Better late than never

Which pattern is 50% off for the next month?

Crochet, "Ashlee Brotzell Designs", headshot

Mid-February Update

Hello, all! I have now added a notification to my calendar to remind me to send my newsletters because I really don’t like being ‘late’. Here we are, February 16th, and I haven’t changed the newsletter promotion to a different pattern, and I haven’t sent this email, and I’m feeling disappointed in myself.

But, the reality is, there’s no ‘boss’ that’s going to fire me for this oversight. And my primary job is Mom. And my babies have been sick this week. My babies are 9, 6, and 4 (so, not really babies). And my husband has been out of town all week, trying out a new job. So, I’m trying to be more gracious to myself when I don’t accomplish the things I think I should.

For example, it took me all week to get this bag finished. I had most of the squares crocheted from April 2022 I just needed to join them together! I’m definitely jealous of the people who are able to spend 10 hours a day crocheting! Ahh, dreaming of my happy place. 🤩

Table of Contents

I just learned my newsletter will input this fancy, clickable table of contents all on its own! Woohoo for learning more shortcuts!

Updates

One of the shoulds in my business is getting all my old designs brought up to my current standard. It’s not a fast process as I still need to do all the current things too. Having a solid mosaic crochet option is important to a lot of you. Having those tested is important to me. Having finished samples to show of my old patterns is important. Having a functional website is important (a lot of my old blog posts are virtually unreadable because of button colors and giant photos - the formatting didn’t transfer over when I switched webhosts).

This is one of the old blog entries that got an update this month.

YouTube Shorts

If you’re subscribed to my YouTube channel you may have noticed I’ve been publishing a lot of ‘shorts’ lately. These are video clips showing one of my patterns in less than 30 seconds. I’m trying to find all the random clips I’ve got saved from over the years and actually make them useful.

I had a few clips on my website but I learned that it’s really dragging my site down to host and load the videos. It’s better practice to host the video on YouTube and just embed the video to my site. Thus, as I update my website I’ve been publishing these clips to YouTube so I can use them on my site.

Double Wedding Rings Update

I updated all four Double Wedding Ring files on Feb 5 after a customer reached out and asked for a more functional chart.

So now, the interlocking crochet file has a better looking chart. Better numbering and two sizes for either viewing on a screen or printing (1 page and 4 page options).

The center-out interlocking crochet file has a change on page 13 where it says to repeat between the angled brackets two times, it should have said three times (we are making a square, not a triangle). I think most people who were crocheting managed to crochet all four sides of their blankets anyway, but technically that needed to be fixed.

The overlay mosaic crochet file has a better looking chart. Better numbering and two sizes for either viewing on a screen or printing (1 page and 4 page options).

The center-out overlay mosaic crochet file had a similar issue as the center-out interlocking option.

I've also updated all four files to include my new branded link of ashleeslint.com/link-in-bio instead of the linktree link.

Our 50% Off Promotion

It’s the middle of the month so it’s time to switch the pattern associated with our special newsletter code!

I’ve picked one of my favorite designs: Monstera Leaf.

If you can’t see the graphic below it’s because this promotion is only available to newsletter subscribers and must be clicked from inside the email ;)

Poll Results

In my last newsletter I included a poll asking for help in planning my next CAL (Crochet-A-Long). It took me a few days to learn how to see the results but once I did I was just overwhelmed with the kindness in the comments from you all! Thank you!

The winning option was “Brand NEW blanket, released in parts for free on website, purchasable as full pattern” with 41 out of 81 votes. Putting the Mother’s Day CAL on my website was the 2nd highest result with 15 votes.

Many of the comments expressed some variation of love towards me and my designs and said that ANYTHING I decide to do would be wonderful. ❤️ Now the tough part will be deciding which of my draft blanket projects gets to see daylight first!

New Poll

Getting feedback is an important part of everything we do in life (jobs, school, etc). Getting engagement on a post or a reply in an email also helps with those tricky algorithms that decide whether my content is useful or not. So, by all means, please hit reply and tell me anything you’d like!

Thank you!

I’m so thankful for all of your support and I appreciate every kind comment and share!

My goals for this year are to be kinder to myself and pace myself a bit more. So far that hasn’t been working out too well. ha! I just want to get everything done NOW!

If there are tasks on my list (such as updating an old pattern to have a solid mosaic crochet option) that are impacting your ability to finish YOUR list please let me know and I’ll do my best to help you out!

All my love,
Ashlee

The Heatherly StitchWith a passion for all things yarn and knitting, her newsletter brings you the latest industry news, heartwarming stories from her life as a shepherdess, and delightful random musings on the world ...

This video remains my most popular video on YouTube! I created it on a whim and am surprised every week when YouTube tells me the stats again and this one continues to ‘win’!

My most popular pattern this year has been Book Dragon!