Vendor's Apron

Over the weekend at 'Knit August Nights' I noticed a few of the vendors had snazzy vendor's aprons which sure beats rifling around in a plastic box or purse.  So I decided to have a look in my fabric stash for something hard-wearing to make my own vendor's apron.  I found this Cath Kidston fabric with a London print on it and knew this was the one.  Added a pocket with a nice chunky zip and one of my hand-woven belts to the top to tie it round my waist with as well as advertising my belts at the same time.  Really pleased with the results and am now all ready for the craft market!

Knit August Nights - Napier 2011

I attended 'Knit August Nights 2011' event in Napier over the weekend with about 60 fibreholics!  Noone would know it is still winter in New Zealand - we were all in T-shirts all weekend soaking up the sunshine!  We had various workshops, a trader's market, plenty of knitting and socialising time, and a group meal with a knitter's quiz night which was a lot of fun (especially as our team won!).  Amongst those attending were regular knitters, spinners, knitting shop owners, fibre dyers, artisan yarn dyers, a magazine author and a rather talented spindle maker.  All in all a very interesting group of people from all over New Zealand!

This was the view from the workshop on Friday afternoon - I did an Entrelac workshop, followed by a very useful shawl construction workshop on the Saturday which will come in very useful for my designs.

On Saturday we had a factory tour of a woollen mill which, having become a spinner in the last year, I found fascinating seeing the process on a large scale - I had to hold back from diving in with all of that lovely soft squishy fibre and yarn!!

And.... I spent far too much!  here is some of the yarn/fibre that I bought... it was all far too tempting!!  I have consoled myself that at least 5 of the lots of yarn are for designs I am working on - good excuse to splurge!!

New Items In Store... plus preview of Beach Shawl

I've been busy making brooches and belts the last couple of weeks - today these are going to hit my Etsy shop 

I am also working on my 'Beach Shawl' PDF pattern, which I am hoping will go to test-knit in September ready for launch sometime in October.

Warping the loom

I've been warping up my inkle loom ready to make some belts and bookmarks for Charlisa Designs.  Current colours on the loom are pinks, but more colours will be arriving every week...  I have managed to whip up a belt for myself and a matching but smaller one for my daughter before starting Charlisa Designs items too - my belt is shown below....

Its Open!!

Announcing the opening of Charlisa Designs etsy shop:

Charlisa Designs

The shop is pretty empty at the moment apart from some brooches.  Here are a couple of my lovely brooches with suggestions on how to wear them.  All brooches from Charlisa Designs are unique.

but it will soon have handknitted, hand-woven, crocheted and sewn items in it.

I am also hoping to soon release some PDF knitting, and eventually, crochet patterns on etsy as well.