Christmas Sew-A-Long Week 1

Hello Christmas Sew-A-Long peeps​ and a Merry Almost Festive Season to you! This is the first in our series of four blog posts for the Sew-A-Long. Each week are are going to look at a different one of the projects included in the program, and give you some tips and tricks for making them.

If you haven't joined the Sew-A-Long and would like to you can do that HERE, its free! All you need to do is purchase one of the patterns we will be working on (or own one already!), and then enter your name and email address at the link. That means you'll go into the draw to win some of the win prizes I'll have at the end of the four weeks. As you make progress with the projects, make sure and email me a pic (sarah@sarahfielke.com), post one here in the comments, post one to Instagram and tag me (@sfielke) or post one on Facebook and tag me - each time you post gives you another entry into the prize draw.

The patterns included in the Sew-A-Long are my Jingle Bell Stocking; my two Christmas embroidery panels, Merry and Bright and The Christmas Crew; my Christmas Tree Skirt, Merry and Bright; and Five Fabric Baubles.

This week are are looking at my brand new pattern, Five Fabric Baubles.

The pattern includes templates and instructions for five little festive fabric ornaments - a Christmas Stocking, a Gingerbread Man holding a candy cane, a Star, a Christmas Tree and a string of Christmas Lights. The lights can also be made into individual ornaments if you prefer. I hand stitched all my baubles, but you can machine stitch them too - and the embroidery can be worked by hand, done with beads, you can add ribbons or glitter pen or anything you can think of really. My ornaments are quite soft colours as they're made for a particular someone, but if I make another set (which I think I probably will!) they will be brights for my own tree, and I will add metallic threads and gold beads and all the sparkly stuff.

Here's a little video tutorial for our first week, that gives you some tips on hand piecing, clipping into the curves, how to make the string of lights and how to work the very simple embroidery stitches including my personal favourite stitch, the Colonial knot.

If you have questions, or you're making one of the other projects in the Sew-A-Long and have questions before I get to the post about it, please feel free to drop them in the comments below so I can help you out! Have fun with your first week of stitching peeps, and make sure to show me your progress.

Sarah