By Alice Winney & Gemma Westland
It’s brass monkeys this January and a lady from Seaburn has been busy knitting to keep our fury friends warm.
Jan Brown has spent over 4,000 hours with her knitting needles, making everything from snoods to jumpers for greyhounds across the world.
Since her knitting skills have gone viral, her very own website knittedwithlove.co.uk has blown up.
Ms Brown was snowed under, quite literally, over Christmas, so we paid her a visit before she picked up her needles to do her winter batch.
With our first step in Jan’s house, we could tell this lady had a big heart for her four-legged friends: dog beds covered the living room floor and stored neatly on her side table was a bag of wool and knitting needles.
Ms Brown: “People don’t understand, they think greyhounds are hard work. People think because they have raced they have a busy drive, but they are a very docile dogs.
“You give them an inch of love and they give you a foot back.”
Giving up her job in 2012, Jan started knitting full-time for rescue greyhounds.
“I was given some blankets from a friend, so I asked Facebook what I should do with them. I made blanket coats and gave them to the rescues. They have a lot of kennel dogs.
“Now, I get blankets from the charity shops and send them off to the rescues, it saves them money.”