Happy Wednesday StitchyMites, wherever you are! I often wonder where you are all when you read your weekly burble from me. Do you sit in a comfy chair with a cup of tea, and take a moment for yourself? Do you read it on your phone, while you’re waiting to pick the kids up from soccer? Or on your work computer? On your iPad, sitting up in bed with your glasses on the end of your nose? Pop where you are in the comments, I’d love to know! Yesterday I taught a lovely class in Mittagong, which is about 2 hours from home, for the Southern Highland Quilters. The Southern Highlands is an area of NSW around 80 mins from the city centre. I actually spent a lot of my childhood there, so I know it very well. It’s a beautiful place that reminds me a lot of England - lots of rolling hills and farmland, horses and cows. Except that the hills are more often brown than lush green, and dotted with gum trees :) There are some cute little towns but Bowral is the main one - when I was a kid it was a country town but these days it’s full of swish shops, antiquing and fantastic cafes. If you’re ever looking for somewhere to visit from Sydney (or Canberra!), its a great option. The class yesterday was in my Tiny Town quilt - if you’ve been a StitchyMite since day one, then you know it well! There were quite a few very new quilters in the group so it was a good solid project for them - easy EPP, nice sharp returned appliqué edges (due to the EPP houses and my Perfect Circles technique!), and we all learned how hide our stitches and glue the papers in. In every class I teach, there is always (ALWAYS, without fail), at least one person who says to me, “I’m not good with colour” and yesterday was no exception! I used to always be quite stumped on what to say when someone said that, because it really isn’t true. These days I just say so! It’s NOT true. Everyone is “good with colour” - but not everyone has colour CONFIDENCE and that is a very different thing. Yes, some people have a talent with colours and shade, I flatter myself that its one of my talents. I haven’t ever had hesitation in that department. But I do think that a lot of people have decided that they aren’t any good (or worse, been told that they aren’t), and that holds them back with being decisive about what they like. In the end really, thats what being “good with colour” is all about - knowing what you like, what gives you pleasure to look at - and then not being afraid to implement it. I said in my design posts a few weeks back that I didn’t know how to lecture about using colours, and I don’t really, mainly because I think things like colour wheels and formulas are a load of tripe. But yesterday’s conversation and today’s musings for this post have made me think that perhaps there’s a way to help people unlock their indecision that isn’t some kind of hard and fast RULE. Shall I set you some homework in the coming weeks? It won’t start until probably mid-April, because I have to get through Tula’s visit (she will be here next week! Woot woot!), and when she leaves I have to have some surgery that has a bit of a recovery period. After that though - maybe some colour exercises, some little ways to play with colour and see if you enjoy the ride. What do you think? In the meantime, if seeing Tiny Town again has made you long to make rows and rows of little housies and trees, here is a discount code for 10% off the printed pattern and templates, valid until next Tuesday, March 19 at 5pm Sydney time - just enter TINYTOWN at checkout. Happy sewing peeps Sarah xx

Oh my goodness StitchyMites I nearly forgot you this week!! Things have been a little bananas  - well a whole bunch of bananas actually! I will get there in the end but at the moment I feel like every time I pick up one thing there’s something else demanding to be done immediately. Its tricky because its still the time of year that all I really want to do is read a book and swim, and say goodbye to the last dregs of summer before winter starts. As we discussed last week I have very little mojo for The Things That Need to Be Done, however I am pushing through and its getting there. Onwards! There was no time for sewing owls this week, despite that fact that we had another Tawny sighting from our balcony. These little guys are usually very difficult to spot and also not seen usually during the day. We have lived here over four years and I’ve never seen one (although I hear them all the time at night), and then we’ve had two in two weeks! I know this was a different bird because he’s much, much smaller than the Big Boy feasting on half the turkey last week. The owls are certainly out and about at the moment… I wonder if its a change of season thing? One of The Things on the Long List is the retreat I’m organising in August. I want to open the bookings asap so that people can plan, but theres a few things I needed to get in place first. One was the speaker for the Friday night event - there will be classes on Friday, then a Friday night drink and speaker, then classes on Saturday. I’m thinking of putting a welcome thing on Thursday night too, but I need to find out how many people would want that first. I don’t know how many people are coming from Sydney, and how many from away… having never done this on my own before (I planned and organised the Material Obsession retreats for years, and I’ve obviously taught at a slew of different events all over the place) I need a little more info. Anyway, I have finally locked in the speaker, and I really excited about it - you can all have the scoop because I haven’t told anyone yet. Annette Gero is going to come and talk to us about her antique quilt collection, and bring some quilts to show. If you don’t know about Annette, she is not a quilter but rather a quilt historian. She has the most incredible collection of old quilts, ranging from early Australian quilts to military quilts made by men from their wool uniforms during the war. She has written three excellent books, one about Australian quilts and two about wartime quilts, that are some of the favourite books in my collection. They can be hard to find but if you google around a bit they’re available, although the Australian quilts ones you will probably only find second hand. Historic Australian Quilts The Fabric of Society - Australia’s Quilt Heritage Quilts: The Fabric of War - https://www.candobooks.com.au/product/14693-quilts-the-fabric-of-war-1760-1900 Wartime Quilts - https://shop.nationaltrust.org.au/products/wartime-quilts-dr-annette-gero She actually has a large exhibition in Adelaide at the moment of her military quilts and the associated research, that I’m hoping to get down to - they have never been shown before. You can find the info here, and also a great audio clip to hear Annette talking about some of the quilts in the exhibition. https://www.rochefoundation.com.au/exhibitions/war-and-pieced-the-annette-gero-collection-of-quilts-and-military-fabrics/ She is an incredibly knowledgable and interesting speaker, and also just a really nice person. I’m so excited she is coming to speak for us! A ticket for the lecture will be included in the class price of the retreat, but tickets will also be available to anyone who wants to come and hear Annette, and not do classes. I’m also getting the projects finished up so that I can reveal what we will be making each day. I can’t show you too much, but here’s a little sneak peek of the Day 2 project…. It’s a hand pieced sewing caddy, to sit next to where you like to stitch at home. The coffee table, or your special chair. It’s called Tidy Town, which is a play on my Tiny Town quilt as it uses the same shaped pieced (but not the same template set as the card etc is way too flimsy). The set will include this little felt birdie pincushion friend (he has a weighted bottom so that he stands nice and straight and doesn’t topple over) and something to pop your scissors into (still planning that bit!) and a tiny little rose that holds your thimble which is in pieces at present. What do you think? I’m pretty happy with it so far. The other project is a drawstring rice bag thats for carrying your hand project around. It will fit your sewing bits and bobs  - it actually fits the Liberty cubes right in the bottom, with pockets for your scissors and things around the sides - but would also easily hold knitting etc if that was your game. Each side is appliquéd and embroidered, and theres a needle book and scissor keep in the set as well. I can’t show you those yet, stay tuned. OK peeps I hope you have a fab week and I promise not to forget about you next Wednesday! I’m off to teach for the Southern Highland Quilters next Tuesday so I will give you class news too, which is always fun. Happy sewing! Sarah x

How is is the last day of February today?? I saw a meme on Instagram yesterday that spoke of the 31years of January, and then the 29 hours of February. It’s so true. January stretches out before us endlessly… the weeks of post holiday stupor and summer or winter excuses for eating treats and reading books. Especially here in Australia, where January is so often about long days at the beach, muggy days and summer torpor. And then February everyone is back at school, and at work, and suddenly its gone in the blink of an eye and the summer is done. I know that overseas lots of you will be thrilled to the thought of Spring springing, the snow melting and warmer days approaching. Here I’m thrilling to the end of one of the most humid summers I an remember, and looking forward to the idea that I might not sweat all day and that the cupboards might stop growing mushrooms. Unfortunately though, February was supposed to mean I had finished a lot of the things on the pesky three page to-do list I mentioned last week. Whilst I can report the satisfying tick off of a few bits and pieces, the majority of the list remains stubbornly un-done. I have a real lack of mojo about it that will very soon start causing the kind of panicky midnight sewing that I dread around Market. Note that there are no Market deadlines to blame here, just lack of motivation and procrastination. I’ve done plenty of sewing mind you. It’s just that none of it was for work. With that in mind, here is the latest progress on my Tawny. Is this a work project? Well….. as I plan to enter it in shows, maybe? OK thats stretching the friendship with work somewhat. I have used the excuse that I needed to keep you guys up to date with his progress, so I gave myself an hour or two to play with the first bit of piecing. I’m using freezer paper to make the templates. For something this complex, the piecing needs to be accurate to a point… I say to a point because some of this I plan to applique. I am going to hand stitch everything though, partly for accuracy and partly for convenience and partly for satisfaction. Having made the full sized owl I showed you last week, I’m now using it to make the template sections from freezer paper. Each small section will be transferred, reversed, to freezer paper, then  cut apart, fused to fabric, cut out with a seam allowance and stitched back together. It might sound laborious, but I made this section of owl in around two hours. And he isn’t that large. Unlike my friend here…. A real live Tawny! Damian and I were playing cards on the balcony with a glass of wine on Sunday afternoon when Damo spotted him, sitting in the trees below (we are on a very steep hillside), munching on half a bush turkey for his supper. He is a HUGE bird, he’s obviously very healthy and well fed. It was lovely to see him there, when his fabric companion was sitting on the table inside, just on the other side of the window. Happy Stitching peeps, I hope your Wednesday is grand Sarah xx

How’s your week peeps? I’ve had a bit of a crazy one. There’s so much going on here that I’m having trouble keeping everything in my head. I’m always one for writing a list (how good are lists??) but the list was three pages long so I’ve had to make sub-lists. I’m sure at some point after all the Big Woods BOM development and pattern waiting is done, and Tula leaves, and the Stop, Thief! BOM is finished and the retreat is organised and fully booked - then I’ll have some time off. One does these things to oneself though so I don’t expect sympathy :D I have had some exciting arrivals though!! All four of my new books are FINALLY here and ready to ship! They look great which is a huge relief as this time I have photographed them myself for the first time, which was nerve wracking to say the least. They are all available to order here at the website, and they all come with access to the video tutorials that go with the programs. The other exciting thing is that the Liberty storage cubes are FINALLY back in stock!! They have been stuck on the docks due to a strike for weeks and weeks and doing my head in. If you’re waiting on one, just as soon as they’re all unpacked you are the first to have yours shipped I promise! And if you haven’t ordered one, please do that asap if you want one because once they’re gone, they’re gone and I don’t know if we will get them again. They are absolutely beautifully made, and each uses a different colour of Liberty of London fabric. They’re SO SO handy for your EPP or applique or whatever else you can think of to carry around in them. I use mine every day. This week to take a moment away from the crazy, I carved out a moment to start something I’ve been planning for a while. Every once and a while, in the myriad of things I collect for design inspiration is something that just won’t go out of my head, and this project is exactly that. We have a little local magazine here on our peninsula called The Tawny Frogmouth. https://thetawnyfrogmouth.com.au/ Its kind of an indie situation, with local news, and surfing news, and articles from local groups and organisations. Every month they have a local artist design the cover. The cover for November 2023 designed by an artist called Tristan Grindrod. You can find him on Instagram @houseoftryst. I was standing in the cafe down the road waiting for my latte one morning, and there it was, jumping off the cover of The Tawny Frogmouth. I grabbed a copy to take home with the intention of tearing the cover off and putting it in one of my scrap books, but somehow it needed more attention than that and after pondering it on the kitchen bench, the fridge and finally the design wall downstairs, I spent a few days getting my courage up to email Tristan and ask him if I could adapt his design for a quilt. This is something that a lot of people don’t do. I’m not going to sell this quilt as a pattern (WAY too complicated) - its being made for my house, and if it works out how I want it to, I may well enter it in shows. I won’t make money out of it, but it isn’t entirely mine. Even though I am adapting the design to make it suitable to make from fabric, and changing the size, and changing the colours, its still Tristan’s design. I did not come up with the concept, nor the original artwork. And so I asked his permission, because good boys and girls were taught to ask before they take something that isn’t theirs. Lucky for me Tristan was right into the idea of another artist playing with his work, he checked my quilts out and now we are Insta buddies and members of the mutual admiration society :D And I’ve spent a few months in between things, playing with his owl and how to make mine. I can hear a bunch of you saying in relief - so THAT’s what a Tawny Frogmouth is, an OWL! Well, not really. Most Aussies I think would refer to them as being an owl, but they aren’t, they’re actually more related to Nightjars. Tawnies are some of my favourite Australian birds. They are nocturnal, and incredibly difficult to spot in the wild as they camouflage to look like a tree branch while they roost. I have several Tawnies that live in the bush around my house, and one in particular who likes to sit on the branch right outside my bedroom window and call. They make a lovely low repeated hooting noise that means “I’m at home and safe in my bed” to me. The quilt will end up at around 1m tall by 80cm wide, maybe a little larger. Not enormous, as I’m planning to hang it on a wall by our dining table. To begin designing the quilt version of this, I first used a light box to trace Tristan’s drawing with tracing paper. As his version isn’t intended to be stitched together, I then moved some lines and straightened and simplified some things. I moved some “seams” around so that things would match up when they were sewn together. Once I had it the way I wanted it, I had the drawing blown up to the size of the actual quilt at a copy shop. That made the lines thick, but that is fine for the colour plan for the quilt. Im using different colour Frixon highlighters (so that I can erase them if I put something in the wrong place) to mark where the different tones of colour will go so that I have a reference when I start to piece. B stands for background. I’ve sort of planned the colours out, but only loosely. I want to just work along with the quilt and see where it wants to go. I use the ReColor app (if you do my BOM programs you will be familiar with this!) to pop a few colours in and make sure I’m on the right track. I traced the design out again from the large version using a fine line pen, and that version is what I will make my templates from. The lines are fine so that they cut apart accurately. The quilt will have a background base, but I will cut it away behind everything as I go. It will start as a large piece of fabric and just be like lattice by the end. Everything is going to be pieced together by hand in sections, and then appliquéd. I will use each template to trace the sewing lines. I’ve got a good selection of fabrics, I probably still need a few more to make the gradations tone smoothly for the blues. The big circular looking section will be dark to light blues, working in from the background which is the darkest navy shown in the picture below. I will also probably work some patterned fabrics into the leaves and the Tawny himself, but not into the blue backgrounds. I’m imagining it like the night, and someone has shone a torch into the dark and found him staring back. I’m hoping to start piecing some little bits over the weekend, so I’ll keep you updated. This won’t be a fast project, but I love to (and need to) have some things going on the side that aren’t for work. It keeps my mind working and it also makes me feel like even though I’m sewing, I’ve had some time to myself. I think as a designer the play is just as important as the work, it keeps you excited. Thats it peeps, see you next week - all of you waiting on me will hopefully motivate the first bits of Frogmouth to come together! Happy sewing Sarah x

I am happy to announce that the Liberty cubes are back in stock - remember they are limited so hurry before they go out of stock again. Go here to shop from the range. And finally, we have four new Sarah Fielke Block of Month books published.. The Secret Garden, Rainy Days and Sun Rays, Homeward Bound & Merry and Bright. For all those who have pre-ordered, I have started ordering from the publisher and will be delivered in the next few weeks globally plus I will set you all up on the website to view the videos. You can shop for them here

Valentines Day. Some love it, some loathe it. I happen to be a lover - not of the commercial rigmarole but of the extra day to have a nice dinner with The Boyfriend, or have him bring me flowers. The naysayers will shout, why can’t you do that every day? Why do you need a holiday created by commercial vultures to celebrate your love? The answer is that we shouldn’t, but somehow we do. Do we always remember to do the little things for the person we love? Or do THEY remember to do them for us? In my mind its a nice little reminder to appreciate that special someone. Or if you don’t have a special someone, then your kids, or your bestie, or your mum. Or your dog. My boys always get Valentines from me, which they roll their eyes at but they secretly love. Feel the love today people, it is, actually, all around. Which leads me away from design process information today and to heart quilts. I love a heart. In applique design, they have such excellent purpose - they can be leaves, or flowers, or bird wings. They’re often in my designs, sometimes as those things, but also just on their own as decoration. They’re an excellent shape for a beginner appliquér especially, because they have curves straight bits, points and inside points - all in the one humble and very satisfying shape. I thought it would be fun to show you some of my favourite heart quilts, and also one of my own that I’m about to release the pattern for. Keiko Goke is perhaps the queen of the heart in textiles. She has made so many heart quilts, and designed heart fabric. And she has my heart as one of my favourite designers! Hahaha sorry that was corny… but true. My favourite of all her Heart quilts I think is this one that she exhibited at the Yokohama Quilt Show in 2019. You can see all her other quilts at her website, and theres a whole heart section.She also wrote a book that has a bunch of beautiful heart quilts in it, its out of print I think but I found it fairly easily googling. Its called All My Thanks and Love to Quilts. http://www.keikogoke.com/?portfolio=quilt-heart https://www.amazon.com/All-My-Thanks-Love-Quilts/dp/157421425X Her fabrics are all beautiful, I love the way she uses colour pencils to design and they keep the pencil lines in for the printing. So much more appealing to me than a purely digital design! Her heart prints are my favourite, these are just two I like but theres loads out there. I’m just going to throw two more of her quilts in here because they’re too goo not to. I saw that Double Wedding Ring in person at the quilt show in Houston one year - I sat on the floor in front of it and didn’t move for half an hour. I digress. Heart quilts! Theres been a lot of versions of the Exploding Heart pattern by Life of Pi quilts on the internet recently. It’s a fun pattern and something a bit different that the usual repeated hearts sort of heart quilt. I think its fab. https://www.sliceofpiquilts.com/2020/07/exploding-heart-quilt.html I like the graphic simplicity of Pen + Paper patterns, and I think this speech bubble heart quilt is the cutest. https://penandpaperpatterns.com/en-au/products/i-heart-you-pdf-quilt-pattern The Queen of Hearts quilt by Tied with a Ribbon is right up my alley - all that scope for scrappy bits from your stash. I would probably applique a heart in the middle too but hey, thats me :) https://www.tiedwitharibbon.com/queen-of-hearts-quilt-pdf-pattern/ My new pattern, which I’m expecting out next week-ish (insert crossed finger emoji here!) is called Courting, named for the double meaning of the love, and the block (its a Courthouse Steps). Its a quilt I made for our bed, and then when I posted pics everyone wanted the pattern so that threw a bit of a spanner in the works… none the less it’s nearly done and I’m going to have a sew along for it when it is. The pattern gives sizes to make the quilt in throw, double, queen or king size (mine is king). The little hearts in the middle are foundation paper pieced. As StitchyMites I’m offering you a discount code for the pattern - normally $15, you can have 20% off until Feb 29 because I luffs you. Use COURTING20 code when you check out. Happy Valentines peeps!

Hi peeps! Sorry, I know its Thursday, but yesterday I was training my new employee and I totally forgot about you my excitement - I’m so sorry!! I've never had an actual employee before, Damo doesn't really count. On Wednesday afternoon after school my little friend Elle is going to come and help me put stickers onto Sarah Fielke needles and thread balm, and pack orders, and tidy up my studio. I get some help doing things that take a lot of my time but aren’t really productive, and Elle gets pocket money - win win! So I’m sorry that I forgot you, but I promise not to do it again in a hurry. Anyway, on with this week's design insights. You know sometimes you meet someone and you just instantly click, and then you’re best mates and its like you’ve known each other for years? That’s what happened when I met Robyn, the owner of The Strawberry Thief store, which specialises in Liberty fabrics. Robbie is also the Liberty distributor for Australia, so she’s really the Aussie Liberty Queen. Except that she’s South African. Anyway, I digress. When you have friends in the same industry there’s always the question of wether you will one day “do something” together! Rob and I decided to make that happen last year, and my Stop, Thief! BOM is the result of that. The Strawberry Thief design has always been what signifies Liberty to me, and I’ve always adored Rob’s logo, which features the thieving bird after not only the strawberry, but also someone’s needle and thread! When she asked if I wanted to do a BOM together in 2024, the first thing that came to my mind is how much I wanted to appliqué that naughty birdie. The first thing I did, before I designed anything else, was to have the logo artwork blown up at a copy shop so a bunch of different sizes, from A3 right up to A1 and even bigger. I had to see how large or small I could make the shapes able to be appliquéd, but not lose the detail, and at the same time how to simplify the drawing so that the shapes could be taken apart and made into appliqué patterns. I settled on a size I liked and then made shape after shape from the overblown artwork, drawing and redrawing the templates until they were easier curves and points etc and able to be more easily appliquéd. Then I took to my graph paper. The first iterations of the design had the bird sitting in a large square in the centre of the quilt, but as I started to research for the design I changed my mind. I wanted to echo some elements of Arts and Crafts/Art Nouveau design in the quilt, in a small way (sometimes these things are only visible in my head!), and so I looked into shapes of flowers and leaves in drawings, paintings, glasswork and furniture. Sometimes these things are a HUGE part of my design process, and sometimes the design just pops out of my head ready to go. This time I fiddled for ages and pulled lots of pictures to look at to try to get a flavour between that and “me” that worked. I decided that the bird would sit in a circular window in the centre of the quilt, with the corners rounded off in the period style like a bannister or stained glass window. That led me to thinking about furniture and frames, and I decided that all the appliqué in the second border would be framed in the same way. As it’s only a 6 month program I had to make sure I didn’t get TOO carried away with details - after all everyone needs to get the sewing done in the time frame!! And so I made the final border a little simpler - but it was actually this period fireplace that gave me the idea for the pieced blocks. Once I had the framework of the quilt drawn into my grid paper and I knew how big everything was going to be, I started drawing the details. (If you’re making Stop, Thief! and you don’t want a sneak peek of some of the appliqué drawings, look away now!!) They’re just sketchy at first, and then I draw them with more intent, and finally I draw the exact size out on a piece of tracing paper. That way I can layer pieces up and change things out easily without having to redraw the whole thing, until I have a final I am happy with. This piece them becomes the “map” for my appliqué blocks, and its what I make my templates from. I appliqué from my hand drawn templates first, and then when I’m done and I’m satisfied they all work as I want them to, I send them to my son Oscar. He is the computer design whizz in the family, and he digitises them into the clean, labelled artwork that you get when you download your pattern each month. And thats it! From chicken to egg, or egg to chicken I suppose really :D Sarah xx

Hi everyone and welcome once again to Wednesday. It’s been a very quiet day around here, mainly because Damo and I both got food poisoning last night and we are feeling pretty ordinary today!! So not a lot going on at Casa Fielke, I’ve managed to WRITE StitchyMites and watch an endless loop of Friends, and Damo has POSTED StitchyMites and watched a bunch of Star Wars movies and slept. Ugh I hate being sick! Anyway. We were talking last week about sketchbook and idea files, and this week I’ve promised a little insight into graph paper. As patchworkers, everything we do can be reduced to a square. Even curves and organic shapes can be measured within the inch grid of a quilt design. This doesn’t just apply to quilting obviously, but it certainly has more resonance in quilt design than in some other places, mainly because of the block structure of most patchwork. When I design with graph paper, not only am I working out shapes and decorative impact of the quilt, but also the maths for the pattern, and determining the size of my appliqué shapes. It's like I’m drawing a map for my self to follow as the quilt goes along. The first thing I do is determine the size of my grid squares. Usually I make them 2”, so that I can fit a queen sized quilt onto the A2 grid pads I use. If the quilt is smaller or more detailed I might make them 1”, but never larger usually - mainly because making each one 4” means that there’s too much going on inside each little square for the plan to be useful to me. Sometimes though, if there is a lot of detail I will plan the quilt out in a larger scale, and then break the smaller parts out and grid those too. After 26 years of writing patterns professionally, things like how large the squares need to be cut to get quarter square triangles comes without having to think, so as I write the pattern that 2” square on the grid becomes my map for your instructions. I always have the grid, my notebook and the completed section of the quilt with me as I write, so that I can refer back, double check and measure as I go. Here’s a few of the BOM quilt patterns over the years. You can see that sometimes they’re quite fleshed out, and sometimes just a reference for how many blocks and how large they are, but they all function the same way. The Grasshopper Simple Folk When I did the sketch for Rainy Days and Sun Rays, I did it on my lightpad, with the graph at the back so that I could still see it to draw - that way I could have the pretty drawing ready to scan in to the computer without the grid behind it. Rainy days When I designed Big Woods, which is the BOM coming in August with Tula Pink, I fleshed the sketch out a little more than I would usually do with the leaves etc, because I had to show it to Free Spirit and to Tula before I started sewing, so they knew which direction I was going in. I felt that it was more important that they have the concept of the leafy frame around each block, than precisely which animal went where. Things mostly stay the same in with these quilts, but they do sometimes change as I go - Big Woods originally had rounded corners and a Prairie Point border, but I ditched it! Big Woods When I designed Homeward Bound for The Quilt Show, I had to really flesh it all out for the management team over there, so this one is a very detailed grid, and a very neat and tidy sketch followed so that they could see my concept. Homeward Bound These things live in vivid colour inside my brain, so finding a way for others to see what I see is always an interesting challenge! I think thats why I launch my BOMs to the public as a black and white sketch - I don’t want anyone to see a colour way and think, oh no thats not for me. The black and white drawings allow everyone to have their own idea about what the finished quilt will look like. It’s a page of possibilities rather than a hard fact. Next week I’m going to walk you through all the different steps that working on the design and colour choices for Stop, Thief! took as I went along! There’s a lot more of my sketches and plans available to show you for that one, because its still being made as we speak. In case looking at all the pretty things above is making you want a new project, here’s some incentive! You can take 20% off all my BOM books using the code SMITES, until Tuesday February 6 at 5pm, Sydney time. Don’t forget that they drop ship from the printer in the USA, UK and Europe, so if you order just the book you aren’t paying international shipping (if you order books with other things, everything ships together from me in Aus). Happy week peeps, take care and happy stitching Sarah xx

Hi peeps, well that was a pretty resounding yes from you all… so, welcome to week one of how the scribbly things in my head turn into quilts. Essentially in the real beginning of how these things go, is the keeping of sketchbooks, and folders on my computer and in my phone. The folders are full of photos and screenshots - some I took, some I saw somewhere, on a website or on social media, and they caught my eye. They could be of anything - sometimes its a pattern in tile, sometimes a flower, or a leaf I like the shape of. Sometimes (very often), its colour combinations, from a book cover or a cushion or something in nature. I look at furniture and architecture and knitting patterns, and pictures of birds and modern art and shoes. What they very very rarely are of, is quilts. Unless they’re antique quilts. I don’t save photos of other people’s new quilts into my inspiration files, because I don’t want to be influenced by them. Embroidery, tapestry, knitting - no problem, but I don’t want to find someone else’s quilt idea hanging out accidentally in mine. For me that is a BIG designer no no, and its something I deal with myself a lot in the other direction. I do not like my designs being copied, and I won’t copy anyone else’s under any circumstance. All the pics mentioned above are inspirations and beginnings of ideas, not direct copies. All these photos go into folders, and sometimes I don’t look at them again for ages. And then when I need inspiration for a piece of applique, or for a colour palette, I open the computer or my phone and do some doom scrolling… I can sometimes lose hours just rolling through an thinking, although sometimes something just pops out at me too. I don’t ever worry about “wasting time” doing this - its all part of getting the end product together, and sometimes the percolating of the idea is the best bit. The sketchbooks are not fancy. I don’t make sketchbooks like you sometimes see on Instagram in an artist’s feed. They’re not something I usually show anyone, because really they’re just scribbles and random ideas and little biro sketches of shapes or sparks of ideas. A typical page might look something like this: Most of the time when I’m at the scrolling stage, I haven’t even picked up a pen yet, let alone a piece of fabric. I’m just thinking of things, and turning them over in my head. Once I have more of an idea of what it is I’m going for, I get out the graph paper and start planning. Once I’m at the graph paper stage, things usually come along pretty quickly. I’m very decisive and I commit to ideas, but I’m also not afraid to throw the whole thing out and start again if I feel it’s not right. Sometimes I sketch the whole quilt out - usually thats only if its for a Block of the Month though, because I know that I have to come back and make the colouring page for those after the design is finished. Most often I just start sewing, and playing and making little fabric piles. Even when I do plan most of a quilt out, it usually looks like this: And then I see what happens from there. This is the sketch for my Tiny Town quilt.... .....which ended up looking like this: Tiny Town Pattern Next week I’m going to talk a bit more about the graph paper and show you some of the BOM sketches and how they evolved. Let me know if you have any questions, and see you then! :) Sarah

Well peeps that was a slam dunker of a little mini break. I’m sorry to tell you I have nothing at all even vaguely stitchy to report from it, I did nothing but swim and read and generally lie about. In order to relieve the fact that this post would contain nothing even vaguely sewing related, I will tell you that DRUMROLL PLEASE…. The Stop, Thief! BOM started on Monday! We are making the outside borders of the quilt first, which is totally back to front from the way I would normally approach a medallion quilt. I’m designing some new things over the next few weeks… would everyone be interested in my design process as I go along? That would include some posts about why I chose to turn Stop, Thief! inside out, and how these things come about for me in the design/construction/pattern writing pipeline. I’m assuming a yes but let me know what you think. Some of the new things are for work, and some for play ( I don’t publish everything I design!), and one in particular is a quilt that I am making specifically as a quilt for shows. I very very very (very) rarely do that - my quilts usually have to earn their living by either by being commercial (a stand alone pattern, a BOM, a pattern for a class), or by being useful (for the bed or the couch, as a gift, to go into my one-day-there-will-be-a-grand-baby cupboard shhhhh don’t judge me). But this quilt got into my brain like a little worm and made itself comfortable, and I couldn’t get it out. I’m pretty excited about it. At the moment its just a sketch but I’m going to start it next week when all the Stop, Thief! launch bizzo has calmed down. You can still sign up for Stop, Thief! BTW, the subscriptions are still open. You don’t have to have the fabric kit - there’s been a few people say they didn’t want to buy a kit so they didn’t join. And so just so you know, you NEVER HAVE to buy a kit for my BOMs, the only thing that’s compulsory is the pattern, and that goes for Big Woods too! Well now that I’ve given you a little quilty taster, here’s a little bit about our holiday! The boat is called Oh, Bouy - you can check them out on Instagram if you’re so inclined, @_oh_buoy. The boat is permanently moored like a little private island in Berowra Waters, which is about 40 km north of the Sydney CBD on the Hawkesbury River. I live on Pittwater, which is the flat water side (no surf) of the Palm Beach Peninsula. The Hawkesbury feeds into the top end of Pittwater, and both open to the sea. Berowra Waters (pronounced buh-row-rah, row as in argument not row as in boat) has a big marina, so its quite busy. There are holiday houses and people who live there permanently too. We had to get the car ferry over to the marina from the road, which was fun, it always feels like a little adventure to put your car on a boat. The area is probably most famous for a restaurant called the Berowra Water Inn, which has been considered one of Australia’s best restaurants since the 1980’s. It’s only accessible by boat. It’s one of my favourite restaurants in the whole world, but it’s hard to get to and very expensive, so its a treat. Staying on the boat was a lovely excuse to go there and not have to work out how to get there and back, as they will come and pick you up from your boat if you’re staying in the area! Your own private water taxi. Here’s some pictures from lunch, I don’t really go in for the photographing of all your meals but this is so pretty. Every course is like a little work of art. The boat is owned by a lovely couple called Jess and Laurie, who rescued it when it was just about sinking about 5 years ago. It was all original 1970’s interior, lots of which had been painted or carpeted over, or built around. They ripped everything back to the beginning and have lovingly restored all the wood and fixtures, and decorated it with all original 70’s furniture and crockery they have found around the place. Laurie is apparently the master of the roadside find, and they have done lots of the rescued pieces up themselves :) The boat comes with a little orange 1970’s runabout off the back called Ginger, that you can pootle up and down the river in, or go over to the marina and have a coffee or lunch. It goes so slowly you don’t even need a boat license. It really is a beautiful little gem. Also possibly one of the most Instagrammable places I’ve ever stayed!! I didn’t style anything in these pics, this is how it all was when we arrived. When we arrived there was a lovely cheese board and a bottle of bubbles, and it was pretty tempting so we just opened it and played Canasta (you will be pleased to know that I have upped my game and am now kicking his butt regularly) and swam and ate cheese. If you look at my face you’ll see I’m pretty unhappy about the whole situation. It was a pretty lux little holiday but we don’t holiday often, and when we do have a break it usually includes either  staying with family or having family stay with us, so it was nice to have some time away just the two of us. We didn’t even take Chippie! Needless to say she was furious. That’s it peeps, I’m crashing down from the holiday vibe and next week maybe we will dive into some process posts, yes? Keep cool/warm depending on where you’re perched Sarah xx

Just a quick one today Stitchymites… I’m off on a mini break! When I asked Damo what he wanted for Christmas, he said “an experience”. We haven’t been AWAY on a holiday together since before Covid, so I took the opportunity to give him a few nights on a lovely houseboat in Berowra Waters, which is around the corner and up the Hawkesbury River from where we live. We will have to drive for about an hour and a half in a big curve around from our place to get to the wharf, even though if we went from here in a straight line it would be more like half an hour! :) It will be worth it though for a few nights floating about and reading our books. There is an amazing restaurant at Berowra Waters too, which is only accessible by boat. I will tell you all about it, with plenty of photos, next week. It was a slightly extravagant present but he also won Employee of the Year at SarahFielke inc. and the boss said he earned it ;) This past week has been the beginning of our proper holidays. All the family things and the work things are out of the way apart from the finishing up of the Stop, Thief! BOM things, and the final editing of the new books, which won’t ever end until the FINISHED button is pressed!! And once thats done I need to start prepping everything for the Big Woods videos, so that Im ready when Tula comes to stay in March. The last week has been very relaxing with some work in between, we have been swimming and reading and having breakfast in nice cafes, picnic dinners and playing a lot of Canasta. Every year for a very long time, my family has played the Summer Cup (except during Covid, when it was the Corona Cup). Essentially its just an excuse to score when we play board games or card games or cricket on the beach. At the end of the summer we add all the points up and someone is the winner. Theres usually no prize, just bragging rights. We’ve always been a games family, some of my earliest memories are of playing Uno or Switch in a big group, or backgammon with my dad. Thankfully Damo loves games too (so many people don’t!), so we have played games with the boys and all their friends as they’ve grown up and now when they come home with the girls for visits, we often spend nights playing games and drinking wine and laughing ourselves silly. This year for the first time, the Summer Cup is just Damo and I. The boys are both moved out of home, and although they came to visit for Christmas and we did play a lot of games, we didn’t do the Cup as it was only a few days together. I’m a little sad about it, but its also nice to think that we will still play the Summer Cup together and that there will be years when we all play together, and years when the two of us take on the epic battle :) And that maybe as they make their own families, the tradition will continue. Unfortunately this year Canasta is our preferred game, and Damo has been consistently kicking my butt big time. I need to up my Canasta tactics. The cards are coming with us on the houseboat. I’m also taking some sewing (surprise, surprise!), but I”m not taking work as this is a proper holiday, and there has been a lot of work stitching in the past few weeks. I was going to have Stop, Thief! completely finished and started quilting by now, but getting Covid early December completely derailed everything for a few weeks, and by the time I was better I was into the Christmas panic so now its all playing catch up, so plans for stitching nothing but fun projects that are just for me in January are out the window. Packed into the busy bag for the houseboat are the following: * The Details, by Ia Genberg. It’s only short and I’m halfway in, so I’m also taking * Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, by Gabrielle Zevin * The first block of A Day in Happyland, which is a BOM by Anne Downs. I very very rarely make other peoples quilt patterns, but every now and then something jumps up and bites me. I thought one day this might be a lovely quilt to have in the cupboard for a little grandperson, should one come along. I have always loved the combination of embroidery and applique- quite a few of my early commercial quilt patterns combined the two, or had embroidery on traditional quilt blocks, but as my quilts got more “modern” (blerch, I hate being pigeon holed) the embroidery faded out. Should I revisit that?? I’m in design for the 2025 BOM as soon as I get Stop, Thief! back under control…. let me know what you think. Anyway, Anni’s quilt calls for wool applique but I’m using cotton, it makes some of the pieces very small but I enjoy that. And I’m going my own way with the colours. They’re mostly all Tilda’s with some linen and a random pink star on calico that was in my stash and just happened to be the perfect amount. I’m not using stranded cotton for the embroidery either, I’m using Aurifil 12 weight…. what a rebel. I only started playing with this just before Christmas so its just the very beginning. * My temperature cross stitch project. I’ve never been tempted to do a temperature quilt or blanket or anything before, I don’t know why I decided now was the time. I bought both these patterns thinking I would decide before I started, and instead started both. I don’t know if I will keep it up, but for now it’s a fun little bit of stitching at the end of each day. I tend to sew them while I’m watching the news. They’re called Temperature Garden and Temperature Mushroom, and they’re available  as PDF downloads from Angela Lynne Studios on Etsy. I’m not following the colour charts she provides btw, I chose my own rainbow! That seems like enough to be getting on with, doesn’t it? But I’ll throw in the Stop, Thief! EPP blocks too, just to make sure. I probably won’t do anything, hahahaha This got long faster than I thought, but before I finish up here and go and pack some swimmers into a houseboat bag, I was going to give you this wonderful recipe I made for one of our picnic dinners this week. Summer tomatoes are one of life’s great joys, but if its diner where you are you could always make it to give you a little summer throwback while you’re sitting by the fire. It does require a little bit of time to cook but its so worth it, and you can always make extra because its delicious afterwards for a few days - on toast, with a grilled piece of fish or chicken, or on pasta. This is my favourite way to eat it though. Honey Tomatoes - serves 2 for dinner or 4 for snacks Fresh French bread stick or good sourdough Burrata or Buffalo Mozzarella Whole head of fresh garlic, with the top sliced off 750g of cherry tomatoes, or whatever assorted small tomatoes you can find 2 or 3 large ripe tomatoes, the nicest looking ones you can get 3 tbl Sherry Vinegar Half a cup of basil leaves and stems One nice big rosemary sprig Handful of thyme sprigs 2 tbl runny honey 1/4 tsp of chilli flakes (optional) Salt and pepper Mix all the  ingredients well in a large bowl. I like a bit of chilli because the chilli and the sugar and the salt all together is just ::air kiss:: but its not essential at all if you’re not a fan of the heat. Tip all of the small tomatoes into the bowl and mix thoroughly. Line a baking tray with baking paper. Place the garlic head in the middle and drizzle with a bit of olive oil. Tip the small tomatoes and the dressing onto the tray around the garlic, and sprinkle everything well with salt and pepper. Place the tray into a cold oven and turn the oven to 160C, or 140 fan forced. Set a timer for 1 hour. Check after an hour, the tomatoes should be soft and bubbling. Remove and set aside to cool until the garlic is cold enough to handle. Squeeze all the soft garlic out into a bowl, and mash or chop it up really well. Tip the small tomatoes and any juice etc into the bowl, but discard the stems of the herbs. Mix everything up well. Slice the large tomatoes, not too thickly. Slice (and toast if you like) the bread. Spread the bread with burrata, then top with a spoonful of the roasted tomatoes, and then a slice of fresh tomato. Sprinkle with a bit of salt and be very happy. We had ours with some tiny little school prawns and a squeeze of lemon, they were so fresh and sweet. Such a dinner, eaten sitting on the grass by the water as the sun went down! Can’t beat it. What are your favourite card or board games? What’s your favourite picnic food? What are you stiching? Enquiring minds want to know…. Enjoy your week Stitchymites, see you next Wednesday with a houseboat report. Sarah x

I love this time of year. For me, summer is all about water and books. I always take a few weeks off over Christmas and into early January, so that I can flop. I am a total water baby - I love to swim and I will stay in the water for ages, until my fingers and toes are pruny and my nose and cheeks are pink, no matter how much sunscreen I’m wearing. My country boy husband is always slightly perplexed by my want of a swim, several times a day, every day the week, even after more than 30 years together. Don’t get me wrong, he likes a dip when it’s hot, but he’s often happy to wander up and down the beach or throw a stick into the water for Chippie, while I float and try to gauge how long before he’s bored and I need to get out. It’s raining this afternoon though… shame, as it’s humid and I’d love a swim. Ah well, theres always tomorrow! I started my Goodreads 2024 Goals list on January 2. Last year my goal was to read 24 books - 2 books a month. I was a teenager who never moved unless she had a book in her hand - even walking between classes at school I would have my novel out, and read while I walked. Even after I had kids I would read late into the night after they were asleep. In the last ten years though the business has sucked all my time into its hungry maw, and I often fall into bed late after sewing all night, after sewing all day, to get up and do it all again in the morning. And so, the reading had died a fair bit and I was reading maybe 6 books a year, and I was missing it badly. I don’t usually make New Years Resolutions, because I feel like its a recipe for not keeping them and then feeling bad about it! But last year I DID resolve to read more, and it’s so nice to have my mojo back. I made my goal of 24 books plus a few extra, finishing at 27! So this year I’ve set 30 as my goal and we will see how we go. I already finished my first book for 2024, Maggie Nelson’s The Red Parts. It’s about her aunt, who she never met, who was murdered in 1969 in Michigan, just outside of Ann Arbor. For years, it was assumed that she was part of a string of murders by a serial killer known as the Coed Killer, but in 2002, DNA proved otherwise and her real killer was arrested and tried. The book is about the case, but its also about Maggie, and how her aunt’s absence affected her life, her mother’s life and the way she was parented. I enjoy true crime but I think anyone would enjoy this book - while its about a murder, its less about that than a personal essay about loss. I enjoy Maggie’s writing style very much and I was lost in this book. It’s only about 200 pages so it’s not too taxing a time investment if you want to see what you think. If you read it, let me know - I’d love to know what you think! One of my besties, who lives in Tasmania and so we only “see” each other online, talked me into joining an online book club for 2024. It’s called Books with Bec and Jane. I think there are a few days left before they close the signups if you’re interested. It’s kind of similar to the book club I ran during Covid, in that theres live chats, and chats with the authors, and reading notes and a Facebook group to talk to the other readers. You can join up just for a few months and see if you like it, which is what I did, and you can buy the books yourself if you don’t want to order them. The first book we are reading is Trent Dalton’s new one, Lola in the Mirror. I am absolutely loving it, I can’t put it down! In fact as soon as I finish writing to you, I’m back to it. His characters are so alive, I loved his first book but Lola is way better. Highly recommend. And next….. next I’m going to read one of these. Has anyone read any of them? Let me know which you think I should dive into first. I’m leaning towards the Zadie Smith, but I’m easily persuaded and will change trajectory at the drop of a hat. Look, squirrel! :D I’ve started a few new sewing projects too, but I think I will keep you in suspense and tell you about them next week. None of them are for work, mainly because I’m in the throes of finishing the four new books I have coming out at the end of January ( you can see them and preorder them here), and also finishing up the Stop, Thief! BOM quilt so that I can start quilting it. You can sign up for that here, we start on January 15! If you’re not on social media you will have missed the little sneak peek of the border construction that I posted yesterday, so here it is again. The seaweed looking block next to it is part of a quilt that I’m making for my son and his partner at their request, inspired by the paper cut artworks of Henri Matisse. More about that one as it goes along too. Happy New Year Smites. I’m so glad you’re here with me, and together there’s lots of fun stuff to look forward to in 2024! See you next week, stay safe Sarah x