Hi peeps! We’re in that magical no man’s land between Christmas and new year, when it’s ok to eat leftover cake for breakfast and you can’t remember what day it is. Here’s a load of videos from Quilt Market that I didn’t share yet to keep you company. See you in 2024! Xx Sarah

Sliding down the hill into the 25th over here. I was supposed to finish work on December 15 - I was officially giving myself a month off, which really means a month off answering emails and manning the online shop. That won’t happen in reality though… people still need answers to things, BOM template kits will need shipping and StitchyMites will need writing! The end of the year is supposed to be such a joyful time, and instead it often means running in circles! We have a very full house this year. My boys are coming to stay for a week with their partners. It’s the first time we have had both the girls for Christmas, I’m so chuffed. Christmas Day is at my brother’s house, so there will be him and his wife and my little niece, and also my Dad and his wife and her sister, and her sister’s boys. And a few friends who are “orphans” that we’ve collected from around the place. There’s 20 I think at last count! I love a full house though. I love feeding people and wrapping presents and getting my festive on. I’m doing all the cooking even though its not at my house, so there is a massive turkey on order with the butcher, and all kinds of delicious plans in place. My house smells like fruit cake and gingerbread, and is strewn with half finished sewing for Christmas presents. I madly decided that this year, in honour of the girls attendance, we would all have new Christmas stockings…. Yep better get on to that, they’re in pieces!! Lizzie’s placemats are getting there though, here are the two I’ve finished so far. Yes, there is LOT of sewing and a LOT of cooking needs to be done before Monday. Our Christmas is in summer. I know that might seem odd to those overseas, where Christmas is all about being cozy and warm, and snow falling outside and hot chocolate. Here Christmas is about heat and eucalyptus leaves, blazing blue skies, cicadas screaming and the house full of wet beach towels and sand. This year we have had a very early heat wave, and the week of 40 degree heat has left my Christmas tree not so much of a tree, and more of a crispy Christmas Stick. Damo is considering going to buy one of those cans of fake snow to spray along the branches and hide the dead. I thought that StitchyMites today might be a little round up of some Aussie things we do for Christmas. If you’re an Aussie, you might like to add some of your families traditions below, and if you’re not then I would love to hear what you get up to in the festive season. Especially if you have a favourite recipe that needs sharing - I’m sure we would all like that!! Here are some of my favourite essentially Australian Christmas things, and a few sneaky other things poked in too. We have our own Australian Christmas carols. Yes, we sing all the traditional ones too, but there are some special Aussie ones. They’re less about snow and bells and more about red dirt, dusty paddocks and kangaroos. My favourites are Six White Boomers (let’s not talk about Rolf Harris…. But this song is part of my childhood!) and The Carol of the Birds. The North Wind is probably my favourite of all, here’s the Sydney Children’s choir singing it, as well as another one I didn’t know called The Three Drovers. Probably my favourite Australian Christmas song of all though isn’t a carol - it’s called White Wine in the Sun, by Tim Minchin. Its what Christmas is all about for me…. its a bit quirky but Tim is my jam. Persevere to the chorus. Australian Christmas food follows English traditions pretty closely, although I know that a lot of my friends do a cold Christmas lunch these days. Prawns and salad just don’t say Christmas Day to me though, so I still slog through the cooking of the enormous turkey and the making of the gravy and the duck fat potatoes, and we have the prawns and salads too. We have cold ham and hot turkey, go figure. Everyone has their traditions! I like Jamie Olivers turkey recipe, I’ve used it for years - although I bastardise it a bit by putting chestnuts in the stuffing, and I wrap the whole top of the turkey in bacon to keep it moist. I also put about a dozen chipolatas in the roasting tray, the fat helps make the gravy even more delicious. Calories, what calories? It’s Christmas, we’ll deal with it in January!! For me real Australian Christmas food is about the fruit. All the stone fruit is Christmas in a nutshell for me. We eat some ungodly amount of kilos of cherries every year, I hate to think how many. We don’t have dessert ever though except on Christmas Day, so it’s very healthy. Cherries, mangoes, peaches, nectarines, lychees… and my absolute favourite, apricots. Even the smell of a fresh apricot makes me all Christmassy! In fact there’s one waiting for me in the fruit bowl, excuse me while I get a snack. OK I’m back. Another thing in our house that is serious Christmas tradition and you do not mess with it, are the cakes. I make four Christmas cakes every year, one for us and one for my Dad, and one each for the girl’s Dads. Shhh don’t tell anyone but I use Belinda Jeffries Last Minute Christmas Cake recipe, it’s absolutely foolproof, so easy and its so moist and delicious. Theres only three in this pic though because #4 is in the oven right now. I wish you had SmelloNet. I haven’t glazed them yet but when I do they will be all luscious and shiny. Mmmmm, someone put the kettle on please! On Christmas morning we have stone fruit and slices of Bill Granger’s Coconut Bread, toasted with butter and honey. There also absolutely must be my friend Kim’s Gingerbread Cake sitting in the cake stand to be eaten while watching the cricket - this is DELICIOUS, I warn you that you will want to eat the entire cake by yourself. Do not make this unsupervised as no one else will get any. Also you absolute must ice it, I know that lemon icing on gingerbread sounds whack but please trust me that this is essential and so yum. I don’t make it until the day before Christmas Eve though because it doesn’t last nearly as long as a fruit cake. I love a bit of Aussie on my Christmas tree too. Theres snowmen and baubles and what have you on there, but I always make sure my koala and kangaroo are there, along with their friends. This year I ordered a Bilby from this website, because I don’t have a Bilby yet! I have a set of these too that were a gift last year, they are really lovely irl, with the wood and the hand painted Australian flowers and animals. Lovely quality. And while I was looking for the links for these to give you, I found these - WHITE BOOMERS! With a koala riding them!! OMG they’re a bit $$ but I’m soooo tempted to add one to my tree for next year. So CUTE! OK peeps thats all the StitchyMites for today. Next Wednesday I am going to be on holidays, so I’m planning to pop the rest of the QuiltMarket videos up for you (theres still lots!!) in case you get bored, or need something to watch while you eat cake. I wish all of you a very very Merry Christmas, and if you don’t celebrate Christmas please allow me to extend the very best feelings to you, and to all of you, for joining me here each week, and for stitching along with me in all the various ways you do. Take care of yourselves and I hope you have a lovely stitchy week. I’m off to get that cake out of the oven and sew like the wind. Sarah x

Hi peeps! Well the man in the red suit isn’t far away now… even if you don’t celebrate Christmas though, you will have some fun stitching up the placemats we talked about last week! The food I’m using for Lizzie’s mats is a bit Aussie summer, and also some of her favourites. I hope she likes them. I just hand drew mine, but if you have food you particularly want to illustrate on your mats and you aren’t a scribbler, try googling “clip art of hot dogs” (or whatever), print the drawing off and go from there. Remember that you don’t want them to be too detailed, for these particular placemats they are supposed to look a bit wobbly and rustic, its part of their charm. I had a lot of fun stitching this first one up, the others are drawn but not sewn…. I have a week, I need to get my skates on big time or its dinner for one!! As I sew them I will post pictures here for you, so you can see how I arranged everything. I used a light box (but you can use a window or a glass table with a lamp under it) to trace the designs on using a sharp pencil. I’ve done a little video about how to bury the knots and how to backstitch and do lazy daisies and colonial knots. This is just a little quickie freebie pattern for you so the templates are hand drawn and not computerised! So please excuse their more rustic appearance than my usual templates. I’m considering making these into an online class with embroidery and drawing instructions, so if I do I will make sure and give you StitchyMites a discount if you want to take it. Thats all for today folks! Only one StitchyMites post until Christmas :) Sarah xx

Hi everyone! Well, the rollup to Christmas is certainly upon us. I've been busy getting my Secret Garden BOM all wrapped up for the year, and making sure everything is set for the next one! There are exciting things ahead! Stop, Thief! Block of Month. The Stop, Thief! BOM begins on January 15, and the material requirements and all the info goes out tomorrow! Stop, Thief! was inspired by the famous William Morris Strawberry Thief fabric, and also by my friend Robyn's logo. Rob is the Liberty Fabric distributor for Australia, and she has done some kits for the BOM in exactly the same fabric as I've used! The colours are just gorgeous, and I know theres only a couple left so be quick like rabbits to grab one - https://thestrawberrythief.com.au/product/stop-thief-2024-bom-fabric-bundle/ As always with my BOMs though, you can ​use your own fabric and colours. The signups are open now and the template sets and limited edition Aurifil thread sets are available at my website. I do hope that you'll join me to stitch in 2024. Big Woods Block of Month Stop, Thief! Isn't the only BOM for 2024 though..... as its a smaller quilt, its only a 6 month program, and finishes in June. The next BOM, Big Woods, starts on August 1. Its a very, very exciting collaboration between my design and my best mate Tula Pink's fabrics. We will be presenting all the video tutorials for the BOM together and its going to be a LOT of fun. You can order a kit from your favourite patchwork store, so make sure and let them know you're interested!! The orders for the kits close for stores on January 15 so they need to get their orders in, and once they're closed they're closed... so make sure they order kits for you to stitch along with us! You can of course, as before, sign up and make the quilt without the kit, and BOM signups for the pattern will open via my website on April 1. You can register to be reminded on that at this link. KEY POINT TO NOTE: If you want the Tula Pink fabric kit, pre-order now at your local quilt store OR search online with these words - Big Woods Block of Month Sarah Fielke Tula Pink - and pre-order at the store closest to you or in your country. NB - these fabric kits will run out so get a pre-order in before Jan 15 2024! If you're a newbie and you want to practise your needleturn applique before you start one of the BOMs, you can take my on demand Hand Needleturn Applique class from the website. A lot of what you learn in the class you will also be taught in the BOM programs, but the class is more general and the BOMs are project specific. A lot of you have asked how best to practise before you start your quilt, and this is a great way to do it - plus you get a pattern for a very cute tote bag with a birdie on the side as part of the class. If you're wanting something to sew before Christmas I have so many fun little projects for you! You could make a Project Puff (which is also an awesome makeup kit!!) or a Handy Notebook Backpack for a teacher gift or a stitchy friend, or embroider a cushion or table mat, make a Christmas stocking​... all the patterns are instand PDF downloads and are available at my website. Happy stitching peeps, and I hope I'm going to see you in one of my BOMs, or both! in 2024. Take care everyone, and happy stitching Sarah

Good evening StitchyMites :) It seems to have become my habit to sit at the end of a Wednesday to write to you! I know that on the other side of the world its your morning but the Aussies must wonder what I’m about with this Wednesday night malarkey. It’s quite a nice little Wednesday habit I’ve developed really. When I finish work for the day, I sit and have a chat to you all. Maybe this will revert back to a Wednesday morning when my summer holiday starts and I’m footloose and fancy free? Time will tell I suppose. I had planned to have a little project for you all to make this week, two in fact! And instead I didn’t get either of them done. I had a good excuse I promise. Final edits of the four new BOM books I’m releasing in late January have almost been completed (Rainy Days and Sun Rays, Homeward Bound, Merry and Bright and The Secret Garden are all available for preorder at my website right now), I finished my Secret Garden quilt and sent it off to the printer, and finished the templates and associated bits and pieces for the final month of the pattern. If you’re in the BOM here’s a little sneaky peek of the finished quilt top! I love the little squirrel in the top corner, I was particularly happy with his tail. So its been a busy week and I didn’t get any of the Christmas stitching that I was going to share with you done. Instead, I will have the little Christmas stocking project next week, and you can have a little look at what I’m making for my daughter in law and I’ll give you the templates for that next week too! Lizzie (my DIL, my eldest son Charlie’s new wife), saw on Instagram a few months ago a table cloth and some placemats that she just loved. She likes to send me links to little crafty projects, sometimes to see if I think she could make them, or to ask for help to make them, and sometimes just to show me. It's absolutely lovely, because I haven’t had anyone in my family who was interested in sewing or any kind of craft since I lost my beautiful Mum 24 years ago. I’ve taught Lizzie to knit, and she is inheriting my old Janome this summer as I have just bought myself a shiny new Kaffe Fassett Bernini. But I digress. She saw these lovely things and sent me the link admiring them, but also marvelling that they were nearly $400 each!! I pointed out that they were hand embroidered so I could see why someone wanted to charge that much for the time they put in, but agreed it was a lot to pay for placemats. So I designed some myself, and I’ve started stitching four of them for Christmas as one of her gifts. Here is the one in progress. It’s just backstitch, and I’ve used Aurifil 12 weight, so I don’t even have to seperate the stranded cotton. The mats are two layers of natural coloured linen with nothing in between, and I am embroidering through both layers of the linen (very simple, not really for heat rather for decoration and for not scratching the table). If you wanted to make them more heat resistant, you could put batting in, but then I would recommend embroidering the linen first before you stitch the mats up. All four of the mats will be different - same plates and fork and knife, but with different placement of the cutlery and different foods. This one has two oysters and a slice of lemon, and I’m planning strawberries and asparagus, a baguette and some cheese, and something else I haven’t decided yet. If you would like to make some too, during this week you can sew the placemats up and next week I’ll post the embroidery templates and give you a little backstitch and colonial knot tutorial. To make your mats (without batting) - For one mat, cut two rectangles, each 14 1/2” x 18 1/2”. Place the two rectangles right sides together (if it’s linen, it won’t matter). Pin. Starting halfway down on a short side, sew all the way around the rectangles using a 1/4” seam, leaving a 3” gap on the side you started on to turn the mat through to the right side. Turn the mat through and press it well. Turn the edges of the 3” gap over by 1/4” and slip stitch the gap closed using matching thread. Press the mat again well, and then stitch all the way around the mat again, 1” in from the edge, to make a decorative border. I made four mats - you can make loads if you like, or just two! Either way I will give you a knife, fork, plate and some food next Wednesday. Have fun peeps and I will be back next week with placemats and little stockings, which are actually another fun way to set your table! Happy stitching Sarah xx

Happy Wednesday peeps :) I hope Wednesday is coming in fine wherever you are. There’s not a huge amount to report from my place - I have been playing catch up from my weeks of being sick, packing orders, madly writing patterns and appliquéing the billion leaves that I didn’t get appliquéd while I was flat on my back. Working on your own is fantastic when everything is smooth, and disastrous when things go off the rails. And so the leaves are being stitched well into the night to be ready for Month 11 of The Secret Garden to be released tomorrow - and then I’ll pop the squirrel on the top right hand corner and send it off to the quilter. If you missed out on The Secret Garden this year, the pattern book is up for preorder on my website - they will be delivered at the end of Jan/ early Feb, and come with access to all the video instruction. And so, not much news to report! I thought instead I would tell you: What I’m Reading - I’m very into true crime, so for those of you who enjoy that sort of thing, I just finished The Teacher’s Pet, which is the book from the very famous Australian podcast. It’s a riveting story told by one of Australia’s best journalists, Hedley Thomas, and I would have been riveted even if it didn’t happen just a stone’s throw from where I live. It’s a very northern beaches story about a northern beaches family, and I know every beach, street and landmark mentioned. If you like true crime this is so worth a read. If you don’t - have you read The Thursday Murder Club series by Richard Osman? I know it sounds like its crime again, but honestly its one of the funniest, sweetest and most readable things I’ve ever stumbled across. I just finished the fourth book in the series before I read The Teacher’s Pet, and I was absolutely in stitches laughing. Damo and I went to see Richard Osman speak in Sydney a week or so ago, and he laughed his head off despite never having read any of the books, and came home wanting to read them. I highly recommend them - its the story of four friends, Elizabeth, Joyce, Ron and Ibrahim, who are all in their 70’s and 80’s and live in a retirement community in England. On Thursdays, they book the Puzzle Room for an hour and solve crimes. Such a laugh. What I’m Stitching (or wish I was, I’m actually stitching leaves but I’m going back as soon as I sew that last bloody one!!): Little animals by Corinne Lapierre - I’m making these are tree ornaments to give as gifts to some friends. I have the Professor Hare and Mrs Cat finished, and Marcel, the Robin, the Penguin and Sam the Seagull cut out and ready to stitch. I also decided this year that we all needed new Christmas Stockings. I’m working on them too, if I get myself together I’ll write a little mini pattern up for you all for next week. They’re pretty cute. What I’m Cooking: I had a friend stay for the weekend - she stays fairly often so she’s eaten a lot of my showcase meals :D She was here two nights this time so one night I cooked a chicken that is a bit of a favourite in our house. Now that Oscar has moved out of home and it’s just me and Damo, we usually make it go over two nights - two people can’t eat a chicken alone! I make the recipe below the first night and we eat the thighs, then on the second night I freshen the sauce up with some lemon juice , a little honey and some chopped parsley or coriander, use the leftover rice and cold chicken, and make a Poke Bowl. Sliced cucumber, carrot, radish, maybe some shredded cabbage or lettuce, some pickled ginger, some edamame beans… whatever crisp cold veggies you have and thats dinner night two. Here’s the chicken recipe though - its my own so please forgive the somewhat vague amounts. You can butterfly a whole chicken yourself by cutting the backbone out with kitchen scissors and then pressing it flat and open. If you do that, it will take a bit longer to cook, maybe 45 - 55 mins, because the bones are still in. I like to buy a deboned chicken, if you’re in Australia Coles and Woolies have the brand Bare Bird - free range, no hormones or any thing nasty, and always just the yummiest chicken! They do a completely deboned chook in a vacuum pack. A little more expensive but really not bad compared to some of the other organic brands. Anyhoo: Whole deboned or butterflied chicken, skin on Generous 1/4 cup soy sauce 1/4 cup dark soy sauce 1 tbs grated ginger 3 star anise About 1/4 cup mirin or sake Stems from a bunch of coriander or parsley, coarsely chopped Sesame oil White pepper Put the ginger, star anise and stems into the bottom of a large roasting pan, and put a rack over them. Spread the chicken out as flat and evenly as you can over the rack, without any touching the bottom of the pan. Rub the chicken all over with the dark soy, and then tip the pan so that the rest runs off the chicken and into the dish. Pour the rest of the soy and the mirin over the chicken, and then drizzle it all over with sesame oil. Sprinkle with white pepper. Pour around a cup of water into the bottom of the pan, NOT over the chicken just under it. Depending on how large your pan is, you might need more or less - you want about a 1/4” of water over the bottom of the pan. Put the chicken into a 200 degree oven for 20 mins (probably about 35 or 40 if it has bones in). All the juices from the chicken will drip down into the pan below. When the chicken is cooked and looking nice and brown, turn the ovens griller on (broiler) and grill the top until the skin of the chicken starts to bubble and pop and go crispy, probably about 5 or 10 mins. Slice and serve with brown rice and greens. Sieve the pan juice to remove the stems etc and use as a sauce - taste it first, you might need to boil it on the stove a bit to reduce it and pump the flavours up, or it might need some salt and pepper. Yum. What I’m Watching: I’ve listed these shows on the channels they’re streaming on in Australia - if you’re elsewhere you might need to search for them a little. If I can’t find a show I use the JustWatch app. So I watch a lot of TV because I hand sewing in front of it. I just finished All the Light we Cannot See on Netflix, its lovely even if you haven’t read the book (which is also lovely, read it!) We also just finished Morning Wars, both Damo and I have loved this series. Jennifer Anniston and Reece Witherspoon are both amazing and the story is brilliant. This third season I thought was especially good. Its on Apple TV. Two series I absolutely love have new seasons on the way - Slow Horses is on Apple TV, and stars Gary Oldman. Its about spies, and its from the books by Mick Herron which I have also loved. The new season starts TODAY so I’m excited for that! I also absolutely love Bridgerton - if you haven’t seen it I will warn you that although its set in a Jane Austen like confectionary of scenery, its quite raunchy, so if you’re easily offended this isn’t for you. If you don’t mind a sex scene and you like a handsome Duke, you will LOVE this. The costuming and scene setting is absolutely stunning, and the I love their choice to take modern music and have it played by chamber orchestras for the balls. Its such a great show, and the spin off, The Queen, is great too. Season 3 starts on Christmas Day, so after I am stuffed full of turkey and Christmas pudding, you’ll know where to find me and both my daughter in laws!! Bridgerton is on Netflix. What I’m Deleting: From my phone each week, more of the videos from the International Quilt Show :D I really didn’t realise I filmed so many, but hey you’re getting a really really good tour right? This week is another quilt that caught my eye - make sure and check out the embroidery! I love it. Have a great week stitchy friends Sarah x

Welcome to Wednesday! It’s a hot and humid day here in Sydney, and it feels like summer might finally be coming. I can’t wait, because I’m taking a whole month off between December 15, when the last pattern for The Secret Garden drops, and January 15, which is when the Stop, Thief! BOM starts. I usually have two weeks off but this year has just been crazy. I’ll still do StitchyMites of course, and I’ll still ship orders, but I’ll be as “off work” as I ever manage to get :D As its creeping slowly towards the Silly Season, I’ve been digging a few of my favourite recipes out of the vault and dusting them off. We had my son Charlie’s in-laws staying with us last weekend, so we had a nice little celebratory drink on the balcony, one of my favourite combinations. As its Thanksgiving in the US tomorrow and the other holidays are just around the corner, I thought you might like the recipes! They’re quick and easy and they go beautifully together. You can find the recipes for my Parmesan biscuits and Sgroppino cocktail at the end of this post. Speaking of Thanksgiving, we now tackle the twisty issue of the Black Friday Sales. There’s a lot of “no I don’t do them because they’re so commercial” and also “I can’t believe you don’t have one” out there. I don’t have a lot of sales, and funnily enough when I do have them I find that people don’t really take advantage of them! However I do usually do a discount for Black Friday as my once a year thing, so here’s your special StitchyMites deal. Everyone else (general public, not uber special SMites peeps) will be able to take 10% off all digital products (PDF patterns, online classes - not 2024 BOM) for Thursday and Friday. Because you guys are special and I love you, you will be able to take 20% off everything in the shop, excluding Lap Apps, bias tape, thread packs, kits and 2024 BOM subscription and templates. Please use code IHEARTSMITES at checkout, from now until it expires at 11.59pm on Saturday, November 25 SYDNEY TIME. - https://www.sarahfielke.com/shop-all Thanksgiving as a concept always seems such a beautiful idea to me. I know it’s fraught with the difficulties and complications of family and politics and other boulders that are in the way. But. But. The thought that there is a day to express all the things you’re thankful for, and be grateful for them. I mean, we should be grateful for the good things we have every day, right? We don’t always remember that though. The idea of actively sitting down and saying to the people you love, I am grateful for my life, is a good one. So I’m going to take the opportunity to tell you that I’m grateful for my boys, for Damo and for Chippie. I’m grateful to live in the beautiful place that I do, and to be able to spend my day creating and working at something I love, that I’ve built with my own two hands. I’m grateful for warm water and quiet beach mornings, for the hundreds of beautiful birds that swoop past my windows, and for my owls that hoot through the night outside my bedroom. I’m grateful for dark chocolate, gin and tonic, sharp new milliners needles and books yet to be read. I’m grateful for Bridgerton and for true crime podcasts. And Im grateful for you, peeps! Thanks for being here to listen to me babble on about my bits and pieces every Wednesday. You are ace. To that end, please enjoy your sale code, the two recipes at the end of the post, and yet another couple of little videos about the quilts at the Houston Show. Will they ever end? Theres lots more :D Have a great week everyone, if you are in the US I hope your Thanksgiving is beautiful (please eat all the pies for me, especially the pumpkin ones!!) and I will see you next Wednesday for the next instalment of StitchyMites. Sarah xx Sgroppino Cocktail Elegant and excellent with snacks before dinner, and also as a palate cleanser at the end of the meal. Serve in a beautiful glass. Makes one cocktail 15ml vodka 60ml Prosecco 1 scoop lemon sorbet Sprig mint 1. Add the 3 ingredients into a mason jar or tupperware container 2. Stir to combine 3. Place in the freezer for 15-20 minutes 4. Remove and pour into coupe glass or champagne flute 5. Serve with a sprig of mint Parmesan Biscuits These are easy, crumbly and delicious, and if there’s more than 4-6 people you will want more than one batch, trust me. You can add things to make them more fancy, like a tablespoon of chopped rosemary, or some toasted sesame seeds - I sometimes like to add a teaspoon of chilli flakes to the dough. They really don’t need it though, and if you use fresh parmesan and grate it rather than pregrated, packet parmesan they are even more delicious and cheesy. Please don’t use the Parmesan sprinkles you get in a can for putting on pizza etc, that doesn’t count as cheese :) These keep for about a week in an airtight container. 100g salted butter , chopped 100g parmesan cheese , grated 95g plain flour Process the butter, flour and parmesan in a food processor until a wet crumbly dough. You can also do this by hand - place the flour and butter into a bowl and use your fingers to rub the butter into the flour until a crumble dough forms. Then add the parmesan cheese and use your fingers to rub it into the mixture. If you are adding something like rosemary or chilli to your biscuits, add it at the same time as the parmesan cheese. Lightly flour a surface and turn the dough out onto it. Knead to bring together, then shape into two logs with a diameter of around 3 cm and about 15cm in length. Wrap with cling wrap and refrigerate for 1 hour or until firm. Preheat oven to 180°C. Line 1 large baking tray or 2 ordinary baking trays with baking paper (parchment paper). Remove the log from the fridge and use a sharp knife to cut the log into 7mm thick rounds. Place the biscuits onto the baking tray at least 2cm apart and bake for 12 mins or until light golden. Stand on trays for 5 minutes then transfer to a wire rack to cool.

Hello StitchyMites and happy Wednesday to you all. Are you ready for another load of beautiful quilts from the International Quilt Show? After our vibrant red and green Scherenschnitte last week, we’re going monochrome with this quilt - however it’s still a paper cut. The navy fabric on this quilt has a teeny little white polka dot on it that gives it all a little extra fizz, and the hand quilting is just how I like it - tight geometric fill behind organic applique. I think these blocks are just fantastic, there’s something about them that makes me want to cut them out right away and start stitching. Maybe we need a Sarah Fielke paper cut BOM down the line… what do you think?? Quilt number two this week is completely different, however it was still a part of the Quilt Study Group’s exhibition. It’s believed to be an African American quilt made sometime between 1950 and 1975. It has Gees Bend vibes but was made in Petaluma, California. The fabrics are bright and cheerful cottons, and the back is feedsacks…. You’ll need to watch the video to find out why I was laughing though. As a little bonus extra this week - and because I realised I shot a lot of these videos for you - here’s another one. This is a look around the Colour in Context: Red exhibition, which was is a SAQA (Studio Art Quilt Associates) exhibition. If you don’t know about SAQA (which is usually referred to by its acronym, and pronounced sack-wa), I encourage you to check out their website. It’s a treasure trove of beautiful exhibitions to explore, you can find out more about their organisation and the branches near you, and also find out how to become a member and participate in their challenges and exhibitions yourself! You can find all the info here https://www.saqa.com/ The exhibition began as a call for entries from SAQA members, to make quilts that explored the colour red and what it represents. The entry info states: Ever since our earliest ancestors began applying iron oxide to cave walls and their bodies, the color red has played a major role in art, rituals, and spirituality. The use of red can evoke excitement, danger, anger or love in the West. The color red is associated with purity in India, and in China it traditionally symbolizes luck. Red is also a primary color, crucial to the creation of other hues. There was no minimum size for the quilts, and maximum allowed was 96” square, and the pieces could be 2D or 3D. This video is just a little tour of the quilts in the exhibition that I found inspiring - you can view the entire catalog here at the SAQA website. https://www.saqa.com/art/exhibitions/color-context-red-saqa-global-exhibition Thanks for tuning in this week - for those who asked to see the videos I did with Tula, I’m just working out how to save them from my insta to load them here for you, so Damo will put them up here for you as soon as I’ve mastered that bit of computer wisdom. See you all next week - we’re coming to the end of the quilt show videos but I do still have a few beauties up my sleeve to show you. More modern ones this time! Happy Stitching to all. Sarah x

Hi StitchyMites, my sincere apologies for being a day late with our news. I came home from Market last Wednesday and woke up Thursday morning very sick. I’ve spent a week in bed but its only now the test tells me its Covid - no wonder I’m so ill!! Everyone gets this virus in different ways and with different intensity… we suspect I got it for the first time after Quiltcon in 2022, right before the first lockdown. No one really knew what it was yet, and there were no tests, so I don’t know if I really did have it but I can tell you I’ve never been so sick in my life! Until this week. Wow it’s a real doozy. Anyway I’m writing this from my sick bed, where Chippie has been dutifully keeping me company. Damo has just brought me a snack and my computer so I could pop by and say hello to you all. Chip thinks a snack is an excellent idea. Market was such great fun. Tula and I have a lot of fun together, and it was even more fun to share a bit of our madness with everyone. If you haven’t seen the videos her brother Cam shot of the two of us from the Market floor, I posted them to Instagram and Facebook so you can see them there. (If anyone isn’t on social media and would like me to post them here too, just let me know!) I don’t have a lot of mental bandwidth for writing a long post so I’m eternally grateful to my past self for filming all the videos of quilts that I did! There are a few more beautiful antique quilts to share with you this week, I hope you enjoy them. The first is 1858 Happy Hands, made in New Windsor, NY by an unknown maker. The pattern isn’t actually formally called Happy Hands, a previous owner nicknamed it that because it reminded her of hands with fingers outstretched. It reminds me of a Coxcomb pattern but simplified, so perhaps that was the original maker’s inspiration. Over 100 quilts have been found using this paper cut design, all dating from around 1840-1870 and all from the New York area. The fabric in the top border could have migrated their original green to that blue tone, due to the green fabric being created by overdying the fabric with natural blue and yellow dyes, and the yellow fading away over time. Quilt number two this week is called Scherenschitte, or scissor cut. It was made around 1860 in Silver Spring, MD, again by a quilter unknown. The Pennsylvania Dutch excelled in the art of paper cutting, and in this instance the quilter obviously decided to try her hand at a quilt pattern. I have to admit that watching the video again makes me want to start cutting paper up to design one immediately. Here re some examples of the sort of thing I mean - we have all done Scherenschnitte in some form or other in our lives, cutting paper dolls or paper snowflakes as children, but these are another thing all together. The colour way here is wonderful too - unlike the pale off white or cream calicoes often seen as backgrounds in antique applique quilts, this adventurous stitcher has gone for a completely bold colour scheme. It would have looked striking on her bed, with the red centre piece and bold green border. This would have been a costly project, no cheaper background and scraps for make do and mend - these are all prints, not overused solids, and would have been store bought especially for the project. I wonder who she was, I’d love to meet her. I think we would have got along well. That’s me for today StitchyMites, I’m back to battling the ‘Vid. Turns out that one I get started rattling on about old quilts it’s hard to get me to stop. I have two more antique quilts to show you next week - or are you sick of them already? Let me know your thoughts, and please feel free to ask me questions about the quilts we’ve already seen - I’ve tried to keep these posts and videos relatively brief in case you’re bored by antique quilts, but in reality I could go full quilt nerd and talk about them for ages, even with my sore throat :) Happy Thursday that should have been Wednesday peeps, and I hope I’ll be back to my sparkling best for next week. Stitch on! Sarah x

Hi Stitchymites! I’m fresh back from Quilt Market today…. Yep I was gone a total of 6 days including travel, with about 36 hours flying time built in. Needless to say I am KNACKERED but I’m popping by to share a few of my favourite quilts from the International Quilt Show with you. As we learned last week, Market is for trade, Festival is for retail customers - but the actual quilt show itself, the quilt EXHIBITION, is shown over both events - which means that the retailers can see the quilts too. For me it’s one of the very great privileges of going to Market, because the vast space with hundreds of quilts hanging in it is generally next to empty at Market, and you can wander in there with no one else around you at all. Even when I have a stand I try to go over to the show really early one day and squeeze the quilts in. After all, the quilts are why we are all in this business in the first place. If you know anything about me you will know how much I love antique quilts! I’m a history fiend of several genres, and quilting history is one of my great passions. There was a small but lovely exhibition from the International Quilt Study Group hanging this year, and I recorded a little tour of some of the ones I loved best. I’m only going to post one today but I did quite a few, and some of the other quilts from the show too - I’ll post some more over the next few weeks. This is a signature quilt, or Album quilt, that was made around 1860 in Pennsylvania. The maker is unknown. Most quilts that have signature blocks date back to the mid 1800’s, and are thought to have stemmed from the fashion for autograph books amongst ladies at the time. Often the quilts were made as a gift for someone, or by someone, who was moving away or going west. At that time in history people were spreading out over the United States, and blocks with the signatures of friends and family were a keepsake of the people left behind. Sometimes they were made for a special occasion, such as a wedding - or sometimes presented to an honoured member of a community as a thank you or an award. These quilts were treasured because of the special meaning behind them, which is why there are many of them still in existence, and in beautiful condition. As signature quilts grew in popularity, they were also used for fundraising. A place on the quilt was sold for a small amount, such as a dime, and the money collected for the church, or charity, or a particular organisation. Fundraising quilts often have many more signatures than those made for personal reasons. The names on the quilts were sometimes inked on - as with this quilt. Over time the ink has faded and the names aren’t able to be read - later quilts with embroidered names have survived much better. This quilt has the lovely distinguishing feature of the larger block in the centre that was obviously a dedication of some kind to the person it was made for. Whoever he or she was they were obviously a treasure member of the community to have such a detailed and labor intensive quilt made for them. The applique on the quilt is obviously my favourite feature… wonder how you guessed that :) Borders like this make me itch to start a new quilt! I can’t help myself. Here’s my little video tour - I hope you enjoy it, and I’ll see you next. Wednesday for some more! Please pop any questions you you have about the quilts below and I’ll try and answer them for you! My knowledge of quilting techniques and history is pretty thorough and I’ll try to answer them all for you :) Happy stitching peeps, I’m off to put my feet up and kick the jet lag!

Welcome to Wednesday StitchyMites…. Today for me is all about PACKING, because tomorrow afternoon I leave for International Quilt Market in Houston! For those of you who don’t know, IQM is the largest wholesale quilt show in the world. It’s in Houston, Texas every year. IQM, is just “Houston” as everyone in the industry calls the show, is where all the secrets for the following season are revealed by all the fabric companies, notions companies and designers. All the new fabrics are shown, the new gadgets, new books and new everything! Only retailers and designers can go, people with quilting businesses. It’s followed the week after by International Quilt FESTIVAL, which is the retail arm of the situation. That’s for anyone to go to, theres loads of stalls from quilt stores all over the world, and a huge quilt show of international quilts from just about everywhere. I don’t usually go to Festival because the quilts are what I really want to see and they’re hanging at Market. And Market is why I’m there, for work. I used to go every year, but these days I only go when I have something huge and new launching, like a fabric collection or something so sneak secret and exciting that the company I’m working with flies me over! Which brings me to why I’m going…. Ok you can’t tell anyone yet, you promise? This is the other thing I mentioned a few weeks back, that I’m doing with a different special friend than the Stop, Thief! quilt. If you know things about me, things that aren’t just the quilts, you will know that one of my best friends happens to be Tula Pink. I’ve known Tula for a very long time, since before she was TULA PINK SUPERSTAR and just my mate T. She’s a very special person to me and I know I am to her too. We have been playing with an idea for how to work together for a long time now, and we finally made it happen. SO drumroll! I have designed the 2024 Free Spirit Block of the Month, using all Tula’s fabrics. We are going to do all the video tutorials TOGETHER, so when you log in each month you will see Miss T sitting in my very own studio (gawd, I’d better clean it up before she gets here hahahaha), sewing on her own version of the quilt and giving me trouble while I try and teach you things. We’re so excited. It’s going to be fab. The quilt is called Big Woods. The blocks are BIG, so the appliqué is meant for confident beginners on up. The fun thing I’ve done with this one is that the blocks are customisable! So this is the base version of the quilt, which if you haven’t appliquéd before or you want something simple is the perfect project! Then each month there will be other things you can add to your block to flesh it out if you want it busier and are willing to do more appliqué. There will be little projects along the way too, that you can add the forest critters and insects and mushrooms to. And hot pink template sets! And needle minders! And a special Aurifil thread set!! Fun? Fun!! Free Spirit is doing complete fabric kits, and the BOM will run the same way as it always does, through my website. Stores can order the kits in (make sure and tell your local patchwork shop!!) and then you sign up at my website and do the BOM through your account as usual. You may start to think that I am a little excited, and you would be correct. The bummer is that it doesn’t start until August 1, and the signups don’t open until April. If you want a sneak peak..... CLICK HERE... But in the mean time, you can do Stop, Thief! to keep yourselves busy, and dream of wolves and bears and squirrels, oh my! Shhhhhh don’t tell anyone, I’m not supposed to have told you until Friday :) I was just busting at the seams to tell SOMEONE, so the Smite peeps have the scoop. The other fun thing going on around here is the Liberty EPP cubes I have at the website, have you seen them? Dang they’re sweet, and handy too. They’re flying out the door so if you want one for Christmas, get your skates on! Theres a little video I did about them at the website, and on my Instagram too if that’s easier for you to hunt out. OK peeps I’m off to put my new hot pink Superga sneaks into my suitcase and cut out some EPP for the plane! Next weeks StitchyMites will be all the news from Market, I promise to get you all the hot scoops. Stay safe x Sarah

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