We are still Here For You

Janie's Quick Update
​

​
I hope this email finds you well and that you are all keeping safe....
 
As tiny on-line businesses Janie Crow and Just Knots Yarns are both able to continue to operate, so we have been in the studio this week putting yarn kits together and packing and dispatching online orders. We know that we are extremely lucky to be able to remain working and so, for now, we plan to carry on for as long as we can. As I said to you last week I will be appearing in your in box every Friday as usual over the forthcoming weeks and hope that you will enjoy a quick Janie Crow catch up.

I want to start by updating you about online orders and postage as we have had lots of people asking us about what we can send and where we can send it to.
 
At Janie Crow and Just Knots Yarns we have always used Royal Mail as our postal service provider. Royal Mail continues to operate worldwide postal services and we have not yet been affected by issues with the post. Things can change quickly, so if you are wondering about the mail service to your country, you can check up via the Royal Mail ‘Personal Help’ page here.
 

Fruit Garden CAL

 
Yarn packs for the Fruit Garden CAL go on sale on-line on Monday. I know many of you are really looking forward to having a crochet along project to get stuck into come the end of April, but I also know that many of you are worried about getting yarn packs in time. We have been inundated with requests to release the patterns and the yarn packs early, especially from those of you outside of the UK, but for now the scheduled dates all remain in place. A huge amount of work has gone into the design stage, the pattern writing, the promotion and of course the preparation of the yarn packs, so making changes now is not an option. I still have the final read through of the patterns to do and all the video tutorials to film. Add to that the fact that some people might have their yarn parcels slightly delayed in the post and you can immediately see that there is definitely no chance of having the CAL sooner than originally planned, so please be patient!

​

We have yarn packs for both colourways of the Fruit Garden Blanket packed and ready to start leaving here next week. The yarn packs go on sale on Monday and we will have them on the Janie Crow site and on Just Knots. The kits are currently showing as out of stock because we have not added them yet! We will be monitoring sales as soon as the page goes properly live. If our kits sell out then we will add a back order option, which will mean that you can purchase a pack to be delivered in the future. Of course we will honour any requests for refunds on these kits should you change your mind or find them in stock somewhere else before we dispatch.
​

Emily Shawlette

I know from posts on Instagram and on Facebook that many of you have been rooting through your stashes to see if you have yarn you can put to good use. Last week I made a crochet decorative Easter Egg pattern free on Ravelry and this week I have made my Emily shawlette pattern free too. Emily is the perfect pattern for using up single 100g skeins of 4ply yarn – you will need in the region of 400m of yarn to make the shawlette, which also features some Debbie Abrahams beads.

​

Workshops & Events
​

Sadly my day workshop and event dates for April, May and June have now been cancelled. I have updated the workshop list on my web site so that events taking place in July and August are now visible. You can find the list here. The listed events are in relation to the forthcoming Fruit Garden CAL and for the majority of them they are likely to include a half day workshop for a group of around 12 people followed by a larger in store event where I will talk about the inspiration for the CAL and my other design work.
 ​

Images with thanks to National Trust, Standen House, Sussex.

 
I have tried hard to support small yarn shops and hope to see many of you at the CAL events later on in the year. I am hoping that I will be able to squeeze in some dates for the stores who have had their dates cancelled later on in the autumn and will add these to the web site just as soon as we have a clearer picture of how things are panning out.
 
Sadly smaller yarn stores in the UK, who do not operate on line stores, are now closed. It is a hugely worrying time for many and it is really sad to think of these small but vital businesses now struggling to survive. If you are lucky enough to have a local yarn store then please take a look to see if there is a way that you can support them. You can find your nearest yarn store on the UK Hand Knitting web site by following this link. If your local store has a web site then you may be able to support them by purchasing a gift voucher that you can use in the future or by booking onto an event later on in the year. Some stores are offering a delivery service too!
​

Birthdays in Quarantine!
​

It was very strange celebrating Charlie's 25th birthday at home last Friday, but the three of us had a good time in the company of a few beers and a lovely take away curry! Not the trip to Amsterdam with his friends that our boy had planned, but I don't suppose he will ever forget it!

This week also saw the anniversary of both William and May Morris's birthdays. The V&A Museum celebrated by releasing a lovely picture gallery on their Instagram feed, which you can find here
​

There is also a really lovely written and illustrated piece about the connection that William and May had with the V&A here. I was really excited to learn via this piece that the Ardabil Carpet, one of the inspirations for my 2012 Persian Inspired Crochet Club projects, was purchased by the museum on William Morris's advice. What a coincidence!
​

It's Nearly the Weekend!
​

​
As we have been at the studio all week Andy and I definitely have the Friday Feeling today! We have been seeing posts from our friends and family tidying up their back gardens and enjoying the sunshine all week and so have our fingers tightly crossed that we will be able to enjoy some time ‘out back’ over the next few days. I know that lots of you are also undertaking some decorating or intensive spring cleaning, so I hope that the weekend will still feel like a bit of a break for you all.
 
We have managed to catch up 'virtually' on-line with lots of people over the last week and at times like this we feel so blessed to have video and chat forums that we can catch up on, especially as we are not going to see our daughter, Summer, or our lovely colleague Sue, who is now at home, for the foreseeable future.
 
Charlie and Andy came up with a great plan to get dressed up for dinner on Saturday night. I am going to cook the family favourite of Macaroni Cheese and we are going to concoct a few cocktails, so I am really looking forward to that! We also have a stack of jigsaw puzzles to work our way through and I have a few books that I have been lining up over the last few weeks to read, including ‘Eat, Pray, Love’ by the awesome Elizabeth Gilbert (follow her on Instagram if you don’t do so already!) which I have wanted to read for ages.
 
I hope you all have a great weekend - I urge all of you to stay home if you can (that means no trips to the beach or national parks!!) and I hope that wherever you are you are safe, well and happy. If you want to let me know about any of your home based plans you might have over the next week, please hit reply....

PS: The nomination stage of the Let’s Knit Awards for 2020 is now open and of course I would really love it if you could take a few minutes to take a look at the web page. By submitting your nominations you can be entered into the prize draw and win some fabulous yarny goodies, so do take a look!
​