Gemma is recommending a simple recipe using aubergines and it's really simple, with most of the ingredients likely to be in your cupboards already. You can find the recipe for stuffed aubergines here.

The weather has been really good over the last few weeks, but it has been a little cooler over the last couple of days, especially in Bradford where I have spent the week with my workshop group. The cooler weather makes it a little easier to crochet, so I have been working on some beaded festive decorations that will be available later on in the year. Small portable projects are perfect for this time of year and I have really been enjoying working with beads again. 

We had a lovely time away last weekend with our daughter Summer, her husband Chris and the puppy! We spent a few days down on the south coast and had a lovely time by the sea! Stoick (who is now six months old) enjoyed every minute, but was shattered by Sunday after all the beach based adventures! ​

As usual there has been quite a lot of behind the scenes stuff going on here, and not so much exciting design work, so I don't have a huge amount to show for the last couple of weeks. I am still going to the gym quite a bit and keeping up with my new exercise habit - it seems to have become a way of life now, which is quite a relief as I don't have to force myself out of the door and down to the gym in the mornings, but I guess it's always easier to feel motivated when the weather is good.
 
I hope that you have something nice planned for the weekend and that you are able to squeeze in a little crafting time. We will be back in your inbox in a couple of weeks with the July newsletter, so do look out for that, and in the mean time stay safe and enjoy your crafting!