Hello Christmas Sew-A-Long peeps​ and a Merry Almost Festive Season to you! This is the first in our series of four blog posts for the Sew-A-Long. Each week are are going to look at a different one of the projects included in the program, and give you some tips and tricks for making them. If you haven't joined the Sew-A-Long and would like to you can do that HERE, its free ! All you need to do is purchase one of the patterns we will be working on (or own one already!), and then enter your name and email address at the link. That means you'll go into the draw to win some of the win prizes I'll have at the end of the four weeks. As you make progress with the projects, make sure and email me a pic (sarah@sarahfielke.com), post one here in the comments, post one to Instagram and tag me (@sfielke) or post one on Facebook and tag me - each time you post gives you another entry into the prize draw. The patterns included in the Sew-A-Long are my Jingle Bell Stocking; my two Christmas embroidery panels, Merry and Bright and The Christmas Crew; my Christmas Tree Skirt, Merry and Bright; and Five Fabric Baubles. This week are are looking at my brand new pattern, Five Fabric Baubles . The pattern includes templates and instructions for five little festive fabric ornaments - a Christmas Stocking, a Gingerbread Man holding a candy cane, a Star, a Christmas Tree and a string of Christmas Lights. The lights can also be made into individual ornaments if you prefer. I hand stitched all my baubles, but you can machine stitch them too - and the embroidery can be worked by hand, done with beads, you can add ribbons or glitter pen or anything you can think of really. My ornaments are quite soft colours as they're made for a particular someone, but if I make another set (which I think I probably will!) they will be brights for my own tree, and I will add metallic threads and gold beads and all the sparkly stuff. Here's a little video tutorial for our first week, that gives you some tips on hand piecing, clipping into the curves, how to make the string of lights and how to work the very simple embroidery stitches including my personal favourite stitch, the Colonial knot. If you have questions, or you're making one of the other projects in the Sew-A-Long and have questions before I get to the post about it, please feel free to drop them in the comments below so I can help you out! Have fun with your first week of stitching peeps, and make sure to show me your progress. Sarah

I certainly have. What a wonderful trip we had. It was 100% absolutely bananas and non-stop, but also 100% absolutely lovely. If you have children who are grown and gone from the house, you will know that the chances to have them all to yourself are few and far between - and so having Oscar with us for two and a half weeks was such a treat. And despite two and a half weeks of crazy busy-ness, sharing hotel rooms and being in each other's company 24/7, there wasn't a cross word spoken in all that time. I feel very lucky and very happy. Of course it wasn't all holiday - I taught in The Netherlands for two days - but usually when I take these trips, I get maybe a week of holiday at the most, taken in grabs of a day or two here and there between visits to lots of different teaching venues. Or sometimes no holiday at all. This time it was all holiday and just the two little teaching grabs in between. What a luxury! We met Oscar in Paris. He had been travelling all through Greece, then Copenhagen and London with his partner, Alyssa, for five weeks by the time we caught up with him. He was well and truly in Holiday Mode. Alyssa had to go home for work, but this is the first big holiday Oss has taken in the four years he's been in his current job, so he had saved up a load of leave and he was ready to party. I don't think we sat still for more than five minutes the whole time he was with us - I slept every night like the dead 😂 I won't drag you through every moment of the trip like some kind of horrifying travel blog, but there are some major highlights I wanted to share with you, mainly of the design and textile kind. Firstly some that aren't from my trip at all, but from Oscar's - he and Alyssa went to the Tivoli theme park in Copenhagen, one of the world's oldest theme parks. It was founded in 1843, inspired by theme parks in Paris. It was established on Copenhagen's old fortifications after receiving permission from the royal family, with the argument that entertainment would distract from politics. The park is one of the world's oldest amusement parks and served as a major inspiration for Walt Disney when creating Disneyland, who admired its clean and magical atmosphere. I hope to visit it one day myself - but as soon as Oss showed me the photos I was completely enchanted, so much so that I've started dreaming up the 2026 BOM. Now, I have other things in the works for that too (hello, The Patchwork Girl of Oz) so I am not guaranteeing that Tivoli will be the inspiration for next year but.... what do you think? Which captures your imagination the most? Remembering of course that neither are exact interpretations, much like this year's Słodki and previous BOMs like Rainy Days and Sun Rays and The Strawberry Thief.  No boobies in the BOM, I promise. 😀 Isn't it wonderful? I of course went down a total rabbit hole and found a load of artwork inspired by Tivoli, both recent and old, which made me even more excited. Some are just inspirations and some original posters etc, here are some links if you're interested. None of them are quilts which is also good, I don't like to do something the same theme as another quilt designer if I can help it.  https://www.behance.net/gallery/8164853/Tivoli-Gardens-Copenhagen-Summer-2013 https://postergroup.com/products/tivoli-gardens-copenhagen-14258?srsltid=AfmBOorHgYKWCVeR-S2w168jINDYb1y8-vSEu-5Gbb36mDyOlPHFYNzc ​ https://dribbble.com/shots/2283326-Tivoli https://gopair.israelten.rest/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=1719684 https://www.emmaeloise.co.uk/copenhagen-zine https://www.vecteezy.com/vector-art/51973448-winter-scene-at-tivoli-gardens-copenhagen-with-snow-clad-tree-and-carousel-in-the-background Buzzing with ideas but I will have to wait, this month's Słodki​ pattern is not written yet which is VERY unlike me, but with the Sydney Quilt Show right before we left I am playing a bit of catch up. Never mind the Christmas Sew Along starting on Saturday, and a fabric deadline looming eerily in my very near future.... Anyhoo. Once we were in France we started the first in what would be a long string of museums and old houses and royal palaces (and yes, Oscar is just as tragic as me... being a designer himself he loves wandering around looking at arty and design-y stuff). I feel like some of the things will take more than one post to talk about so I'm going to start here with our trip to the Musée du Louvre and we can go from there over the next few posts.  Titania Sleeping by Richard Dadd.... I love the flowers, leaves and curliques in that archway, but most of all I LOVE the bat borders in the corners! I may need a new Halloween design for next year.  This painting is a predella panel from the altarpiece of the Holy Trinity, titled "Saint Jerome and the Lion". It was painted in the 15th century. Quite apart from the excellent expression on the lion's face, the juxtaposition of the tiles on the floor and the black and white stripes in the doorway are making me want to start stitching RIGHT. NOW.  The patterns on this Minoan teracotta larnax (a small closed coffin for ashes) are wonderful. I'm going to add a pic that isn't mine here too, from the Louvre website, so that you can see the whole thing. This dear little Greek fox (or dog?) with a bird on his back will absolutely make an appearance in a quilt one day. 323BC and he's still got it.  Heiroglyphs would be good appliqué. Just saying. And yes, we predated the not so genius heist - in fact we had two days before they were stolen looked at every one of those pieces, some in detail, especially the incredible bow of 1,300 diamonds. I photographed the lovely little crown that was dropped outside the museum and sadly broken. It was truly lovely  - and so tiny!  - so I hope that it can be restored.  The next day we walked up the insanely steep hill that is Montmatre to the Baselique du Sacre-Coer. Despite many trips to Paris I hadn't ever been to Montmatre and it did not disappoint. In the beautiful shopping village below I spotted this marvellous fellow guarding the local butcher. It is such a beautiful area and our eyes were on stalks the whole time. I won't post photos of the inside of the Basilica as if you haven't been I don't want to spoil the eye candy for that one day trip you may make! I did take pics of this marvellous little thing. Not being in any way Catholic and therefore ignorant of such things, I described it as a teeny church circus and Oscar as a priest teepee, but no, it seems it's called an umbraculum or ombrellino, which is an historic piece of papal regalia and insignia. So you learn something new every day. It symbolises the pope's authority over the basilica, so the next time I see one I shall turn knowledgeably to those with me and explain in a condescending tone, lest they come up with a childish name for it. Whatever it's called it's very pretty and festive and slightly quirky and I like it. I also couldn't resist the stonework on the outside trim of the building - not only are both designs an excellent quilt border, but IMAGINE the work and skill that went into carving those. The wider border is about 2 1/2" wide and the thinner one below about 1 1/2". Around the whole building. Wowzers. Now I've started I could go on for quite some time but for fear of wearing you down I shall stop before I get to the rhapsodizing I will do at Versailles and The Trianon. We can amble along there at a later date. I hope you've all been well and getting loads of stitching done in my absence, and I hope you're all going to sew along with me for Christmas. If you haven't yet joined the Christmas Sew Along and would like to, all you have to do is sign up at my website. Sign up is free, and to participate you just need to be making one of the six Christmas patterns on this page https://www.vecteezy.com/vector-art/51973448-winter-scene-at-tivoli-gardens-copenhagen-with-snow-clad-tree-and-carousel-in-the-background and then sign up for free here https://www.sarahfielke.com/christmas-sew-along and you could be making something very very cute for Christmas and also be in the running to win some fun prizes! We start on Saturday with the first blog post so quick sticks to pop your name down. ​ Have a great week peeps,  Sarah x​​ ​

Heya there Smites, coming to you with a quick one from the hotel at Sydney Airport! Our flight is 6am tomorrow morning and as we live over an hour from the airport we decided to spare ourselves the 2am wake up. Off to Paris tomorrow morning, where we meet up with Oscar - he's been swanning about Greece, London and Copenhagen for the past 4 weeks with his girlfriend, having a whale of a time. We will meet up with my friend Flo (​yep, the one I wrote the post about a few weeks back), and have a lot of fun! And then I'm off to The Netherlands to teach again for my lovely friends Wietske and Herman in Den Bosch. Last week when I was talking about judging, I mentioned about the judging being blind - that is, that at the Sydney Quilt Show, the judges don't know who made each quilt. I personally think thats really important - it means the judges can't award their friends, or their students a prize knowingly. It also means that they can't NOT award someone a prize for some personal reason or other, or because they think a particular well known quilter should have produced something or higher standard, as an example. It means the judges and the guild cant be accused of bias for or against, and that each quilt is judged on its own merits. There's been a LOT of complaining about this in recent years. Times past it didn't matter at all, in fact QuiltNSW didn't even have it in the rules because the quilts being entered in the show weren't all over social media. And there's the problem. If you are a quilter then highly likely you follow other quilters on social media. And you will see their quilts. And then when that quilt is in front of you on a judging table, you know exactly who made that quilt, and when, and where and everything else that they posted about it as they made it. Makes it very hard to be impartial. In this day and age lots of quilters keep their followers entertained by posting what they're working on. I do this myself to a certain extent, although I learned a long time ago to keep what I'm working on fairly under wraps until its finished, because I have some imitators who like to "design" and release quilts unbelievably similar to mine, and I like to stay out in front of them. That's another matter though.  We all live our lives so much online these days, and so people don't like being told that they can't post about a quilt they're making and then put it in the show. It's an issue for me, because I very frequently enter my latest Block of the Month quilt in the show, as its usually the quilt I've just finished. Those quilts earn their existence through social media exposure, because that's one of the major ways I promote my BOM programs. So if I don't post about my quilt, I have no income - and if I do, I broke the rules.  This is where its pretty cloudy and the people getting cranky about the rules need to calm down a bit - I have never once been asked to withdraw my quilt because its been on the socials, and I don't know of anyone else who has either. So it's a polite request rather than a hard and fast exclusion.  I've said I don't like the rule publicly online in the past, and I've also voiced it to the committee on several occasions. BUT. Having just judged the show, I'm seeing it in a slightly different light. I think if you know you're making a quilt to enter in a show, keeping it off social media is a good idea. Someone said to me online last week that for heavens sake, SURELY I can recognise some of the more well known quilters quilts when I saw them, and knew who made them? And yes, there were a fair few I was fairly sure who did make them. But on several counts I WAS WRONG. Someone entirely different made those quilts, and more to the point the quilt I chose as my Judges Choice quilt I had NO idea who made it, and I was so surprised when I found out who did, because its so unlike her usual quilts. Someone also said to me last week that judges should stay off social media if its that important and they know they're going to judge a show. That's just ridiculous. People sometimes take a year or more to make a special quilt. And I would hazard that 99%  of quilt show judges are professional quilters, making some or all of their income from their quilts, teaching, pattern writing and designing. It's not even remotely feasible for judges to remove themselves for months or a year at a time on the off chance that they might glimpse something on someone else's feed that they decide 6 months later to enter in the show. I'd love to know what you think? There's a lot of quilters out there with veeery strong opinions on this matter one way or another. At the moment I feel like I'm falling somewhere in between. Let me know in the comments! Right I'm off to Bedfordshire, its an early start and a long day. I'll see what I can find for you in Paris. Happy stitching Sarah x

Or Judgy McJudgeFace or something like that.​ Yep that's me this week - not that I'm judging anyone just that I did judge. Quilts that is, not people. Let's start again. Remember that time I judged the Sydney Quilt Show a few weeks ago? Yeah me too. I have judged smaller shows and contests before, and I've done a judging course, so this wasn't all new, but judging such a large show was most definitely a new experience. We had (I think I have this number correct) 389 quilts to pass under our noses, and some of them passed several times as they were entered for different awards, or had progressed through the system to be eligible for special awards. I'll backtrack though and give you a little but of insight into how the judging of so many different quilts, in a show with so many diverse categories is run. I have included a few of my favourites from the show at the end of the post, but I haven't loaded this with quilt pics - every single quilt that won a prize can be seen at the QuiltNSW Instagram account or Facebook page - and I know they're all there because I also do the social media and I spent two whole days putting them there myself :D Pop over and have a look at them because there's some real beauties! The judging is held over two days, at a school in Sydney's west. It's a great spot because we use the drama department of the school, which means we have the stage area to use for the actual organization of the quilts, and then the big foyer to use for the actual judging process. As you can imagine, 389 quilts is a lot of space, and it's also a lot of man handling and folding and making sure everything goes neatly back in the right place every time it's opened up and folded away again. I asked Kaye for permission to take a few pics and a little bit of video, but the judging process is fairly opaque at all shows (and for good reason) so I wasn't allowed to photograph the quilts while we were looking at them. Every show has a different process, this is just how we do it at this particular show. Also if you wonder why I am referring to QuiltNSW as "we" as we go through this post, its because I'm on the Executive Committee of QuiltNSW, and the Show Committee of the Sydney Quilt Show, so I was a judge but also worked all year to put the show and the prizes themselves together, did the social media afterwards AND had a stand at the show. Which is why my Smites posts have been a bit all over the place in terms of timing over the past few months!! Not to mention that we've been launching a new business! Can I have a nap now? Every quilt is in a clear plastic bag, and every bag has the quilter's name, the quilt's name, and it's number and category on the outside. The staging area has all the quilts organised into piles by category. If after the quilt has been judged once it has progressed, it is then moved to the next pile it's eligible for, and that's recorded so that the volunteers all know where it is at any given time. The quilts that win prizes go to be photographed as they are judged. Although the bags have names on them, the judges never see the bags because the show is judged blind. That way we don't know who made each quilt (more about that later).  It's quite an operation, and its run like clockwork by our spectacular President, Kaye Jamieson, her wunderkind sidekick Donna (omg Donna does the whole quilt show layout - we literally could not live without her!) and a team of absolutely awesome volunteers who bring all the quilts to the school, and give up two days of their time to make everything work. I've worked at the judging before but I've obviously never been a judge, so it was actually amazing to be the one who everything was presented to - every time we finished a category, we would turn around and the next one had magically appeared behind us, ready to go. It made a massive task seem easy. The Sydney Quilt Show has three judges. They always try to get judges who are different in their own styles and genres - this year we had Judy Hooworth, an art quilter who has exhibited widely both in Australia and overseas, over around 40 years! She has won many awards and has judged the NSW show before. I have known Judy for quite a long time and I knew we would get along to judge together pretty well, but I was nervous about the other judge as I didn't know her or anything about her - not nervous about meeting her, just that we would all three clash over decisions and the process would be tricky.  I need not have worried, Rhonda Pearce is absolutely delightful and we all got along like a house on fire. Rhonda was the owner of Post Office Patchwork in the past, and has won many international quilting awards. Rhonda is a more traditional quilter, so between the art quilter and the more contemporary one, she rounded the panel out very nicely. (You can find Judy on Instagram @judyhooworth1 and Rhonda is @rhondapearcedesigns - check them out!). The night before judging we all met with the President and Donna to have dinner and a briefing about the process and how the two days would run. It broke the ice for the three of us too, and we had the chance to ask questions and organise our heads a bit before the day began. Next morning, Kaye briefed all the volunteers and we got underway. The foyer is laid out with lots of big folding tables pushed together in groups. Each category is laid onto the tables, flat and face up, in a big pile, with all the bottom edges together at the bottom edge of the table. The judges stand at the end of the table, and a volunteer at each side flips the corners of the quilts back one by one (fairly slowly so that we can see and absorb each one, but with no comment), so that we had a good look at each quilt before we actually started the process of elimination. All the quilts are then flipped back flat, and we work from the top quilt down to say either "keep" or "release". The released quilts go back to the staging area and into their bags immediately, some are moved to the next category they have been entered into, and some are set aside as having had their journey ended. The quilts we "kept" are then re-piled up, and examined more closely. For the general prize categories, the number of entrants in each category determines the number of prizes - for example if there are only 10 quilts entered in a particular category, we might only award First, Second and one Judges Choice. If there are 40 quilts in the category we might go down to Fourth, with two or three JCs.  Sometimes it's easy to know which quilts are released straight away after the first flip through. Depending on the category, they might be more instantly seen as simpler than some of the other entries, or less well pieced, or well quilted, and those can be released straight away. Some quilts instantly stand out as exceptional, but that can make it even harder sometimes because when you have lots in one category that are wonderful, deciding which is first, second etc can be a real puzzle. That's when we get down to looking very, very closely. We can ask for the quilts to be turned over to the back, held up so that we can see them hanging, and folded to check for squareness and rippling. I know that it's often perceived that quilt show judges were "too picky" or didn't make the right decision - "they should have given THAT a prize!" - but sometimes you need to know what else was in a particular category to understand why one thing got a prize over another. Sometimes we agonised over three quilts, knowing we could only award two prizes - and then it has to come down to the nitty gritty. Whose piecing was perfect, which hand quilting stitches were even, what the back of the machine quilting was like. We fold the corners over to make sure the quilts are square, and check the bindings are full and the corners are neat and pointy, with the fold stitched down. We looked closely at appliqué stitches, checked into V points. We had the stories of the quilts read, and evaluated wether things were from a pattern, or were an original design. Obviously all these things don't apply to every category, but there were times when they ALL applied and needed to be taken into consideration. In short, its not only about how the quilt is to look at, sometimes its about the craftsmanship, the use of colour, the quilting, the AMOUNT of quilting, that made one quilt stand out over another to be awarded a prize. We started out with the Junior categories, because those quilts are only eligible for the Juniors and nothing else. It's hard to pick winners for the Juniors because you want them all to win, but QuiltNSW sends every Junior entrant a certificate so that made me feel a bit better :) We the moved on through the general categories like Best Appliqué (Amateur and Professional categories), Best Pieced etc. In this show, there are some categories that are ONLY judged on the quilt top, and not the quilting - Best Quilt Top Quilted by Another we look only at the actual top itself and wether the quilting suits the quilt, not on the quality of the quilting itself. Then there are the quilting categories, both hand and machine, that are judged ONLY on the quilting quality and wether it suits the top, and not on the top itself. The Special Awards include things like Best Use of Colour, Best HandMade (in which every stitch has to have been done by hand), the Amateur Encouragement Award, Best Modern Quilt etc. And then Best of Show.  Best of Show can only be chosen from the pool of quilts that have been first in their category, or selected for a special award. The judges sit, and each quilt is walked slowly past us upright, and then they are laid flat on tables again. By then, we knew these quilts pretty well as they had all been judged and examined closely in at least one other category. We came down fairly easily to three quilts, and then we pondered and talked for a long time! It's a big thing to win Best of Show, especially in a big show like the Sydney show, and you want to get it right.  Judy, Rhonda and I pretty much agreed on every single quilt - I don't think there was anything that we didn't think should have won a prize, and we were all able to give each good reasons for our thoughts on each quilt we debated over. I can imagine the process could get quite heated if there were strong differing opinions but luckily we didn't have that problem at all. We were all interested in judging quilts on the same things too - yes they had to be beautiful and engaging to look at, but they also had to be well balanced, well constructed, and well quilted. This has turned into quite a long post so I think I'll continue on Wednesday... I wanted to talk about the blind judging some more, and about QuiltNSW's policy of asking makers not to put the quilts they have entered in the show on social media until after the judging has taken place. There's a lot of heated opinions about that and so I've love to hear what you think too before I give my opinion!! And if you have more questions about the judging process itself and what I've described above, feel free to ask in the comments. See you on Wednesday Smites - and make sure to get over to look at those quilt pics, I'd love to know which ones you liked best. Here are my favourites from the show - I wish you could all have seen them in person, the photos don't do them justice. Sarah x

Hi Smites What a week! We only just have the shop unpacked from the Sydney Quilt Show, and we’re madly packing orders and re-organizing ourselves. I did an interview with Aurifil for the launch of That’s Accurate, so I’ve linked that here if you’re interested! And I shot some video for for Instagram too, of the stand and all the new TA products. I know I said there were new Sarah Fielke patterns too, but sometimes you have to get done what you can get done, and they just didn’t quite get there. They are coming though, just a little later than I planned :) I DID shoot you all some video of the quilts though! The Sydney Quilt Show is the annual show for QuiltNSW. I am on the executive committee of the guild, and also the quilt show committee - and this year I was honoured to be one of the three show judges. I’ve included some chat and footage about some of my favourite quilts here, but I thought you might all be interested to know a little more about the judging process, and how decisions are made. Let me know if you are, and I’ll dive into that next week- and if you have any questions about the judging or the quilts, please let them below and I’ll answer them for you next week too! I hope you enjoy the show- especially those of you too far away to actually have gotten there :) happy Thursday Stitchies Sarah x

You Say Tomato And I, being from Australia, most definitely say Tomahto. None of that Tomay-ta for me! :D I read an interesting little post on a quilt history group I belong to the other day, about the history of the Tomato Pincushion. I have often wondered why on earth pincushions are traditionally shaped like tomatoes. Have you? Well you’re about to find out! In Victorian times, it was believed that putting a tomato on the windowsill or mantle place of your new home would bring prosperity and ward off evil spirits. When tomatoes were out of season, people would make tomatoes from fabric to serve the same purpose. During this era, pincushions transitioned from being worn (like on a chatelaine) to being decorative objects in the home. Victorians were nuts for decorating with fruits and vegetables - you will find many examples of bowls and furniture carved with food, and wax fruit was the height of sophistication.  Functionality combined with decorative panache, combined with a little bit of witchcraft? Peeps who WOULDN’T want a tomato pincushion, I ask you? Personally though, I’ve never much never much cared or the little strawberry hanging off the side. What is that thing doing there? Yes, I know that often the tomato is the pinnie and the strawberry has the emery powder, but it’s always seemed like a pimple on a poleaxe to me. Anyhoo, all this tomato talk made me think we should make one of our own. So here’s the pattern - no silly strawberries to distract us though, just a good sturdy tomato full of emery powder. You can always just stuff yours with toy fill if you like though :) I have some little kits for this baby available for you - $22 gets you enough of the tomato fabric to make a tomato the same as mine, dark green felt (I didn’t have any when I wrote this post, so my tomato looks a bit under ripe on the top!), enough emery powder to fill it and a little bit of toy fill. Buy here Don’t forget we ARE ABLE to ship to the USA currently - you will be charged the 10% tariff at checkout ($2.20 on the $22 kit - thats Australian dollars remember, so its about $1.30 USD or so extra), and we will take care of the rest. Guaranteed no flat $80 delivery fee, as the package is shipped in a bulk shipment, and then sent on to you DOMESTICALLY. Owing to the method we’re using to ship, packages might take a bit longer to arrive than usual but we’re doing the very best we can peeps. Hang in there with us! Plus don’t forget if you order Lap App products or BOM books from my website, they have NO TARIFF because they are shipped to you domestically. Woohoo! OK enough of all that, lets make a tomato. You will need: About a 6” strip of fabric - depending on how you cut it, you can use a lot less. Or red scraps! A very small piece of green felt Walnut shells and/or toy fill Sewing machine Thread for hand stitching to match your felt Print out the template sheet, making sure that the 1” square is the correct size.  Taking note of the straight of grain line so that your tomato doesn’t stretch out of shape when you stuff it, cut four pieces of fabric using the template. The outside line of the template is the cutting line. Take the stitch length on your sewing machine down a bit so that the walnut shells don’t come out the side when you stuff. I had my Bernina on 2. Place two pieces of tomato right sides together and stitch along one side from top to bottom, making a small back and forth at both ends for security. Repeat with the other pair of tomato pieces. Make sure that if you have fussy cut your pieces, they are in the right order and the right way up. Grade the seam slightly on the middle of the curve on both pieces - this will help it to turn more smoothly. Open both pairs up and pin the two side of the tomato right sides together along both curves. Leave one end open about 1” to either side of where the seams would meet for stuffing, and take care to match the seams at the other end for a neat finish. Stitch and grade the curves again. Turn the tomato right sides out through the hole. Press the seams neatly along the curved edges. Stuff the tomato with the walnut shells, and then fill the last bit with toy fill. Push the toy fill down into the curved bits of the tomato to make it sit nicely. Don’t fill the top too much, as you don’t want the top to round out. Hand stitch the opening at the top shut with red thread. Tie a knot in some thick thread and go down into the tomato through the point where the seams meet at the top, and come out right at the point where the seams meet at the bottom. Take a small stitch and go back through the tomato again, and come out where the seams meet. Pull quite tightly to make a dimple in the tomato, and then tie the thread off securely. From the green felt, cut one square, 1”, and one tomato top. Roll the square up tightly into a little stem, and hand stitch along the edge of the stem with green thread to hold it securely shut. Place the end of the stem into the middle of the tomato top, and stitch it onto the tomato top, going back and forth fro underneath the top and into the side of the stem until it is securely attached. Place the tomato top onto the tomato, covering the hole you stitched closed. Stitch the tomato top to the tomato along the edges of the top, using a slip stitch and green thread. If you like you can make another pass through the tomato underneath the stem, to keep the dimple on the top. You’re done! These are really cute presents and they don’t take much time or effort. If you make one please send me a pic, I’d love to see! Have fun Smites  Sarah x

​Hi Smites Happy Friday! Thanks for all the love on the post about Flo. She's a good one, I'm a lucky friend :) Today is a bit of a housekeeping post, as we have two giveaways to draw and ​I have also some nice news for you. Let's do the nice news first! From today, all orders placed on the website by StitchyMites members (the code is not valid if your subscription lapses) are entitled to 5% off. That means you don't need to wait for me to do a Smites discount code or a promotion, its just a flat 5% off everything - except for the current BOM subscriptions. For anything else though, simply enter the code IMASMITE at checkout and you will get 5% off. Its a token of our appreciation to all of you for your support, but its also hopefully a little something to help out our US customers going forward. You might have noticed that I HAVEN'T posted that I've stopped shipping to the USA this week, despite Australia Post saying that they have stopped posting parcels. That's because Damo and I have spent a large part of the last few weeks working out how we can keep servicing our lovely American peeps. We have a system worked out - from today you can place an order, and you will be charged the 10% US tariff at checkout. We will ship your order and thats the end of that. No $80 fee at the other other end, just the 10% already applied and you're good to go. Use the code, and it's only 5%! Good to be a Smite? We love you guys.  Plus don't forget that Block of the Month books and Lap App products (only for US customers!!!) ship from within the USA and so don't attract tariffs. The BOM books are print on demand - so this is actually the case with these for most countries, as there's a POD centre in the UK, Europe etc and you only pay domestic shipping on them at any time. Also letting you all know that the new That's Accurate products will FINALLY be ready for launch (you have no idea of the work behind the scenes on these!) in time for the opening of the Sydney Quilt Show on September 18. You will remember (maybe?) that Damo gave you a discount code to use for That's Accurate while I had Covid.... well you'll be able to use that code for the new products, so we will remind you of it in the Smites post on September 17. I'm so excited to show you everything!! And now for the giveaway winners! The winner of the Tudor book is..... Jannine Ball And the winners of the three patterns - Jess Heatherington wins Autumn’s Up Heidi Price wins Peony Picnic Jenny Graham wins Happy Hedges Congrats peeps! Please send me your postal details and I will get these all off to you asap. Have a great week everyone and I'll see you next Wednesday.... I'm hoping I might have some That's Accurate prototypes to show you! Sarah

​Once upon a time when I owned a quilt shop, (15 years ago now since I left Material Obsession - omg, really?So this is I think 18 or 19 years ago? Maybe 20?), I used to work a lot of afternoons, because my boys were little and at daycare, so I could pick them up later. Kathy's were older and needed to be picked up from primary school, so she would leave early and I would close. Many afternoons the same customer would stop in around the same time, a lovely French girl named Florence. We used to have great chats, and sometimes a cup of tea, as you often do when you own a quilt store - you hear everything about people's kids, the quilts they are working on, what they did on the weekend. As we got to know each other over several months, I discovered that Flo was stopping in at the shop so regularly because it was on the way home from the hospital. Her husband, Anthony, was dying of a brain tumour. The quilt shop was a respite, a slight brain refresh before she had to go and deal with the day to day realities of her three young kids, her in-laws and life in general, while this awful, awful thing was happening. It was early days in the shop, and one of my first insights into how important a quilt shop (and a quilt designer) can be to people when things are hard in other parts of your life. Over the years of shop owning, teaching and designing I have heard so many heart felt stories of the quilts people have made for different reasons, and for joy or for solace in different situations. Weddings, funerals. Loved one's illnesses, or exciting milestones. New babies. Grown babies leaving home. A much loved dog was buried wrapped in a special quilt we made in class. So many quilts made using clothing from friends or family long gone, quilts made using old baby clothes. Memories from pieces of fabric, where they were bought or which friend gave them. Quilts hold so much of us, because we make them with our hands but also with our hearts. I'm always so honoured when someone tells me they chose my design for a special quilt, or when they take me aside in class, or seek me out at a show or online to tell me the story of what my quilting means to them. Some days my job is a job, but some days it's an absolute privilege.  I feel exactly the same way about my quilting by the way - its not unique to "customers"!! When I'm sad, I sew. When I'm happy, I sew. Sewing gives me joy, it allows me to lose myself in the moment and clear my head of all the noise from other problems. Designing especially does that for me - when I can totally immerse myself in a twisty design issue or brand new project, hours and hours can pass without my even realising. Every single one of my quilts has a story - some of them are incredibly personal and private. You would never know to look at them, the feelings they hold. We as makers are so, so lucky to have a love of something so precious, not to mention so useful! Anyway, I digress. I'm introducing you to Flo not because of the circumstances behind her shop visits, but rather so that you know who she is to me when we get to the actual purpose of the post! Over the years, through her husband's illness and his passing, Flo and I got to be very good friends, and she eventually came to work at Material Obsession - famously lending a fancy French flavour to our little Aussie quilt store. As she's reading this she will be rolling her eyes as she's heard me tell the story so many times  - but we used to LOVE making her answer phone calls. "'ello? Materrial Obsessionh? Yees... yees we 'ave 'exagons? We are in 'Unters 'Ill?" (Hunters Hill)  Hahahaha. I used to love it. Lucky she still loves me :D When I left Material Obsession quite a few staff and friends were unfortunately made to "choose sides" (NOT by me I hasten to add!!!), and I am eternally grateful that Flo (and my beautiful friend Erica, too) "chose" me. We have had many many hours over the intervening years of sewing, excursions to museums, shopping trips and listening to each other's disasters. We had a few days in Paris together last year, and we're doing it again in October!  One day we will tour the UK together, finding all the blue plaques and visiting every castle, museum, cathedral and old graveyard. She comes to stay with us for a few days every month or so, and we always have a lot of stitching and laughs and glasses of wine. And after she's cleaned up the kitchen (which she insists on doing), she goes down to the studio and raids my stash and my scrap bin. At MO, Flo was famous for rustling around in the shop scraps, the little offcut bits left in the bins after a class, and ends of things straightened up off the bolt. She made several whole quilts from the shop scraps!! The two below are examples.  She doesn't like to follow a pattern (particularly not my patterns, she says they're much too detailed hahaha - um, I thought that was a good thing??) but she has started (and abandoned!) a fair few of my BOM quilts, and she has nearly finished Down the Rabbit Hole.  She will get that one done, because its being given to her daughter when she moves out of home. It's taken a while, and also a lot of strongly worded texts about how she "isn't doing xx part" because she's lost patience.  Now don't get me wrong, she's not finishing them because she's stubborn and easily distracted by the next project (aren't we all? Squirrel!!), not because she isn't a VERY VERY talented stitcher of all kinds. She just mostly likes to yank my chain I think. And she doesn't like being told what to do :D To illustrate her cleverness, heres a few other quilts she's whipped up over the years... I especially love this one she finished recently, which has a lot of Anthony's old shirts in it.  If that's not enough to convince you of her superior stitching skills, here's a couple of little bits and pieces she threw together last year. Flo and I are very alike - when she's into something, she researches it to death. She decided last year that she would like to make a blouse using old Romanian techniques, construction and embroidery. So she didn't just make one, she made TWO. These are both entirely hand stitched and designed by Flo (after much research) - yep,, totally by hand, including the smocking, and the seams. She even made the tassel.  And now we get to the actual subject of this post! A month or two ago, she decided to make a scrap quilt using orphan blocks and stuff cluttering the scrap bin up. She decided to just stitch bits together into panels (the best way to approach a scrap quilt IMO), until she had straight pieces that could be sewn together.  The top is nearly finished. She's decided its too long and not wide enough, so she's started sewing some long panels of hexagons ('exagons, hahahaha) together to run along both side borders. She brought the top with her this past weekend so we could see where she's up to. I had a lovely time searching out and finding all the bits from my scrap bin! There's some of my own fabrics in there - ones I designed for Windham and Lecien. There's a block of her abandoned Secret Garden quilt, and lots of fabrics she's snaffled from my scrap bin. There's orphan blocks and scrap fabrics of her own, and while she was here this weekend she found in my bin some more orphan blocks and sample pieces for Słodki that will be worked in as well. The quilt is full of stories of the pieces it contains, where the blocks were made and when, where the fabrics came from. We both had some laughs and a trip down memory lane playing Where's Wally with it.  And that I suppose is the point of the post. This quilt is like our friendship - all the pieces we have in common, even in a small way, over the years, even if it's just the telling of the story to the other. It's like any long friendship you have with those friends that feel like home. All the bits and pieces, thrown in a blender. I just thought you'd all get a kick out of it. I know I did.  Sarah xx

​Hi Smites I hope you're all well and stitching away! This week I wanted to tell you about an interesting article I read in Look magazine, which is the magazine of the NSW Art Gallery. I'm a member of the gallery, and I always love getting the magazine because its full of interesting articles about art and artists.  This month there's an article about Raquel Caballero. Raquel is a Sydney artist, who the gallery touts as someone who "celebrates craft as a skilled art". That's what really caught my eye with this article - it hit me right in the feels, because nothing makes me wilder than the commonly held belief that there is somehow a great divide between craft and art. That someone who "crafts" is somehow lesser, more rustic and lacking in refined skill. That something that is a craft, like quilting, can never be an art form. I take some serious offence to that I have to say - I won't elaborate here as I've elaborated before and there's only so many of my earnest sermons you can all be expected to take :D Raquel's practise is described as sitting somewhere between textile art, sculptural installation and what she calls "hardcore craft". She makes art to please herself, which personally I think is the only way to do it. She works in textiles but also in papier maché, papercraft and found objects. The images below are from a previous exhibition of hers, Carpet Diem. You can see that although the "carpets" all look like quilts, when you zoom they are mainly made from papier maché. If you're interested in reading more there is a review of the show here  https://www.memoreview.net/reviews/carpet-diem-by-talia-smith If you did my 2023 BOM, The Secret Garden, you'll know that I have been on a but of a discovery voyage of the books of my own childhood for some time. I've always wanted to write a children's book, and I've been working towards that for ages (the quilting jobs take up a lot of my time!). I started at the beginning of Covid to re-read many of my childhood favourites and re-experience them as an adult, and that's what led me to make the Secret Garden quilt. It was inspired by (of course) the book The Secret Garden, by Frances Hodgson Burnett. If you want to read the book, or read it to your kids/grandkids, I have a few leftover copies from the BOM still available at a reduced price at my website.  https://www.sarahfielke.com/product-page/the-secret-garden Anyway. When I read about Raquel's ​upcoming exhibition at AGNSW, I liked her even more because its based on a book from her childhood! Here is an extract from the article: The exhibition is inspired by her favourite book from childhood, L Frank Baum's 1939 The Patchwork Girl of Oz. The titular character, Scraps, is sewn from a patchwork quilt, stuffed and brought to life by magic. Intended as a magician's servant, Scraps is given cleverness powder by a munchkin, and rather than being obedient becomes hard to contain; impatient for adventure and bossily proud of her patchwork skin. "The main thing that attracted me to it is her sense of freedom", says Caballero. "It was really a book that helped me escape reality when I was a kid and put me in this fantasy world. And I read it and read it and read it." Caballero's copy of the book is well worn. Now out of print, it's cover is from the 1980's film Return to Oz, and inside ity biro letters read "Raquel 1991". The map of Oz too has been coloured in by hand. "The show is for kids but I would never make anything that wasn't personal. And I would never make anything that condescends to a kid", she says. Caballero hopes she can bring the story to life for a new generation. A three-metre patchwork girl doll will form the centerpiece of the exhibition, her floppy limbs inspired by a ragdoll that she found in an antique shop in the northern NSW town of Ulmarra. Over six months, Scrap's surface will become the subject of a shared activity, with visitors embellishing patchwork squares to be sewn together into an elaborate dress by the artist. I think I would like Raquel if I met her. Of course I had to go and order a copy of The Patchwork Girl of Oz immediately - I hadn't ever read it or indeed known that Baum wrote it, but something about the line "bossily proud of her patchwork skin".... I feel like I need a sweatshirt with that on the front! When the book arrives it may well be the start of a new quilt... you never know. It sounds like it right up my alley. Bossily proud of her patchwork skin. Now out of print, the story is less well-known that it's famous sibling, The Wizard of Oz. I didn't have any trouble finding it though - I bought it here https://www.booktopia.com.au/the-patchwork-girl-of-oz-l-frank-baum/book/9781612035680.html?source=pla&gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=21611718657&gbraid=0AAAAA-Ia9hNVb7LnieCfQ_yAI7OTE0rC0&gclid=Cj0KCQjwzOvEBhDVARIsADHfJJQx7ilqMsx0D3Pbc9OB52sfjEKJ3Yt2s3h7eOseEtb-GvhQJ-Mxm6oaAka1EALw_wcB Meantime, if you're in Sydney, the exhibition (which will contain other works as well as the Patchwork Girl) is free and on at the gallery from September 6 to February 8. If you aren't in Sydney, you can find her on Instagram @raquelcab https://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/whats-on/exhibitions/raquel-caballero/ Happy Wednesday peeps, and don't forget to enter the two giveaways - I will draw them next week! Sarah x​