Im Lilia, the lady behind Liliacraftparty and this is my story. I grew up watching my grandmother and aunt knit, I always liked crafts, embroidery, knitting, sewing and drawing too and I learned to knit from them and from school, in my 20s I started knitting for me, cardigans and sweaters.

My life has not been easy at all, I can say that I have immigrated 2 times, once to USA and the second time to Italy where I currently live, many years I did not touch needles, yarn and I forget completely about knitting, now I realize that I should have started before! When I came to live in Italy I started an online business selling handbags, after a while it became a women accessories boutique and among the products I had a knitted hat, one day a customer sent me an email and asked me a question, do you have the knitting pattern for that cute hat? That was my first written knitting pattern and one of the most popular, it is Claire Hat, a lovely newsboy brim hat for girls and women. I started knitting again and my passion was reborn but this time to stay with me, keeping me company all the time

People started asking for more knitting and crochet patterns and I thought wow, it’s actually possible to make money with my passion. So I took my knitting and crochet much more seriously, since then I have not stopped knitting and writing patterns and that is how my brand Liliacraftparty was born.

But managing an online boutique and knitting and writing patterns full time was extremely overwhelmed and exhausted, so I decided to close the online boutique but keep my handbags but I made a little change, I designed a bag especially to carry knitting and crochet projects, widely accepted by the knitting community, Lilia Vanini Knitting Project Bags are popular, comfortable and durable, as I use the best fabrics from USA and Italy.

Then an idea came to my head, why not unite my cultures, I was born and raised in Peru, where a word in Quechua “lliclla” means the maximum love and protection that can be  for our little children, since this beautiful and colorful fabric is used by Andean women to carry their babies, our knitting and crochet projects is for us, the knitters, like a baby that is growing, we protect, care and treasure it, and that is why I created this exclusive line of Knitting Projects Bags for Liliacraftparty Brand, called Andina Bags.

The beginnings are always difficult and more with the constant changes on Instagram, Facebook and others, but I think that when you do things with your heart, in the end everything works out well.

Working so hard I decided to grow audience on other platforms Pinterests started bringing me traffic to my Etsy store. Twitter, Facebook and YouTube, have been of great help, especially YouTube where many of my clients go directly after having bought a pattern to learn the techniques or stitches used, directly watching a video in the comfort of their own homes.

Then the Hand Dyed Yarn came, I began to study how to hand dyed yarn, I loved the process from the beginning, I find it super relaxing to combine colors, measurements, recipes, see the results and even more wonderful is knitting with my own Hand Dyed Yarn, Liliacraftparty Yarns has had a great reception and as example Autumn Fades Shawl was Pattern Of The Month in UK in November 2020, LoveCrafts sponsored the contest and the voting, a great satisfaction for me and very grateful also to my audience, friends and clients, you can get your Autumn Fades Yarn Kit too. You can see all colorways and yarn weights from Liliacraftparty Yarns on this website and Im adding more as I knit more designs with my yarn, this way I can offer Kits where you can knit with the exact colorway if you wish, or choose other pretty colors

I like making educational articles and tutorials for my audience, for that reason I created a special section, I called “My Stitches Database“, I will add more and more stitches, each one will have step by step instructions and video if is possible, why Im doing this? I think is very important to have this handy because this way you can choose, play and test different stitches for your projects, the thing is that this list of stitches are not the ones you find easily, most of them are secret, almost lost or hard to find or translate to english, so this is for you, for all my audience, a gift from Liliacraftparty

I also love to talk about the benefits of doing repetitive work, as knitting and crochet, many do not know that it lowers blood pressure and allows you to relax emotionally by forgetting many of the problems of daily life. Also through repetition somehow it creates a connection with the universe, remember that prayer is done in a repetitive and relaxed way, I have always believed that knitting is somehow a form of prayer and that is beautiful!

I’m so grateful that I can do what I love and hope I can do that for a very long time. I design knitting and crochet patterns with modern designs and classic shapes, focusing on wearability and detail, my patterns are made thinking in all beginners that want to learn to knit and crochet, my goal is to create pretty designs to wear all seasons and to make knitting and crochet just a pleasure and relax moment for you, so let´s knit something beautiful for you and your loves ones!.

Find Lilia’s work also on Etsy and Ravelry!
If you need to contact me, please link to my CONTACT PAGE