Crocheted bunny - photo by ellipseOkay, so that’s a lame song-lyric pun, but you try com­ing up with some­thing wit­ti­er when you’ve just spent 48 hours chained up in fluffy hand­cuffs and you’re writ­ing a post about a craft fair called “Craftwerk”. Since this is from the peo­ple who brought you Bitch­Craft, it’s not the usu­al raf­fia mafia and dodgy doilies: expect more along the lines of Cleav­age Girls but­tons, knit­ted posters for Dis­as­tera­dio, self-pub­lished ‘zines and ted­dies with entrails. Yum­my.

I could try rewrit­ing the press release, but my brain is still busy recaf­feinat­ing, and besides, I have to get the can­dle­wax and lip­stick off my tux. So, here’s the press release in its entire­ty.

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CraftWerk is a bi-month­ly craft fair fea­tur­ing the best and bright­est of the Welling­ton craft scene. The inau­gur­al CraftWerk launch­es at The Para­mount The­atre on the 13th of July from 5.30pm.

CraftWerk will fea­ture a diverse range of: art, hand­made items, and indie design­er fash­ion, rep­re­sent­ing New Zealand’s hand­made rev­o­lu­tion. What sets CraftWerk apart from any oth­er fair is our inten­tion to fos­ter and inspire kiwi crafters with­out prof­it­ing at their expense. Sim­ply think tra­di­tion­al fairs with a twist and you have CraftWerk.

The Para­mount The­atre Welling­ton’s old­est Cin­e­ma and now its hottest events venue is where CraftWerk calls home. The Para­moun­t’s lounge bar is stocked with a wide range of beers and wines as well as soft drinks, snacks and Kapi­ti ice-cream. This relax­ing atmos­phere, in the mid­dle of Welling­ton’s hub of enter­tain­ment and nightlife, Courte­nay Place, allows ven­dors and shop­pers alike a break from the bus­tle and a chance to absorb the CraftWerk expe­ri­ence.

Right now CraftWerk is accept­ing appli­ca­tions for ven­dors. Appli­ca­tion details can be locat­ed at www.craftwerk.co.nz, or by email­ing us. There is no charge for apply­ing; our only pre-req­ui­site is that every­thing ven­dors sell is hand­made and com­ing from the bot­tom of their crafty heart.

Unlike tra­di­tion­al fairs CraftWerk sup­plies ven­dors with a table, chair and a pri­vate mail­ing list to share tips, tricks or a crafty shoul­der to cry on when the cat turns your wool col­lec­tion into a bed. Addi­tion­al­ly if CraftWerk man­ages to obtain spon­sor­ship we plan to refund every Ven­dor a third of their appli­ca­tion fee on the night. Yes, yet anoth­er thing which makes CraftWerk dif­fer­ent from every oth­er fair or mar­ket in New Zealand.

CraftWerk only accepts ven­dors with hand­made items. So don’t expect any import­ed sec­ond class cre­ations or junk from your Nana’s Hat Box. Unless it’s a very styl­ish Hat Box in which case it’s prob­a­bly been con­vert­ed into a bag. So get your Craft On and be at the Para­mount The­atre for a night of Craft on July 13th from 5.30pm

CraftWerk is organ­ised (for love and not for prof­it) by ded­i­cat­ed crafters Heather Barnes and Sue Tyler. Heather was the genius mind behind Bitch­Craft and Sue one of the Crafters. Held twice in 2005 Bitch­Craft was a smash­ing suc­cess. In fact, most ven­dors had only two com­plaints: there were too many bod­ies and they sold out of mer­chan­dise! Not a bad prob­lem to have if you’re a ven­dor! Ven­dors and shop­pers told us that Bitch­Craft was the BEST fair they had ever attend­ed.

Both Sue and Heather are avail­able for inter­views to dis­cuss CraftWerk, the ris­ing craft rev­o­lu­tion, craft demon­stra­tions and any­thing else craft relat­ed. The only prob­lem might be get­ting them to stop talk­ing.

For more infor­ma­tion — vis­it www.craftwerk.co.nz or Email: craft@craftwerk.co.nz.