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Handmade gifts

Christmas seems as far away as ever now. One of my goals for last year was to make some handmade pressies. Ok, so I maybe didn’t make as many as I would have liked too but I succeeded in doing some. There was something so much more rewarding about giving a friend a gift knowing that a little bit of me had went into it, off course there is a bit more planning and preparation well in advance but its definately worth

Here are a few of my makes

I have a friend who is a real outdoor lass and I knew this super chunky yarn from rico would knit up into the perfect winter warmer hat for her. We have this in 6 different shades but I loved the blend of these colours together. This is one of my first knitting projects I have had to sew up and unfortunately I feel I didn’t do it any justice with my hand stitching, but the main thing is, I don’t think its going to fall apart too handy.

#camerashy #poorqualityphotos

Next, I have had my eye on this 100% baby llama wool for quite some time. Its so soft and cosy. I had seen a pattern for wrist warmers using this yarn and decided to give them a go for a quick knit. I loved how these turned out although I should have cast off slightly looser to allow them to be put on easier. When it come to the sewing up of these, I did a bit more homework on how to sew up properly and have at admit, they weren’t perfect but I was so much happier with the finished result, in fact the sewing up nearly looked invisible.

This third project was a bit more long term, something I have been picking up and setting down over a few months. I had been craving to use some Noro yarn, The blend of colours and natural fibres had been drawing me in. As I was a beginner knitter, I started off with a scarf, and boy I wasn’t disappointed. It is such an easy wool to knit with and leaves you intrigued on how the next row knit up is going to change the look. The part which left me feeling most nervous was when I came to casting it off I had to drop every 5th stitch. eek was all my work going to unravel away. The effect it give was brilliant although once again I should have cast it off more loosely. The picture below is the pattern I used. Don’t want to show you the actual scarf as I decided to hold off and give it to my friend for her birthday and I’m afraid she might be having a wee peek here and see it 😉

I know some of you were making some of your own gifts too. A lovely lady that comes to see me allow me to take a snap of a yummy scarf she knit for her son using our Louisa Harding yarn. Brian kindly posed for us. The feel of this yarn knit up is scrumptious. The blend of silk and wool is a real treat. Think this is something else I need to add to my project wish list.

If you are new to knitting, all of these projects are perfect for beginners and for getting you started!

Crochet-A-long

Introducing you to our Crochet-a-long

Crochet is something I never imagined I would get hooked on. Due to customer demand this was a craft I was introduced to. There was so many enquiries, I was on the hunt for someone who could teach this skill.

To be honest it was a non brainer. I have known Heather from high school, we were maths buddies, sitting at the back of the class, both of us pretty clueless most of the time. I had seen a lot of Heathers work at knew she would be the perfect woman for the job if she was up for it. I can’t tell you how thrilled I was when she was as excited as I was at the idea of having classes.

I love to pick up a bit of crochet, It is something that I loose myself in and find it such a rewarding craft and you see your results so quickly. There is something cheery about seeing the colour mix’s together. This is another reason why I am really looking forward to our crochet along as Heather has given me a sneeky peek of the idea of what she is looking to teach you and all I can say is its gorgeous!!

Im sure some of you have heard of a knit-a-long, if not you have definitely heard of a sing-a-long, well ERNI is hosting our first crochet-a-long. It’s very exciting!

So how does it work you may ask. Well the last Monday of Janurary (Monday 26^th January 2015 at 7pm- 9pm in Woodview Restaruant) we are having a night suitable for those of you who are beginners or who are a wee bit rusty and would like a refresher on some stitches before getting ready for the following weeks were Heather will be introducing you to lots of different stitches week by week that she has planned for you to create your own blanket, throw, cushion cover or a wrap. Whatever takes your fancy! I want love to do them all!

It is £4o for 10 weeks of if you don’t wish to come the first night, it is £36 for 9 weeks. You will be most welcome to come along for a night of Crochet and Chatter. Look forward to seeing you 🙂

(Please note, this is not an example of what you will be making, it is an image of one of Heathers past pieces)

Yesterday we teased you with a January Offer of our Stylecraft yarn . Today we have added to the offer the following Panels of fabric which were £6.50 each NOW £5 each and Christmas fabrics (100% cotton) where £6.50 0.5metre NOW £5 0.5metre. There is limited availability on some of the panels.

A New Beginning

We are back!! I hope you all had a lovely Christmas and Happy New Year.

Its great to be back with the batteries charged after what proved to be a well needed rest which consisted of lot of pyjamas days.

I knew I was well rested when my brain went into brainstorming mode again and I started conjuring up what NEW ideas and possibilities I could bring to ERNI this year, and also started reflecting on 2014’s opportunity which came my way all as a result of God’s grace to me.

There is something exciting about a new year, something about starting afresh. There is also things which have happened in the past hold you back and make you worry about the future and what it has instore. Whether at work or at home I like to place all in my Heavenly Father’s hand as I know he truly cares for and loves me and helps me through whatever each day may hold.

Only back to the shop and there is lots of cleaning, re-organising, moving things around, wedding enquiries and we are introducing JANUARY OFFERS. Our first item we have introduced to our January Offer line is one of your favourites…. Stylecraft dk, aran and chunky. Incase you didn’t know we stock the full colour bank of each, although some of the dk is low which we will be replenishing. It is normally £1.85 per ball. We are offering you 3 balls for £5. You can mix and match between the dk, aran and chunky if you wish. – This is the first day of the offer and its already proving to be going down a treat 🙂

Note to Remember:-

We are closed Mondays in Januray and Feburary only.

Opening Times for Christmas and New Year

I don’t know about you but I feel I am always a bit slow about getting geared up into the Christmas Spirit when comparing myselft to how organised other are.

For me it normally begins on the last Saturday in Novemeber and this year no doubt with be the same as I look forward to going to the light show with my family at the Georgian Day in Armagh and put up our Christmas tree with the children which is always fun.

This week we also turn on the Christmas music in the shop and get a delivery of our first bundles of spruce and begin to get jagged with holly as we begin our door and holly wreaths. Between the scents of the foliages and the sound of the music it definatley changes the atmosphere and things develop into being more festive.

Also keep a wee eye on our facebook page www.facebook.com/elizabethroseni where I hope to keep you posted on some Christmas designs we will be making up over the next month.

Here are our Opening Times for Christmas and the New Year

Monday 1st December – Tuesday 23rd December (9am to 5pm)

Wednesday 24th December (9am to 2pm)

Thursday 4th December late night opening (9.30am to 8.00pm)

Thursday 25th December through to Monday 5th January 2015 (CLOSED)

Tuesday 6th January (9am to 5pm)

Please Note we will be closed on MONDAYS throughout JANUARY and FEBRUARY

October Maker Gallery

Thank you to everyone who has popped by the shop to show me what you have been working on and allowing me to photograph it, and to all who have sent me pictures of your handywork. You know just how much I love seeing how all your creative ideas have come to life. You continually inspire me and this is why I have a desire to do this maker blog so that your work will be an inspiration to others too.

Please keep your pictures coming in. You can share them with me on facebook or email them to me info@elizabethroseni.com or just pop by the shop if you are in the area.

This month our maker gallery is full of lovely knit and crochet projects to tease you with.

Christine sent me this picture of this cosy hat she crochet for her wee boy. She crochet it using Stylecraft Chunky in Denim. If you haven’t been in the shop in a wee while. We now have the Stylecraft Chunky full colour bank at £1.85 per ball

Sharon send me these pic’s. She has been a busy wee woman this month. How cute are these hedgehogs she has made?!

This wee lady called by the shop this month wearing a balero cardi knit by her great granny. This is knit with Rico so soft print dk which we stock. We have it in 16 plain colours and 7 print shades. It is 100% acrylic but you would like this is silk in as it is incredibly soft, it anti pilling and washes like a ribbon.

Our lovely Margaret which modelled at our Yarn Shop Day was in one day showing me her knitted cardi’s and jackets she had knit using our fab dk print yarn. We have a good range of different colour prints of these in the shop at £3.20 a ball.

Margaret also put her hand to some crochet and made up her own pattern for this cotton dk print top. It is so soft. Will be very comfortable to wear.

Here is our lovely Heather showing us one of her crochet bobble blankets at our crochet class. She used Stylecraft dk which again we have the complete colour bank off.

Our crochet class takes place in Woodview Restaurant every Monday evening from 7-9pm and you will be very welcome 🙂

At beginning of last month Al and I had a great day out at our friends wedding. I had a dress hanging in the wardrope but just needed a little something to cover my back and shoulders. I only started knitting just before the summer. With all the sewing projects on the go, my aim was to complete them before starting to learn to knit.

All the lovely patterns coming in were teasing me. To be honest this isn’t the first project I started, I am 3/4 way through it at the minute and will hopefully have it at the casting off stage very soon, but this is the first project I have ever completed. It is a Louisa Harding pattern, knit with her Noema yarn. It only took two 50g balls to complete the project which was perfect considering I only had a week to knit it, so at 11pm the night before the wedding I was stitching up the arms and Voila!!

Again we have this in stock in 10 different prints and the stunning pattern book as well.

Above are just a few samples of some of the other yarns and patterns we have in the shop. Our suppliers sent us these just so you can see what how they knit up. Again we have differnt patterns and colour banks for each.

And last but not least here is our youngest maker taking a place in our maker gallery making some of his pompons whilst off school for his halloween holidays. He told me he is making them to decorate his Christmas tree. He is using the Stylecraft yarn from our shop and also the pompon makers from the shop also. Gone are the days of cardboard 🙂

Hope you all feel inspired!!

Unfortunately there are a number of these items we don’t have on our online shop. To be honest it is one end I do struggle with trying to keep updated. If there is anything you would like to see more off and can’t visit the shop, don’t hesitate to drop me a wee line and I will do by best to get that range put online so you can have a peek.

Have a great weekend!!

Charlene

Birthday Party Round Up

First of all I want to say a HUGE thank you to all who came to our party. I can hardly believe that a month has passed since we celebrated our first birthday. I want to sincerely thank everyone who came and made the day such a great success. It was so lovely see the support of our regulars and new faces as well.

In preparation for the day, we stripped most of the flowers from the shop and dedicated it all to the fabric yarn and haberdashery. I was so pleased with how the shop looked. It was lovely to see the shelves full to the brim. When I look back at the shelves this time last year, they looked so empty in comparison, its unreal how things have moved on!

I managed to get some photos before everyone arrived. For those of you who haven’t been to our shop before, this will give you a wee insight.

A friend made me this fabulous cake, isn’t it amazing. It was a real talking point on the day 🙂

The last year has been an amazing adventure and I couldn’t have got through none of it by myself. With Christ as my guide, He has given me so much help. Every single day holds numerous blessings.

Thanks again everyone! And thank you for bringing in your creations and showing them to me since the day. You know how much I love seeing them. Please feel free to share them with me on our facebook page/

Thankyou for sharing my creative journey with me!!

Its our 1st Birthday!!

Did you know that last month seen our first year as Elizabeth Rose NI (ERNI). I just can’t believe how fast it has went.

A year on and so much has happened at ERNI, we have grown so much, learned so much and met so many amazing and talented people. It is the cutomers who make a shop and I feel so blessed to have such a lovely bunch of people (family, friends and customers) who support me in many different ways, and been part of the journey with me.

Save the Date

I can’t let my first birthday without a PARTY, so on Saturday 20th September, we want to welcome you all to our party – all day!

Come by the shop for cake, offers and check out our New Autumn/Winter yarn range, and also to enter out super FREE PRIZE DRAW

This is all you have to do to enter…

Keep a wee eye out for our Party Invitations, they look like this

Keep it safe and bring it with you on the day. Let us know your name and email address, so we can get in touch with you and thats it. Easy Peasy.

So here is what you have a chance of winning with your invitation.

There are two £30 ERNI Gift vouchers up for grabs

Did you realise we now are the stockist of Simplicity Patterns? We are giving away this pattern from Simplicity by Patty Martin Designs for 10 different cushions to dress your home.

There is a bundle of 4 fun colours of Rico Cotton Aran in funky colours to knit or crochet your dish cloths.

We also have a bundle of 5 metalic print fat quarters for all you crafty or patchwork fans

Do you want to try your hand at a bit of dress making. Well you might have a chance to win this simplicity pattern for guys and gals pyjamas.

There is also a bundle of 6 fat quarters with a timeless paisley print and a couple of plains

And Last but not least, a bundle of six lovely pastel shades of Rico dk cotton.

I hope that you can join us for our celebrations and avail of our offers on the day – 10% discount off all fabric and yarn (including our new Autumn/Winter range)

If you belong to a craft group and would like some of our invitiations sent to you please send us an email to info@elizabethroseni.com with how many you would like and we will forward them your way.

Finally thank you all so much again for all your continued support over the year. I have really enjoyed hearing and seeing about all your makes and look forward to seeing more over the next year.

Charlene xx

Level 3 Patchwork Project

It has been soooo long from I give you an update, there has been so much happening. This post has been in the pipeline for quite some time now, to be honest it has taken a bit of courage as it has involved moi being infront of a camera. My hubby Al took these photos for me quite sometime ago, even with him taking them, I still felt embarrassed, as I felt so awkward and I don’t do posing, thats why you will notice I seemed to find it more comfortable looking AWAY from the camera.

So do you remember the bridesmaids dresses I made? Well as soon as I had them finished I had a 2 week deadline to get an piece finished and handed in for a level 3 patchwork class I was doing at tech.

I had to carry out a commercial brief, and make an item which incorporated at least 3 patchwork techniques, which all had to be linked to Armagh Planetarium/Oberservatory and backed up with a portfolio.

So off course I wanted to put my dressmaking into practice and make a dress. You know one of the most important things I learn’t about patchwork was “Patchwork is a technique, its how you apply it”. Most people would automatically think of a quilt when they think of patchwork but you can apply it to anything at all, a bag, a cushion etc etc.

I used a pattern which I had got one time for the sew magazine, but when beginning to plan the design of the dress out in my head I realised it just wasn’t exactly right but would be a good enough template to work from and a wee challenge on trying to adapt a pattern.

I made the dress from Michael Miller fabric, buttons and trims which I stock in the shop. I also recycled fabric for the side panels and front of the skirt from a skirt I had. I will try and upload the michael miller fabric onto the shop sometime by the weekend.

I took the pleats in the pattern out of the skirt so I could get the effect of my patchpocket and I thought I extra strip added down in the centre back seam and a piece added into the front of the skirt at a shorter length would be a nice wee bit of interest. I also decided to make a big flower with lots of tails using random scraps of fabric and embroidery thread that my mum in law give them which I crochet a chain stitch

For the neck of the dress I got scraps of fabric and done it in crazy patchwork and added a couple of butterflies to it which I wanted 3D

Whilst doing this project I though I would love to give a bit of fabric painting ago, when asking around, anyone that I spoke to that done it had used acrylic paint, although it made the fabric hard when dried, which I didn’t want. So after a bit of research on google I found dylon paint was going to do my job.

I haven’t done any proper painting since I dont my GCSE’s over 13 years ago, and I really did surpirse myself on how it came back to me. As the dress was reflecting the gardens at the Planetarium and Observatory, I decided to paint a bird on the bodice of it. I got so excited with a paint brush in my hand I painted on some swirls linking my hexagon flowers together. I really do feel this bit of handpainting put my own stamp on it.

I made a wee patch pocket on the skirt of the dress, put a lace zip in the back of the dress which we also stock in the shop and I used a ribbon trimming to section of the the flying geese patchwork and the bottom of the dress before edging it with a lace effect bias binding.

I really did enjoy designing and making this dress and have to say the cotton is lovely and soft which has made it very comfortable to wear. Oh and guess what…. I passed!! Whoohoo so I was definately well chuffed 🙂

Sew….what have I been up too??

So im sure you folks have all had this question on your mind at some point “This girl talks about her love for sewing but we haven’t seen much of it yet”

Well first I am trying to take that step in confidence of showing it to you and secondily I have been doing sew much sewing from the start of the year I don’t know how my wee machine has held out, so much so that over the last couple of weeks myself and the machinge need a well needed no stitch week to get recharged for the next project

sew… what have i been up too??

well… over year ago i agreed to a dear firend to make her bridamiads dresses for her big day – my biggest undertaking to date. inbetween times i decided to do my level 3 in patchwork, begin crochet workshops and my friends sister got married which I altered her bridesmids dresses and all became a tad manic.

But when you think you have a year to make three dresses and do a level 3 fianal piece you thing sure thats loads of time emmm… not when your working, have chrismas in the middle of it and have 3 small children, but i couldnt have accomplished any of it only for my extreamly patient and supportive husband.

So back to sharon. Well sharon chose her own fabric and pattern and brought it to me and all I had to do was make it, thats all :/ They chose a beautiful taffeta along with a ivory chiffon, which I have to say is such a challenging fabric to work with.

I never imagined I wouldn have found the responsility of having someone elses fabric so daunting and then i had to cut it aaahhh.

It was all totally worth it. It was a great learning experience and I think they turned out just as sharon wanted. I’m pleased how well they came together.

I want to thank sharon and her lovely bridesmaids for their patience and most of all their trust in me!

And to Sharon and Richard for a great family day at their wedding 🙂

We managed to get our first ever family photo, even though its a bit over the place.

And our little people had a blast.

Yarn Shop Day Captured

First of all I want to say a massive thank you to all who came to Yarn Shop Day and helped make it such a great day, there was a buzz of activity the whole day with lots of local apple juice and homemade apple creams served all day. I was so grateful to a friend of mine Michael who came along to capture some of what we got up to during the day.

Now I would like you to meet Heather. Heather has been a great support behind the scenes over the last number of within Elizabeth Rose NI, I was so pleased when she agreed to be apart of Yarn Shop Day and carry out our workshop on the day for us.

We also had 3 pens of sheep which alot of work was putting into by Jordan for making it all come together, and some of them were his own Jacobs sheep.

How lovely are these photos of wee Leah, Leah knew how to crochet (how great is that) but she didn’t know how to knit so Heather was on hand to show her some of the stitches to get her started.

On the day we had a Knit your own Sparkle Mouse workshop. This wee character was designed exclusively for Yarn Shop Day.

On the day we also had a wee fashion show with some knit garments kindly sent in from Stylecraft, Coats and Debbie Bliss, and Designer Yarns, also some were knit by our customers

Jordan’s sister Lucy modelled some clothes, hats and scarves for us.

Our super talented knitter Margaret modelled some of her tops she knit with our Rico wool which were a big talking point

Rosie and a few outfits

We also had an exhibition of some of our customers knitted and crochet work…………isn’t it super!! – This is just a taster of some of it

Oh and I just remembered – we managed to get Brian into one of Debbie Bliss Jumpers and Heather Crochet Mitts – Doesn’t he look the part? lol

We also had some yarn tasting – This was an opportunity for folk to knit up some yarns that they wanted to give a wee try first, we had lots of Debbie Bliss, Designer Yarns, Rico and Stylecraft to have a wee try at

Here a a few images of some of the other fashion we had modelled on the day which we stock both the patterns and yarn for:

This is another that we had for wee Isaac to model or as he called it “doing the wiggle” but he chickened out and was hiding in a pot somewhere. We stock the yarn and pattern for this aswell

This is a wee cardigan Rosie wore that her Great Granny knit for her. This is one of her own patterns using Elizabeth Rose NI yarn and buttons

And last of all this final wee dress, another one Rosie wore (she was a busy wee girl) is by designer yarns, we don’t have the pattern but we do stock a range of colours in the yarn it is knit up in

Hope this has given you an insight into all our going’s on on Yarn Shop Day

Must apologise that this post is a bit over the place, It hasn’t been co-operating at all. We are on border line of falling out.

Thank you again everyone for your continued support.

Charlene x