Kat's Craft

Happy New Year!

I have some exciting news! I’ve finally managed to move my blog to a new platform. While I have loved how simple tumblr is to use, I’ve found that it’s not very easy to search, or for people to comment (and I’d love to know what you think).

I’m now blogging over at http://craftaholickat.blogspot.com.au/. I hope you’ll swing by and say hello.

I hope 2017 brings you lots of crafty joy.

Just a quick post to share some sewing projects made for friends and family this Christmas. 

The first is a Kris Kringle swap gift I made for Lizzy, a fellow member of the ARTastic design team. I made her a mini Christmas stocking and embroidered her name on the cuff. I filled the stocking with some scrapbooking embellishments and sent them with a cross stitch card.

The second lot of stockings were made for my brother and his little guy. For this pair I created patchwork panels and quilted them before turning them into stockings. I added the names by appliqueing some letters cut from red felt.

The last set was made for my sister’s family. I made these in a similar way to the previous two, except I used a single print for each stocking panel and practiced different free-motion quilting designs.

Hopefully next year I will get around to making some for my family :)

Merry Christmas! 

Earlier this year I joined in second edition of #getyouraussiequiltywishgranted - an Instagram ‘swap’ where you post your quilty wish and pay it forward by granting the wishes of other quilters. This year I wished for some scraps from the Cotton and Steel Tinsel collection (last year’s Christmas collection) so that I could make a scrappy C+S Christmas quilt.

I was lucky to receive several prints from some lovely ladies and found a few more in some online quilt stores. I cut them into 4.5″ squares, along my FQ bundle of the Garland collection and some matching C+S basics.

Because I was cutting it fine I opted for a simple pattern; alternating 9 patches and star blocks. Each 9 patch block finished at 12 inches and I used 36 blocks so the whole quilt was 72″ square (which is a good size for our double bed).

I manged to get it basted and quilted on Christmas Eve and spent a very relaxing Christmas day on the couch with my family, hand sewing the binding on while we watched back-to-back Disney movies.

Today we took it into Melbourne CBD for a few photos at Christmas land.

I’m happy with how it turned out - so bright and colourful and perfect for the festive season. We’ll probably keep it out for a few more weeks before we pack down the Christmas stuff so it will get plenty of use.

Wishing everyone a fabulous festive season filled with good food and great company. I hope all of your Christmas wishes came true.

I’m linking up with the December edition of Scraptastic Tuesday and sharing an idea for using even the smallest scraps.

A couple of weeks ago my son and I spent a lovely evening giving some scabby old plastic baubles a new lease on life by covering them with some scraps of fabric. For these we used Tula Pink scraps from making my Tula Pink City Sampler blocks.

We got the best results when we trimmed the edges of the scraps with pinking shears and applied the Mod Podge liberally. It was such a messy project but lots of fun!

For a whole lot more scrapbusting ideas be sure to check out all the fun projects in the linky party.

Today’s Sunday Stash is bought to you by my train-loving little man. Rupert loves to raid the Special Buys FQs at Spotlight just as much as I do. He spotted these Thomas the Tank Engine prints before I did and they had to come home with us. 

I'm hoping to turn them into an #hourbasket for his toys. 

I can't wait for the day when he is old enough to learn to sew

The December mid-month reveal is now up on the ARTastic Challenge Blog. This month we are working with Neighbourhood by Lisa Frances Judd and the criteria “Home”.

I took inspiration from the rows of houses, the colours, wavy lines and 'home' theme. I've scrapped an advertisement flyer of our first home that I kept from our first inspection.

We’ve done a bit of renovating over the 7.5 years that we have lived here so it was fun to take a trip down memory lane and document what it was like when we first moved in.

I hope you can join in and create something about your home.

A couple of weeks ago my little nephew celebrated his first birthday. I decided to make him a bucket bag from the Bag Making Basics Craftsy class with Kristan Link.

I made an almost identical bag for my son a few years ago and he still takes it to hinder every day. Woody and Buzz also approve.

It’s a fabulous bag for toddlers - easy to carry, nice and roomy on the inside with extra pockets on the outside.

The only variation I made to the pattern was to applique his name to the pocket panel with felt letters.

I’m linking up with the Elm Street Quilts Bag It sew-a-long linky party. So many fabulous bags to be inspired by.

Don’t fall over, but I’m posting my Sunday Stash share on a Sunday! This week I had a box of fabulous fabric arrive from Hawthorne Threads. 

I caved in the Black Friday sales last month and put in a big order, mostly for some older Cotton and Steel prints that I didn’t already have in my collection (including some 5 yard pieces for backing) and a few other goodies I’ll save for another time.

Today I also picked up this cute little hanging shelf from the Reject Shop. I think its perfect for displaying new fabric acquisitions.

I’m in the middle of some frantic Christmas sewing at the moment so these will probably go straight into the stash until next year (where I’ll probably start another 10 new projects).

If you’ve got some spare time to scrap this weekend I highly recommend giving the SBT50 December challenge a go. This month we have a stunning mood board to play along with:

You can be inspired any way you like! 

For my DT example I made a set of Christmas cards picking up the colours, shapes and textures in the mood board.

I used the Kaisercraft ‘Home for Christmas’ collection along with a few bits and pieces from my stash.

How cute is that snowman button?

I can’t resist a patchwork-style card.

We hope you will join in. Head over the the SBT50 blog for all the details and more DT inspiration.

I just realised that I had forgotten to share a quilted advent calendar that I finished just in time for December 1. I’ve never really gotten into the Advent Calendar tradition but my little man loves numbers so I thought it would be fun to give it a go and build some excitement leading up to Christmas.

I’d found a number of online tutorials for Advent Calendars but most of them involved using applique to add the numbers - something I didn't have time for because I had left it a bit too late.  I thought it would be quicker to use a fabric marker and a stencil to draw the numbers on white hexies, and then machine stitch the hexies on the front of the pockets. 

It was really pleased with how it worked out. I managed to finish it early on December 1, just in time to fill it with small presents before my son woke up.

I’m really enjoying this new tradition and will definitely continue it next year. Though I might make another one with slightly bigger pockets :)

For this week’s Sunday Stash I’m sharing my haul from the first of three Spotlight visits. Like many other Aussies I received a coupon for $40 off a transaction of $100 or more. Normally I’d be in store in a flash but I was feeling a bit broke after my Black Friday spending (more on that next week). I resisted temptation until Sunday but then I caved and hit up the Carnegie store. I’m so glad I went because I hit the FQ jackpot!

My first find was some fat quarters from the Brush Strokes collection by Cloud 9. I’d seen this collection in online US stores but hadn’t seen it anywhere to buy in Australia. I’d never have thought I would find it at Spotlight!

I also found some stellar rainbow prints from the Cloud 9 We Are All Stars collection. I managed to find all but one of the colours in the range.

I also picked up some cool tone on tone cross hatch prints. I’m not sure what collection they are from but I like them.

Needless to say I then went on a mission to two other stores to see what else they had. I found another 8 prints from the Brush Strokes collections, some more cross hatch prints and a whole lot of other lovely Cloud 9 prints. 

Luckily for my husband (a.k.a. driver) it was the last day of the catalogue sale :)

The details of the December 123 challenge are now up on the 123 Challenge Blog. This month the challenge is to create a layout featuring silver (colour), believe (word) and layers (technique).

I used the Kaisercraft Fosted collection to scrap some pics of my little man having a blast in a giant snow dome last year.

I layered lots of papers behind the photos, including papers with the word ‘believe’ in various places.

I embellished with some coordinating die cuts, wood veneers I coloured with embossing powder than contains silver glitter and some silver sequins.

Head over to the 123 Challenge blog for all the details and more design team inspiration. We hope you can play along.

Just a quick post to share my Sunday Stash acquisition for last week: A fat quarter bundle of the Garland collection by Cotton + Steel that I picked up as an early Christmas present for myself.

I just love these colours. Let the frantic festive sewing begin!

Wow! I can’t believe I managed to sew and post 100 blocks in 100 days.

For the past couple of months I have been sewing along with Angie (of Gnome Angel), Lisa (of Sweet Little Pretties) and Raylee (of Sunflower Quilting) for a Tula Pink City Sampler Instagram sew-along.  The aim of this sew-along was to sew a block a day for 100 days starting on 17 August. I made it to the finish line last week and thought I would share my 100 blocks. I used all Tula Pink prints from her Acacia, Elizabeth, Eden, Moonshine, Foxfield, True Colors and Slow & Steady collections.

Blocks 1-25

Blocks 26-50

Blocks 51-75

Blocks 76-100

And here they are all together.

I had a great time sewing along with hundreds of other people and am already missing seeing all the pretty block posts each day. I’m hoping I can get these blocks turned into a quilt sometime soon.

Once again I’m a few days late with blogging my Sunday Stash share for the week. This week I have a good excuse - I’ve been away on holiday at Hamilton Island.

This week I’m sharing my very first Aurifil thread box. I picked up these pretties from Southern Fabric in a recent sale. Until recently I’ve only used Gutterman thread (mostly because it was the best of what was available at Spotlight and is often on sale) but I bought a couple of spools in the US earlier this year and became hooked!

Since they had already traveled halfway around the world to get to me I thought they could come a little further and join me at the Great Barrier Reef.

How stunning are these colours! Almost as pretty as the fish and coral under the water.

I’ve been saving my craft dollars in the hope of making some more additions to my stash in the upcoming Black Friday sales. I’m looking forward to seeing everyone else’s haul too :)

Today I’m sharing some Christmas cards that I made for the Scrapbook Boutique November mood board challenge.

I love the non-traditional Christmas colours in this mood board! I was inspired by the bright colours, baubles and Christmas trees to make some cute Christmas cards for some even cuter kids :)

For the first card I was inspired by middle-bottom image and used sequins to represent twinkling lights on a Christmas tree made with fringed paper.

For this one I was inspired by the blue and lime green colours and baubles and made a card featuring bells and beads strung on twine.

The pink and purple baubles inspired this card, which features a rhinestone bauble sticker.

I thought a slider card would be fun too.

I used some bauble, reindeer and snowflake shaped sequins in this shaker card.

For the last card I raided my collection of green buttons to make a button tree.

I’m pretty impressed with the fact that I’ve managed to make some Christmas cards before December.  Hopefully I can fit in a few more before the end of the month.

I’m a few days late posting my Sunday stash, but better late than never, right?

This week’s new additions to my stash are 55 different Denyse Schmidt prints from the Florence, Ansonia Hadley and Shelburne Falls collections. 

I picked up these pretties from Craft Depot in their last sale (I think they are even cheaper now). I’m thinking these would be great to use in a scrappy sampler quilt next year. 

I’m linking up with #SSwithMS and about to go and drool over everyone else’s new fabric aquisitions :)