Cathe Holden is the newest name on Moda Fabrics’ roster of designers, with her first collection, Flea Market Mix. Her cheerful collage designs lend themselves to whimsical focal decor, purses, quilts and much more.

Vintage ephemera has been a trend for some time in fabric, with the likes of Tim Holtz and French General championing the style. It’s exciting to see a new range of collage-themed fabric continuing the trend, with colour leading the way and a fun, vibrant approach that doesn’t take itself too seriously. We hope you love it as much as we do!

This collection of predominantly primary colours does also feature greens, pinks, creams and everything in between. Look closely and you’ll additionally find buttons, trading cards, luggage tags, stamps, recipes, labels, paint-by-number designs and floral motifs, with prints that range from orderly to scattered—creating a bright mixture of coordinating prints that can work together or be used singularly.

“Because there are so many design elements in my collection, individual graphic elements can be trimmed out to use as patches, quilt labels, and appliques for projects large and small,” Cathe says. “Additionally, all fabrics work well in larger cuts and will coordinate well with small repeats, solids and blenders, linen, and upcycled textiles.”

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About Cathe

Cathe (pronounced just like Cathy) has been a mixed media crafter, artist and graphic designer for many years. She started the successful crafting blog Just Something I Made back in 2008 after a successful graphic design career focused on brand image and packaging, 

Her career has provided her a fantastic way to keep social with other creatives, Cathe says. In her years of developing projects to share, she served as a contributing craft editor to magazines, authored a craft book, created and sold assemblage art pieces in gallery and online, and she continues to teach creative workshops.

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The journey to fabric design

Cathe believes in being creative not only to learn new skills and processes, but because she believes a creative outlet is good for us all. She explains that she began combining her passions of vintage ephemera and collage after an encounter with collage artist, Anna Corba. 

“Until then, I only thought of collage as tearing images from magazines and putting them together into wild arrangements,” Cathe says. “But Anna’s beautiful use of vintage ephemera spoke to my creative soul and began my journey of combining my graphic design skills with my passion for flea market finds into art.”

More than ten years after starting her blog, as well as Inspired Barn, the home studio where she works, crafts, and hosts workshops, Cathe approached Moda with her fabric design concept.

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“Fabric is a wonderful, versatile medium for use in so many art projects,” she says. “The idea of designing my own fabric has excited me for years. Compiling images of my favorite collected flea-market and antique-shop finds really hit the mark for me and it was then I was ready to reach out with hopes of licensing with Moda Fabrics. Thankfully my concepts were well received as they saw great potential in the market for something different like this for quilters.”

This collection comes with quilt patterns, as we have happily come to expect from Moda. In this collection, you’ll find Web Pattern, a twin size quilt that uses traditional blocks—nine-patch, churn dash and sawtooth stars—in a non-traditional layout. There is also Reminiscence, a quilt for flying geese lovers, and Vintage Beauty, a modern design of overlapping rectangles and large piecing. Because this collection is designed for use beyond quilting, you’ll also find a cheerful tote-style handbag with a front zipped pocket and fabric handles, called the Hanalei Handbag.

“My hope with designing my unique collections is to supply fun, colourful, vintage-style elements to collage and textile artists as well as traditional and contemporary sewists,” Cathe says. 
And we believe with Flea Market Mix she’s delivered just that.

Cathe Holden’s Flea Market Mix collection from Moda Fabrics is arriving in Canadian stores soon, with a second collection, Flea Market Moxie, due in the Fall! We encourage you to touch, feel, and experience the fabric you’ll use for your next creative project at your local quilt store.