Quick Catch Up with Janie Crow

As a mark of respect following the death of Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth, we have been observing the official mourning period and so have been quiet on all of our social media platforms and have delayed sending emails like this one. We hope you understand the reason for our absence.

Andy and I are back from our summer break and looking forward to all that we have in store for the autumn. Gemma, Emma and Sarah have done a great job holding the fort at Janie Crow and our lovely boy Charlie took care of the orders every few days. We are very grateful to them for doing such a great job while we were away. 
I hope you have five minutes to spare to catch up with all things Janie Crow...

We had an amazing trip travelling through Europe on the train for a few weeks through late August and early September and I am feeling really inspired by the places we visited and the things we have seen. It was a real joy to stare out of a train window and see the wonderful scenery pass by as we travelled down through France, Belgium, Austria and Italy, where we then took a ferry to Greece. ​

We visited some fabulous cities, including Brussels, Vienna, Venice, Patras and Athens. I have wanted to go to Vienna in particular for many years, especially as I focussed the designs for my final collection for my degree at art school on the work of Gustav Klimt, an artist who rarely left the city. We spent 3 full days there and filled our time visiting lots of galleries, finally getting to see The Kiss in ‘real life’ at The Belvedere Museum, but it was seeing the Beethoven Frieze at the Secession Building that was a real tick off the bucket list for me. It was just so beautiful. ​

For the last few years I have been thinking of revisiting the work of Klimt as a catalyst for a CAL. My degree focussed on machine knitting, so I have never crocheted using this inspiration. I have quite a lot of work left to do on a CAL project which will be released in the new year so I need to put that to bed first, but it is exciting to start thinking about another new project using many not the things I saw on my travels as the inspiration. 

The video for Part Five of my Sunshine and Showers blanket has gone live on our YouTube channel today. This is the part where a new pair of panels are started. You can find videos for the previous parts by following this link and you can find more information about the project here.

I know I have told you this so many times - but we are almost ready to launch the Indigo Dreams project as a pattern with accompanying kits in two colour ways. These are the original blue (Indigo) version and a new red and cream one. Kits are being packed now and they will be available from next week along with the pattern, which you will be able to choose to download or have a paper copy of. The kits will go on the website this time next week when we return from Yarndale.

We will be travelling up to Skipton for the Yarndale on Thursday and setting up our pen on Friday ready for the show on Saturday and Sunday. This year is the 10th anniversary of the show so we are planning a few special things to celebrate. We hope you will drop by our stand if you are planning to visit the show. You will find us in our usual spot, stand I14.

We had hoped to have kits in stock for the Sandalwood version of my Persian Tiles blanket by now, but we had a bit of a hiccup with the yarn arriving from the US and are still waiting for it! If we receive the yarn in time, then we hope to have the kits with us at Yarndale this weekend and will put them in stock on the website as soon as we get back this time next week if we have any left over.

I am incredibly excited that Arena Travel have asked me to accompany a knitting traditions and culture of Peru tour of Peru next year. I can hardly believe that I might get to visit such an extraordinary country, famous for its textile traditions for centuries. The itinerary for the trip looks amazing and so I hope that you might be able to consider coming along with me. I appreciate that the price point is high and that I am incredibly privileged to have been asked to tutor this once in a lifetime trip. You can find more information by following this link.

There is still time to vote for your favourite shops, websites, yarns and designers in the British Knitting & Crochet Awards. You can find the link here. Voting closes on the 30th September and simply by casting your votes you can be in line to win some great prizes.

Sometimes our most popular posts on Facebook are those where we simply change the page's cover photo and this month has been no exception, with the two photos below receiving a particularly warm reception.

Photos where blankets and throws, or scarves and wraps, are folded and placed in piles somehow give off a kind of warmth that really appeals, I think. ​

We came across this great little video on YouTube with lots of fabulous ideas for bags. We do love bags here at Janie Crow and they are also a great way to get some of that stash yarn used up! ​

The Knitting & Crochet Guild held its annual convention in Derbyshire this past weekend. You can join the guild for quite a small donation and members enjoy the benefit of a members area on the guild website and also receive the quarterly publication 'Slipknot'. The September 2022 issue includes an article I wrote for them on the wonderful Korsnäs sweaters I was lucky enough to see when I visited Finland earlier this year. You can find out more by taking at look at the Guild website here.

Gemma has been baking again and recently tried a new cornbread recipe. A big bag of cornmeal has been sitting in the cupboard for ages after the last recipe she tried just wasn't quite right, but I am pleased to report success this time.

Cornbread is a comforting kind of treat and with the addition of a little honey in this recipe it definitely appeals to a sweet tooth, whilst at the same time being quite filling. ​

Over the next few days we will be getting used to being back at work after our lovely summer break. With Yarndale in the mix we have quite a lot to sort out this week, so it will be back to work with a bang for us, but I am really looking forward to getting into the swing of working life here at Janie Crow again over the next few weeks.

I will be sending the September Newsletter on Friday 30th September, so do look out for that. After our short absence from social media we will be posting again from today onwards so I hope you will join us on our Instagram and Facebook 
feeds too. It's good to be back!

Janie x