Merry and Christmas

To Celebrate the festive season... and just cause it was a great reason to get the machine out and stir up the creative sewing fire, Sarah and I decided to make costumes to wear out to the pub.

We were santa's helpers...Merry and Christmas...Puffy white shirts, red and green satin and lots of tulle later we were very impressed with the results... and so it seemed was everyone at the pub!

I am finding sewing a very rewarding past time... I love the feeling I get when I look in my cupboard and see the things I have created... it is very rewarding for my spirit.

Future Goal: I would really love to learn to draft my own patterns... then there'll be no stopping me!

Mad Hatter

My cousin Shannon has been invited to a party and asked me to help her make a mad hatters hat... so we got out my stash of material and picked through it to find all the materials she liked. Using some wadding I had left over from a patchwork quilt as a base we started to sew. Shannon cut out the patches and I sewed them on one by on with no forward planning....
Turned out so well, I made a bow tie to go with it... she was really happy and excited to be able to wear it to the party.

Dusting of the Machine….

I haven’t touched my sewing machine since early June last, when we made our costumes for Maryborough's Worlds Greatest Australian Pub Crawl 2009.

2009 Worlds Greatest Pub Crawl- Maryborough 

Going with the flow of the creative journey I’m on, I decided that Halloween was the perfect excuse to dust of my machine and get back into another of the creative activities that I enjoy... sewing!

This costume was inspired by the ideas we have had for next years pub crawl. I purchased the corset about 6 weeks ago, just cause I loved it and I could. I’ve been waiting for an opportunity to wear it since then. So I had the top, I just needed a skirt!

I made the skirt out of satin and tulle. Well actually if you want to get technical it’s a pair of shorts with a 3 layer tulle skirt over top...

I was very impressed with how it turned out. The pattern I used for the shorts, I just left out the zip and pockets. Then of course…I added 3 gathered layers of tulle and put on an elastic waist band.

I quickly whipped up the tail, which is made out of 2 layers of material with some wadding in between, overlocked in the shape of an arrow. I tacked it on to the back of the shorts (so I can use the skirt for other purposes), got some horns which I painted pink to match and there you have it...… A sexy Devils costume.

My Devils Tail

I got a great response for this costume!

My Creative Foot Print

At the moment my life is all about trying new things and creating my own path forward. I have had a great start on my creative journey and attending my second creative journaling workshop with Nic Hohn has kept me looking forward and has allowed me to let go of “ideas” that I have held on to for a really long time. leading to my beginning to feel like I deserve to have every thing I could wish for...

Learning new techniques and renewing my love for all things messy was wonderful, I got to paint my own feet and throw paint covered sponges at my journal pages. I just want more, so I am saying welcome back to the CREATIVE KATE.

This is my Splat girl... I think she’s telling me something I already know and she know it! I deserve...

My Splat Girl

Creative Journaling- just the beginning

I have always loved to do all manner of what my mum calls “arty farty” things… particularly drawing, sewing, quilting, and scrap booking… really anything that I don’t have to think about, things that I can feel. Doing these things always relaxes me and it is one of the few I am really proud of, but showing my inner self to the world has always been very frightening to me, so I’d chosen not too do it….

After having my world crash down around me… or maybe rising up to see the destruction I allowed to happen all around me, becoming a single mother with 3 children, finishing my teaching degree and getting a contract in my dream job, and being so depressed I couldn’t walk out of my front door without having a mild panic attack… I have started to find my creativity again.

I met Anne-Maree Byrne at a workshop on Neuro Linguistic Programming Workshop. She helped me to change the way think about a few things and re-program my thoughts… so I guess this was the very beginning of the process.

Several weeks later, after spending 3 days, felling totally miserable and wondering what it was that was missing from my life, I got an e-mail from Anne-Maree about a Creative Journaling Workshop run by Nic Hohn. Nic is an amazing mixed media artist, an amazing woman. The essence of the workshop was about finding out a little more about "Who I am". It was exactly what I needed… to spend time with amazing, creative, caring, supportive women who won’t judge me, and explore who I am. Such an amazing experience. I haven’t opened up that much or that easily ever, and not feared the outcome of doing so.

I did great work...