Could this be my favorite ever quilt? Watch to find out. A Wing and a Prayer patterns in PDF or paper are available at my website, sarahfielke.com Don't forget to join up to my new small project BOM - The Lemonade Stand here. Happy sewing! Sarah

Hi Smites, I hope you are all well and happy, and stitching away!​ I am about to get on a plane to go to Sisters for Quilter's Affair - I seriously have not sat still for the best part of two months. When I get back I have yet another trip to Queensland to teach, and after that I'm in one place for five seconds! I have the feeling I may fall in a heap. Anyway, I can promise you Quilter's Affair and Sister's Outdoor Quilt Show posts in the coming two Smite weeks. Last week we were talking about Bali, and I wanted to keep going and talk about Balinese fabrics - and no, it's not the wax relief batik you immediately have in your head when we think about "Bali" fabric. Yes, theres that too - but these interesting fabrics have a far deeper place in Balinese culture. There are four key types of fabric in Balinese fabric tradition, and they all mean something special, and have an important place in Balinese worship and daily life. Sacred cloths must never touch the ground - they are treated with the same reverence as temple offerings. Temple statues are dressed in fabric before a ceremony can begin, awakening the spirits and inviting them to be present at the worship. Some sacred weaving processes require fasting and purification before work on the cloth can begin. The most prominent traditional cloth is Poleng. If you have ever been to Bali you will have seen temples, statues, stone gates, the fronts of restaurants and many other things besides draped in a distinctive black and white check. Sometimes there is a little red mixed in or along the border, but its not just any old gingham - it's a very distinctive woven check. Poleng symbolizes the Balinese philosophy of Rwa Bhineda—the balance of opposites and the duality of the cosmos (good and evil, light and dark). You will very frequently on a trip to Bali see poleng wrapped around sacred trees, shrines, and temple guardian statues to "awaken" them and house protective spirits within. It's even draped around poles at the airport. Years ago on a Bali trip, I bought a Poleng weave sundress with red tassels, and every time I wore it in Bali all the locals smiled at me or waved, or patted my shoulder or back. I felt like a celebrity 😂 You can buy Poleng fabric and clothing made from Poleng at many markets around Bali. The second fabric is Endek. A popular form of single ikat where the pattern is created by resist-dyeing threads before weaving, Tenun Endek is renowned for its intricate patterns and vibrant colors. Historically worn by royalty, endek is commonly worn today for daily temple visits, government uniforms, and school clothing, this fabric is often used by Balinese women as part of their traditional attire, symbolizing elegance, cultural pride, and spiritual harmony. Another type of Balinese fabric is Geringsing. Woven exclusively in the ancient village of Tenganan, this is the only true double ikat fabric produced in Indonesia, and Tenganan is one of only three places in the world that produce a true double ikat (the others are Patan in India and Okinawa in Japan). The rare, sacred textile is made using a highly complex process of individually tying and dyeing both the warp and weft threads, which takes from two to five years for a major piece. Geringsing cloth is believed to possess magical, protective properties and is used in major rites of passage like tooth-filing ceremonies. The cloth is dyed naturally with kemiri (yellow), sunti/mengkudu root (red), and taum/indigo (black/blue), and the colours have different significance, for example white is for purity, red for energy, black protection and yellow sacredness. The name Geringsing translates to "no sickness" (gering = sickness, sing = no). The Bali Aga people believe the cloth wards off illness, danger, and pollution. It plays a crucial role in rites of passage, including tooth-filing ceremonies, weddings, and funerals. Common patterns feature stars, scorpions, and wayang (shadow puppet) figures that represent cosmic harmony. p The final of the four fabrics is Songket. Balinese Songket is a luxurious, handwoven textile recognized by its shimmering metallic gold or silver threads woven over cotton or silk backgrounds using a supplementary weft technique. Historically reserved for royalty and ceremonies, it often features deep-rooted cultural motifs and can take several months to craft. Songket is made using intricate supplementary weft weaving that creates a raised, glowing pattern. Usually woven from pure colored silk and cotton, the fabric is intricately embellished with metallic threads to create shimmer and texture. Songket is primarily used for major rites of passage like Balinese weddings and temple festivals, and frequently depicts local mythology, such as the dragon Naga Basuki representing balance and fertility. Where can you get them in Bali? Tenganan: A walled village in East Bali where you can see master weavers crafting the sacred Geringsing cloth on traditional backstrap looms. Sidemen: Located at the foothills of Mount Agung, this village is renowned for producing high-quality Endek and Songket textiles. Threads of Life: This is an excellent gallery and learning center in Ubud, with exhibits on Indonesian textiles and purchase ethically sourced, naturally dyed fabrics directly from island weavers. Also many of the larger and markets and tourist shopping areas will have a selection of clothing, scarves and woven pieces for sale. I hope you enjoyed our little textile whizz around Bali! See you next week from the mountains in Oregon peeps Sarah x

This whimsical, whirly wonder hung above my bed for many years! It’s called Whirligig, and it’s from my book Quilting: From Little Things. You can find the PDF or paper pattern, and the book, at sarahfielke.com Don't forget to join up to my new small project BOM - The Lemonade Stand here. Happy sewing! Sarah

I Love All the Colours! Do you? That’s the name of this lovely quilt - watch to find out why! Patterns available as always from sarahfielke.com Don't forget to join up to my new small project BOM - The Lemonade Stand here. Happy sewing! Sarah

Which is Balinese for Gratitude, and the topic of my post today! As I've just come back from a trip to one of my favourite places, I thought you might be interested to read a little about some of the beautiful things about Bali. I'm going to write about their rich textile history and the meaning behind it next week. Everywhere you go in Bali, you will see these little baskets left on the sidewalk, on walls and in niches. They are outside home and shops, in the big hotels and resorts, and in tiny roadside dwellings and even on bicycles and scooters. By the end of the day, they have often been crushed underfoot, blown over by the wind or rained on. What are they? The vast majority of Balinese people - around 80% of the population - practise their own special brand of Hinduism, not found anywhere else in the world. It's called Agama Hindu Dharma. It's a beautiful blend of Hinduism, Buddhism, and ancient local traditions that focus on harmony, community, spiritual connectivity and gratitude. What makes Balinese Hinduism unique is how seamlessly spirituality flows into daily life. It’s not confined to temples; it lives in homes, rice fields, and even busy streets. Each morning, before the day begins, Balinese people take a quiet moment to prepare canang sari, small, handwoven palm-leaf trays filled with flowers, rice, and incense, and each is lovingly made, often by women, as an act of devotion and mindfulness. A tiny piece of craft, every morning, to connect yourself with the day. Canang sari reflects the Balinese philosophy of gratitude and balance. Canang means tray, while sari means essence, together symbolizing a heartfelt offering of thanks to the gods for harmony and blessings. These offerings maintain balance between the seen (sekala) and unseen (niskala) worlds, reminding everyone that peace comes from living in harmony with people, nature, and the divine. Balinese have a lot of festivals, and all have a different purpose. We were in Bali for Galungan, which marks the victory of good over evil, and reminds everyone to live with kindness and harmony. It is celebrated with temple offerings, decorated streets, and family gatherings. The resort was decorated with hand woven straw pieces, and as we drove through the streets coming from the airport there were stalls every few feet, full of people hand weaving these garlands and wreaths to be ready for the celebration. Did you know that the Balinese spend 25% of every day in the practise of gratitude? In Balinese culture, gratitude is not a reaction to happiness, it is the source of it. Just going to drop that again - Gratitude is not the reaction to happiness, it is the source of it. What a beautiful thing to realise. If we spent the day being grateful for what we already have, what is right in front of us, it would make us happy. No wonder the Balinese are such a beautiful, gentle people. This wasn't meant to be a sermon :) I had started researching about Balinese fabrics for your post and started thinking about all the other things I love about Bali, and went down this rabbit hole! And so today, I'm going to say that I'm grateful for you guys, Smites! I'm grateful that you pop in to read my ramblings. I'm grateful for the daily chance to create things with my hands, and I'm grateful that I am about to hop in the car and go on a quilting retreat for four days!! And I'm not even teaching at it either, I'm going to hang about and sew and chat with my friends. I will be working - I was SO hoping to have my work sewing done so I could play with something, but I tore my rotator cuff and I haven't been able to sew, so things are veeeeery slow - but I can still sew, and I'm grateful for that, and a torn shoulder muscle doesn't stop you chatting a drinking wine!! I hope you enjoyed my little foray into Balinese kindness with a little crafting mixed in.... fabric and a retreat recap for you next week. Stitch happy everyone! Sarah x

This weeks quilt for Down the Rabbit Hole is an exercise in making a quilt entirely by hand. Why? Because “slow stitching”’peeps. Sometimes it’s now about quick and dirty- sometimes, it’s the journey, Grasshopper! Pattern and template set is available as always from sarahfielke.com Don't forget to join up to my new small project BOM - The Lemonade Stand here. Happy sewing! Sarah

Hi everyone..... I'm so sorry, I know I've been very quiet the past little while! Things have been just absolutely BANANAS in my world, and to top if all off ​I tore my rotator cuff and I have a stye in my eye!! I guess the stress hasn't helped with that but suffice to say I have been "hermiting" a little. The biggest thing happening in my world in the last few weeks is that the company that usually facilitates (books the stall vendors, sells the tickets, puts the walls up etc) the QuiltNSW Sydney Quilt Show, which is the biggest quilt show in Australia has had a bunch of problems I wont go into, with the result that Craft Alive are no longer putting on our show and we (the small show committee and the two co-Presidents, me and Molli Sparkles) have re-organised an entire quilt show in the last two weeks. Believe me when I say peeps that this has been an absolutely EPIC and herculean task, and we're nowhere near done. It's been taking up every waking moment for all of us - and taking away a fair few of our sleeping moments too I might add! It's going to be an amazing, amazing show when we finally climb this mountain, and we hope that everyone who can come, will! After all, with over 350 quilts, loads of excellent vendors, fantastic workshops including GIUCY GIUCE - its exciting! September 17 - 20 at Rosehill Racecourse peeps. Tickets go on sale very soon. Enough of that but on to the other things keeping me busy. Between the show and the shoulder the sewing has slowed to an absolute crawl, and because of that I'm waaaaay behind on things that need stitching... including my Slodki BOM. Fear not if you're doing the BOM, the quilt tops will be finished for July 1 but only by the skin of my teeth! My fabric collection is at the mill being printed which is exciting, but also means that very soon I'll be thrown headlong into the making of the quilts to support it. I have designed them all in the past few weeks, because they all have to be digitally filled with the fabrics so that they can go into the sales folders, which are then used to show and sell the fabric to the patchwork shops. I then have to do all the maths for each one, so that the shops know how many yards of which prints are used in each quilt design should they want to kit them for their stores. It's incredible that for fabric that won't hit the shops until mid next year, I have already been working on design for nearly 8 months and I still have a lot of work left to do before the sales folders go to print at the end of July. My Lemonade Stand program starts on July 15 - all 6 of the projects are designed but I have to film the videos for the first one, finish the dolly quilt off and finish editing the pattern. Again, will all be done in time for launch, no debate about that - but I was going to have this finished WEEKS ago and instead I will be sitting on a plane tomorrow stitching it! I hope you will come along for the ride on this program - its always such fun. Each month for 6 months I release two patterns to you - one is a small project and the other, a small quilt, or dolly quilt. They always have design and technique in common, and together they are enough for a month's work, or just a quick fix if you only want to make one or the other. The first month is a beautiful little velvet needlebook with some applique on the front, and a matching velvet ORT pouch to put your waste threads in while you're stitching on the go. There is a small kit available with the velvet required in a few different colours, the lining and the felt for the pages. It's lovely peaceful carry-about stitching, and the result is something you can use when you're carrying your stitching about! In the coming months I have planned a gorgeous pouch with tumblers pieced on the sides, a folder for your appliqué, a rice bag with decorative sides, an appliquéd apron... I have been planning an exciting collaboration project together with a friend, and a friend of a friend, for quite a few months, but they have had to fall to the bottom of the pile while I deal with the things that have been building up in my business! Very soon though we will be able to announce what we have planned, and I'm really excited for it. Three designers, one cute project, lots of fun. Aaaaand right at the bottom of the pile, looking a little squashed, is the Lap App cover and bag. I know that loads of you have been waiting patiently and asking me very nicely for it and I promise, it IS coming, but I really have to wade through everything else before I can get to it. Right in the middle of everything, when I really, really need to be home getting everything done? We have a holiday booked! Of course we do. We booked to go to Bali while sitting in the airport to go home from Bali at the same time last year. While I love future me for planning my trip it could not be worse timing!! Or maybe the best timing, so that I swim a lot and drink some cocktails before I pop a gasket. As I write this I'm sitting in the hotel at Sydney airport, where we are staying overnight because our flight to Denpasar boards at 5.45am. Anyhoo I shall give you a shout from Bali peeps, where I will try to find something a little more inspiring for you than my very long to do list :) I hope you are all well and happy and stitching loads. Take care of yourselves! Sarah x PS. Whats an ORT? Glad you asked. In sewing, needlepoint and other textile arts, an ORT refers to the small, discarded scraps and leftover snips of thread or yarn. These are the remnants clipped after finishing a colour, or the tiny excess pieces trimmed from the eye of the needle. While some crafters playfully refer to it as an acronym for Old Raggedy Threads or Odd Random Threads, linguists and the stitching community agree it is actually an archaic Old/Middle English word (cognate with Middle Low German) meaning "leftover" or "small remainder," historically used to describe food scraps. So there you go. :)

Another Block of the Month quilt - this beauty is called Simple Folk. Not so simple, but named for folk art, and fraktur. What’s fraktur? You’ll have to watch to find out- and also to see the other version of this quilt, because there’s two! Pattern and template set is available as always from sarahfielke.com Don't forget to join up to my new small project BOM - The Lemonade Stand here. Happy sewing! Sarah

For Down the Rabbit Hole this week we are talking about… well… Down the Rabbit Hole!! Watch to find out the quilt’s inspiration… it’s not what you might think! Pattern and template set is available as always from sarahfielke.com Don't forget to join up to my new small project BOM - The Lemonade Stand here. Happy sewing! Sarah

For Down the Rabbit Hole this week we are talking about what inspired my quilt The Seasons. Watch to find out who gave me the fabric and challenged me to use it! Pattern and template set is available as always from sarahfielke.com Don't forget to join up to my new small project BOM - The Lemonade Stand here. Happy sewing! Sarah

Up at the crack of the dawn this morning and off to Canberra for the Canberra Quilters show! It's about a 3 1/2 hour drive from my house, so we crept out super early and got on the road. This year is the Canberra Quilters' 50th anniversary - they are the oldest state guild in Australia! In celebration of their 50th anniversary, they held a challenge. The theme for the quilts was "Gold", and they had to be a vertical 40cm x 100cm (16" x 40"). The challenge was open to anyone, anywhere - so I decided that I would play along. I have promised myself that I will do more things like this, partly in my role as President of QuiltNSW, because I believe that supporting other guilds is important - and partly for myself, because its fun and it gives me a chance to make something that is purely for me. No pattern, no stress, just making. I started out by pulling a load of my favourite yellow-pale orange fabrics and arranging them in a sort of semi fade situation. I had in my head that I wanted to make the sunrise, and the cockatoos swooping through it that I see every morning over my valley. Never one to want to do things the easy way, I decided to square patchwork and improv piece the sun rays instead of using a ruler for the angles. I made a load of rows of gold squares, getting wider as they went along, and I started at the shorter end of the quilt for my own sanity. I free cut the angles into each wedge, just measuring by eye, and then cut a wedge of solid fabric to sort of match or mirror it, and started sewing them together in a circle as I went. Despite being fully prepared to throw the lot in the bin, and against. all the patchwork odds, this worked 😂 I kept piecing out in a circle, making each row of squares and corresponding wedge longer and longer until they were more than the required 1 metre, and when I got back to the beginning of the circle things more of less fit. I tightened a few seams, and my circle was done! A big press, some starch. I trimmed everything into the correct measurement and then ironed some Pellon fleece to the back - I did NOT want that thing to stretch while I appliquéd!! I added the sun in the middle of the rays, and then got to work on the big boy cockie. I hand quilted and knife edge bound the finished piece. It's called "Top of the Morning to Yez". These quilts were the winners of the challenge! Anyway, all that to say that I wanted to go down to the Canberra show for a few reasons! To see my quilt hang, which is always fun. To show my face and offer support as the Co-President of QuiltNSW. And to see the Governor General! Canberra Quilters had organised for our new GG, Sam Mostyn, to open their show in honour of their 50th anniversary. Sam just happens to be someone I've met many times - my dad was her mentor, through a lot of her early career. He always says she is one of the most honourable and generous humans he has ever known, and he is right. Her Excellency made a wonderful and heartfelt speech this morning, sharing her experiences with sewing and even bringing a quilt from her own house! (While freely admitting that she does not sew.) I didn't expect her to remember me as its years since I saw her, but as soon as she realised who I was she gave me a huge hug and said, "Let's take a selfie and you can send it to Geoffrey!!" So here it is. Fab trip peeps. I simply to DO NOT have time to have made it, but here I am anyway and I'm glad I am. And as for my trip away to Darwin with my school friends, it will live peacefully in my busy heart for quite some time. Until the next one. Here's a couple of my favourites from the show - that group quilt winner (the string quilt) is a COMPLETE stunner and was my viewer's choice! The gorgeous thing below was made by that dear little gorgeous thing. I have forgotten her name I'm afraid (bad me!!) but she was the winner of the Junior Encouragement award - she won a Bernina sewing machine! She was so so sweet and shy when she came up to meet the GG but she soon lost her shyness and was chatting away to Sam telling her all about her creation. What a beautiful advertisement for new quilters! Sarah x

This week’s quilt is called Coming Up Roses- named for those beautiful Cabbage Roses in the border. Watch to learn about how to combine the fabrics for a successful quilt! Or maybe make your own day instead. Go to www.sarahfielke.com to purchase the pattern Don't forget to join up to my new small project BOM - The Lemonade Stand here. Happy sewing! Sarah