I love being a craft-a-holic!

My name is Tash and i'm a craft-a-holic!

There, I've confessed! Your turn! :p


I've been a busy bee these past few days immersing myself into various little projects! Nevermind the housework or the cooking or the taking care of my sick husband...actually that's not entirely true, I have been taking care of my sick husband but the housework and cooking duties have suffered. I needed to do the important stuff first!

So let's see, what have I been up to? Well, I started making granny squares for a blanket Im making for my grandmother to send to her this winter. I have to say I now fully appreciate the time and effort that goes into these things!! I'm not a particularly fast crocheter...you know, not one of those people who you can sit and watch and a blanket magically appears growing inch by inch every second...nope that is definately not me! I can't predict how long it will take me to finish, but I enjoy the process.

So far I've joined enough squares to get the width of the blanket i'd like, and now it's just a matter of crocheting my little heart out! It's a fantastic evening after-dinner (provided I've actually cooked some) activity as I find it very relaxing. It's a gorgeous mint green and chocolate brown colour combo, intended to be a small throw for my grandmothers couch. Granny squares are suprisingly quick and simple! It's the sewing of all the loose ends in that is the time consuming part. I will hopefully have it done by the end of autumn! (fingers crossed!)

I've also found myself getting back into the groove of painting recently! To be honest I haven't picked up my paint brush in almost a year then all of a sudden I have completed water colour paintings in front of me! In following with my 'Journey of Autumn' series I thought I'd be inspired by the colours of the seasons and do some themed artworks. I suprised myself with what I was able to do, after so long I worried I'd lost the skill but all I needed was the right inspiration and some soothing background music and look what happened...

Very rarely do I actually share my artworks with anyone, but this time I decided to post a photo of one of my paintings in an online group, and the amazing ladies (and lads!) were just so supportive and kind towards it that I was inspired to open a business page of Facebook for my art! It feels amazing to finally be able to share my artworks with the world after so long of being told I should! They may sell, they might not, the point is just that you have to get your name out there somehow through crook or through nook, and as far as I am concerned, as long as someone, just one person, is seeing them, regarding them and appreciating them I will be happy. At the very least, with the closing down of my craft shop I am well prepared to tackle Facebook business pages again. It can be extremely competitive, people try to bring you down, and you fight for your place to be recognised. Not this time! This time I've learnt enough to know that my art will ALWAYS come first, and that I do it for the love and joy of it and not for the sake of anyone else. What I will always remember is that whilst you may not feel that you are making impact, you may feel that you aren't as good as the people around you, you do what you do because of who you are. If you stick with it, through thick and thin then you will come out the otherside and all of a sudden realise how appreciated what you do is, and that you have created your very own niche, just for you that no one else can take away from you.

My busy bee creations didn't stop there though! I whipped up this fun bright red 'Lil Devil' earflap beanie for a friend of mine who is going through a rough patch at the moment, I thought it would cheer her up a little.

Then went to the park with the hubby one afternoon to play around with some late afternoon photography for Part Four of my 'Journey of Autumn' series...I guess I could give you a little sneak peak :p Part Four is due to be published this Saturday and there are some amazing photographs as we get further into the season!

I crocheted myself a hat in one of my favourite colours to match my cardigan...

and made my first own design patter crochet beret tutorial and on top of all that, yesterday I made my first dress with the most adorable cherry patterned fabric I have ever seen! It was so rockabilly, it was so vintage, it was so beautiful and it just absolutely had to come home with me to be turned into a dress!

I had no pattern but the concept of a pillowcase dress seemed simple enough! Not entirely so... I ended up the first time round making the armholes MUCH too big! I sat for a while pondering how to fix it and eventually deducted that the easiest way would be to cut about 4 inches off the top of the dress and re-sew the tie in...solved the problem perfectly! It is really just 2 x 2m wide pieces of fabric sewn together with armholes cut into it and hemmed, which when you add the underbust belt gives the dress that nice flair at the bottom! It is essentially a traditional pillowcase dress, I just chose to use a stiffer fabric instead of something flowing as I am very curvy and didn't want anything that would cling to my lumpy bits! And I am a big fan of vintage AND I love cherries so this turned out perfectly! It will be my birthday dress for next Saturday (my birthday falls on Easter Saturday this year!) so now all I have to work out is what kind of vintage hair do to go with it and a headband with my remaining fabric.

It really was a very simple dress to make! I am working on a tutorial for it the same way I made mine so keep an eye out for that one!

Naturally to find inspiration for accessories and hair dos I went on another Pinterest Peruse!

Source: 50s-style-wedding.blogspot.com via Laura on Pinterest

Source: google.com.au via Tash on Pinterest

Source: google.com.au via Tash on Pinterest

Source: wanelo.com via Kristel on Pinterest

The only thing is that on top of all this craftiness that will continue to happen over the next week we are expecting visitors at the same time in our tiny unit! I guess my house-wife duties will have to kick back in at some point! We have a friend staying with us a few days this week, family staying with us over Easter and after that another family member coming to visit for a few days after that! Busy busy busy! I was also hoping to get a few sketches in aswell, but that might have to wait!