HELLO everyone and welcome to our very first StitchyMites post! Thank you so much for joining me, we are going to have such a fun time. I’ve got loads of things up my sleeve especially for you in the coming months. The first four weeks of StitchyMites posts will be for the Tiny Town/Spooky Town sew along, and after that we will move on to all sorts of things!
The first little perk you all receive is the code to join my Christmas Ornament Swap for free. Simply go to my website HERE, add the Swap to your cart and check out. Make sure to enter SMITES at checkout and your Swap entry will be free. ALSO, make sure and put your preferences into the box at checkout!! As you’re paying, there will be a box that says “send seller a message”. Simply type your preferences into that box. All the details and dates for the Swap are at the link above.
Your second little freebie is the pattern for the Halloween add on to my Tiny Town quilt pattern. You can download it below on the page.
The Tiny Town sew along is free to anyone, not just StitchyMites, and you can find the first for that post HERE. The Halloween part of the sew along is a club exclusive. Each week for four weeks, there will be a new sew along post available for everyone, and also a new one for the club. Your posts will have little extra tips and tutorials, fabric tips and maybe a bit of video instruction too!
You will need the original Tiny Town pattern (and the template and papers set too if you like) to make the Spooky Town quilt. You can purchase those HERE.
The first part of the Spooky Town sew along this week is a video below about choosing your fabrics and finding enough Halloween fabrics to make your quilt fun. The best way to tackle this quilt is to cut out and baste a load of houses, and start stitching them into their groups. You can find the numbers for each row in the Spooky Town pattern, and the house template in the Tiny Town pattern, or in the template set.
The free section of the sew along this week has some tips and tricks for English Paper Piecing in case you’re a newbie at that! You’ll find that these houses are really addictive, quick and easy to sew.
The lettering in my Spooky Town quilt is a fabric I designed myself. You absolutely do NOT need to have the fabric to make the quilt, but it sure is cute with it. The fat quarters come in three colourways, and each fat quarter has the all of the words:
HALLOWEEN
TRICK OR TREAT
BOO
SPOOKY TOWN
as well as some wee ghosts to add to your quilt if you choose. I have used a black and an orange fat quarter for my quilt. If you want to use it, you can buy it HERE.
I chose to use the words SPOOKY TOWN but you could use as many or as few words as you like - the little Halloween quilt has been designed to take even the longest word in the row. I am using BOO in my border and some of the ghost house prints.
PLEASE NOTE. There are two different kinds of panels available at my Spoonflower shop for sale. One has WHITE seam allowance showing around the houses, and the others have NO seam allowance showing. If you are English Paper Piecing the houses, please purchase the houses with NO seam allowance showing, so that you don't see a white edge when you turn the fabric over the papers. If you are hand piecing or using fusible web, please purchase the houses with the seam showing to make your stitching and cutting easier.
Spoonflower fabric is fairly stiff at first, and it smells a little like the ink they use to print. I recommend prewashing before you sew.
Here are a few of the collections that I’ve used in my quilt -
Tiny Frights by Ruby Star Society for Moda
Tiny Treaters by Jill Howarth for Riley Blake
Spooky n’ Sweet by Art Gallery Fabrics
Nightshade Deja Vu by Tula Pink for Free Spirit
Search “Halloween” on Spoonflower or Etsy - there are LOADS of options
Or Google Alexander Henry Halloween 2023 and all sorts of excellent spiders and skeleton options will come up! They have some brilliant spooky prints.
If you’re really struggling to find enough Halloween prints, I have 25 small packs of prints from my stash that I’ve cut into 3” squares. They are only available to StitchyMites but theres quite a few of you, so if you want one you will need to be quick smart. They are $15 AUD for different 30 prints, plus postage. If you want to bundle them with something else from the website just let me know and I can do that for you and send an invoice. To purchase them you can click HERE, once they’re gone they’re gone I’m sorry!
Have fun with your stitching this week peeps! If you have any StitchyMites questions or things you’d like to chat about, or suggestions, you can drop me a comment below or email me sarah@sarahfielke.com
I’m so glad you’re here :)
Sarah xx
Hi Sarah and Damian, the link to download the pattern templates still isn't working? No hurry, just checking..
Hi Sarah and Damian, just for your information, the link to download the Spooky Town templates doesn't seem to work. I know you are both incredibly busy so I will patiently wait... ;-) - Nicolette