Table of Contents

• New 50% Discount

• 10,000 YouTube Subscribers!

• My Wild Garden & My Growing Kids

• Looking Forward

  • Random Bowtie

  • Beloved Alphabet

  • Year of Dogs

  • p.s.

  • Poll

New 50% Discount

The biggest purpose of this mid-month newsletter is to update everyone on which pattern is going to be 50% off for the next month!

This time I’ve chosen “Wild and Free”. This 50% discount for my newsletter subscribers has only been valid on Ravelry so far, and I don’t 100% remember why I wasn’t using Etsy as well. So, this time I’ve also added a code for Etsy!

As always, this pattern is written up for both interlocking crochet and overlay mosaic crochet. This is one of my old patterns so the mosaic crochet option does show those interlocking mesh dots still. Someday I will have all my old patterns updated!

10,000 YouTube Subscribers!

I was so excited to get this notification from YouTube yesterday!

Wasn’t it only last month that I was celebrating my 4th YouTube birthday? I don’t know if this is how quickly an average account grows but I do know that I have a lot of good content and some not-great content there.

Before creating my own channel I really didn’t use YouTube that much. I still don’t actually. I prefer written explanations because I read faster than most people talk and I can understand written words easier than listening (I have had my ears tested and they tell me they’re fine but I still read lips to understand speech most of the time). I get migraines often and the sound sensitivities in my brain mean I don’t listen to much music either.

So, it was quite the learning curve to create my own channel and honestly, I’m so proud of myself for all the things I’ve accomplished!

Thanks for watching and learning and supporting me through this journey! I’ve learned so much these last four years and I can only hope that the next four years are just as exciting!

My Wild Garden & My Growing Kids

Many of you know that my ‘real life’ outside of crochet involves homeschooling my three kids and gardening in the short Canadian summer. I’ve been so busy these last two weeks!

Here in Saskatchewan, at the end of the school year, as a homeschooling mom I have to write my year-end reports. These aren’t too complicated for me because I’ve been doing this for 5 years. After I complete those reports I have to start next year’s paperwork. My littlest one, Melody, will be 5 this summer, so I have officially registered all three of my kids for school next fall! 😮 

When I’m not doing paperwork, I’ve been trying to manage my garden. I am pleased that I made myself a nice excel spreadsheet to help me keep track of what I planted and when I should harvest and such but I’m thinking, once again, that I simply don’t have enough time to keep up with it all. And this year has been quite cold so everyone in this area is having garden problems.

We have one big vegetable garden on the other side of the yard, two smaller strips at the right of where the photo above is looking, and a new flower garden with a bench just behind the tree house. Mitch is supposed to be building me a trellis over the bench area for some climbing flowers but I’m not sure if he’ll get that done this year (he’s got to fix the brakes on his car, we need shingles, we need a fence to protect us from aggressive neighbor dogs, etc).

I try to take care of my arms and wrists because I want them to be functional for crocheting. And most of my crochet business actually requires typing and computer work. The garden work has been making me feel quite stiff and has definitely slowed down my progress with everything else.

One of my friends pointed out that I’ve traded one creative activity (crochet) for another (garden) but I can’t actually do everything all at once. Sigh. Yes, thank you, I’m aware of that. 🤣 

Looking Forward

I always have big plans and I wish I could do everything all at once. But, alas, I cannot. There is only one of me. So, I’m trying to do better at doing one thing at a time instead of 20 things all at once (so far, it’s a skill that I need to continue working on). 🫠 

Random Bowtie

I am sorry that I didn’t publish my “Random Bowtie” pattern yet. I caught a big error (thankfully) but with everything else going on in life I wasn’t able to fix it and get this pattern to testers yet, so it’s not going to be ready for awhile.

Beloved Alphabet

I did get my “Beloved A” blanket finished! I need to edit some video for the explanation/promotion stuff and then I hope to get the rest of the alphabet drawn up for my testers. I have a few letters ready or nearly ready and other letters don’t even have a rough draft.

Year of Dogs

My dog squares are my number one focus this year. Each month I get nervous that someone’s going to be sad about the dog breed I’ve drawn or someone’s going to criticize the snout or the legs or the angle of the image or the details. Sometimes it happens, but most of the time people are just kind - so I try to remember those comments instead.

Thank you so much for letting my into your inbox! I hope you’re treating yourself well. 💗 

Love and hugs,

Ashlee

p.s.

I’ve started the process of creating a tiered reward system for sharing my newsletter to your friends (Beehiiv has a new process embedded into their system that should make it easy). But I’m second-guessing my rewards.

Tier 1: after 3 referrals sign up, you’d get a code that would save you 30% off your next purchase (no matter how large or small).

Tier 2: 10 referrals = $10 credit to my shop.

Tier 3: ?? referrals = a physical prize? a customized tote bag? stickers? This reward might be limited by shipping addresses. Please help me by clicking a poll option below and/or leaving me a comment with suggestions.

Poll

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