Introducing Catherine from Kitty Candy Creations. Where every item is handmade!! From her home near the foothills in the Dandenong Ranges, Victoria, Catherine hand crochets and knits all of her gorgeous creations.
Find out why Catherine started creating and why she is so passionate about the value of handmade.
Tell us about your creations and your handmade process.
I love crocheting and knitting, especially little toys. I no longer have any little ones to make things for so I decided to set up my MadeIt store and sell the items I started making a couple of years ago. I started off my store knitting little toys and adult beanies in wool and acrylics but then I discovered the beauty and sustainability of cotton so I began crocheting toys and knitting baby clothing items in cotton - organic when I can source it.
As a parent of a child with chronic eczema, I understand the importance of having a soft, natural yarn in items that contact the skin.
As a bonus, cotton is quite durable. Knitting and crocheting are very time-consuming crafts; it can take around 10 hours for me to make one of my larger toys like 'Crochet Toy Rabbit' and 'Crochet Toy Sheep' so they really are made with love and patience.
I have a beautiful collection of cotton yarns (which I think is a hobby in itself!) and I just love working out which colours to choose to make my particular products. My hope is that people will see and feel the authenticity, love and luxuriousness of my handmade items and appreciate how special they are in comparison to mass produced factory products that might not be made with the high-quality materials that I like to use.
Tell us a bit about your journey to becoming a handmade artist.
I was wanting to find a new hobby as I approached the big 5-0 because spending hours in the garden was becoming a little less appealing and accessible to me with all my newfound aches and pains that come with age. I had been knitting Trauma Teddies for the Red Cross for a while but was getting bored with having to follow the exact same pattern every single time.
So, I started making a few other items just for the fun of it but I got to the point of realising I can't just store stuff, it needs to go somewhere, and so my hobby store, Kitty Candy Creations, was born. (See the About section in my store to find out where my store name originated from).
What is your inspiration or where do you find inspiration?
I am inspired by all the amazing handcrafted products I see in MadeIt and beyond, and create products that I wish I could have given to my own children when they were little. I absolutely adore handmade toys and baby clothes and wish I had invested more time in making these for my own babies but that's hard when you have little ones; there's not much spare time!
I really love the trend of earthy, natural colours so a lot of my range has been designed with that in mind. Natural colours and soft pastel hues have a beautiful yet simplistic, minimalist vibe about them and, I feel, have a calming effect.
Where did you learn your craft?
I think I first started knitting when I was in primary school in about Year 4. I remember we had a knitting club and I knitted a pale blue shawl in soft, chunky yarn with large, red plastic needles. I was amazed at how quickly it knitted up. What I didn't know at the time was that my mum jumped in and knitted a few rows here and there at night after I'd gone to bed!
Both my mum and nana were knitters. Nana used to make items for the hospital and Mum used to make loads of things to sell at craft markets. I started making a few things too and went along with her in my teenage years. I have fond memories of those times spent with my mum. It was nice to share a hobby together. I didn't learn to crochet until I was almost 20.
I think it was my boyfriend's mum who taught me as I was knitting a cardigan with crocheted sleeves. That was the only thing I crocheted back then. I didn't re-learn it until a couple of years ago when I found out my son's girlfriend can crochet so she got me going again and then I got 'the bug'. I can't stop!
Why is handmade artistry so important to you?
How special is it knowing that the item you bought or have been gifted is unique, carefully handcrafted by someone who really cares about creating something precious? That is so much more special than grabbing something off a shop shelf that's mass produced by machinery, therefore identical to thousands of others and prone to faults as they aren't individually and carefully created with love. There's something about handmade that makes me want to curl up with a hot chocolate in front of a fire place. It just feels...homely.
Catherine is a much loved member of the Madeit Collective, posting regularly in our Facebook Group ~ The Handmade Marketplace of Australia ~ and sharing her new creations as they are released. If you haven't connected with Kitty Candy Creations, make sure you join our FB Group and say hi !
