Welcome to Week 2! I hope you’ve all had fun cutting houses and sewing them into rows!
If you have some rows ready to go then this week its time to start stitching them to the background strips. You will find all the measurements for the strip cutting in your pattern, but most importantly you’ll find the numbers of houses that are in each row, and the order that they are sewn in.
At the back of the pattern are some little row markers - if you haven’t already, cut them out and use them to clip to your bundles of rows as you sew them together. It makes it so much easier when it comes to stitching the backgrounds - you will know straight away which end of the row each bundle is being glued and stitched to.
Take the row of houses you’ve stitched together for the left hand side of Row 1, and open out the seam allowance away from the paper on the house that will be against the end of the strip. Press this flat, then take all the papers out from behind the houses and press again.
Measure 1/4” from the end of the strip, and put the crease that was at the side of the house at the 1/4” mark, so that the side of the house is sewn into the seam allowance when the quilt is assembled.
The best thing about the way the rows are organised (in my humble opinion!) is that you don’t need to measure anything. So long as you lay out your houses for the left hand side of the strip, and the right hand side of the strip, with the seam allowances opened out, then the gap in between them is the correct size to insert your tree or dog (or ghost or tombstone if you’re making Spooky Town!) And you don’t need to measure anything.
Once you have everything in place and glued down (I use liquid applique glue, which is available at my website https://www.sarahfielke.com/products/liquid-applique-glue) Slip stitch the houses to the backgrounds - a nice easy task because the edges are already turned for you!
A reminder for those just joining us that the pattern and the set with peeper templates and papers are available for purchase, at www.sarahfielke.com
There is also a smaller Halloween version of the pattern, that has some very cute little ghosts and tombstones to applique. That is available for purchase as a PDF download HERE, or you can join my StitchyMites subscription club and receive it free as part of your membership. StitchyMites will also be receiving some extra Spooky Town tips and tricks.
Have fun with making your house rows peeps! And keep stitching those little EPPs together, its one row at a time :)
Please use the hashtag #tinytownquilt on Instagram or join my Sarah Fielke Quilts Facebook group to share your progress and see other people’s work. See you on Wednesday, October 4 for Part 3, where we will make some trees and learn my special trick for making perfect circles!