Hi Smites! Just popping in to say g’day, and also to open the other giveaway I have for you!  A few weeks ago I contacted Carie at Full Quilt Boogie- I had seen her super cute new Nutcracker pattern and wanted to make it, but her website didn’t show shipping to Australia. I always make a point of buying a pattern I want to make from another designer- I don’t ever try to interpret it myself without it. We all work so hard, buying a pattern from another designer is a no brainer to me.  Anyway the Nutcracker is completely gorgeous, (and she will ship to Australia so if you want the pattern just let her know!) and it turns out Carie is a fan of mine and offered to send me the pattern gratis, which was very sweet of her.  The box arrived yesterday, and she included some other patterns too! Her packaging and designs are lovely. As I don’t really make other people’s designs except when I see something that really grabs me, I thought that some of you might like to get in on the fun and make one of her cute quilts!  I have three smaller patterns to give away, Peony Picnic, Autumn’s Up and Happy Hedges, all valued at $15US each.   She also sent me her Delightful Duos pattern, which I also decided to keep- although a lot of the motifs on the quilt are too American for me (stars and stripes, coffee and donuts, peanut butter and jelly, cherries and pie etc), I do love to appliqué as you all know and I thought I might play with some of the others for a baby quilt I need to make :)  The US shop Quilt with Miss Kate has kits in two colourways for Son of a Nutcracker for those interested! Sorry but I don’t know of any other shops with kits- but choosing solids to make it would not be difficult, and she includes nice material requirements on the back of the patterns  :) I’m planning to use a lot of prints in mine I think. https://www.quiltwithmisskate.com/products/son-of-a-nutcracker-kit If you would like to win one of the three smaller patterns, simply comment below about which one you would like to try! There will be four winners (one pattern each) and I will draw the winners along with the winner of the Tudor book, on August 21.  Happy sewing peoples Sarah xx

Hi Smites, coming to you from cold wet Sydney once again! We've had absolutely torrential amounts of rain, howling wind and very cold temps in the past few days, and Chippie and I are going a little stir crazy from not leaving the house. ​I'm hoping that this afternoon will clear a little and allow at least a quick stroll around the village before we both start to get cross. This week has been a very very busy one though, as my new BOM has begun! For month 1, we are working on the Square Flower blocks, in both the large and the small version of the quilt. If you've been on the fence about joining in for this one, I can't urge you enough to leap in the deep end. I'm having so much fun stitching it, and I absolutely love the results. Here is the section of the quilt we are going on the large version -  And here are two of the blocks.  Here is the small quilt section -  And the resulting block. You can see the difference between the two as well, in that you can decide to do a little or a lot of applique, depending on your mood! I wanted this quilt to cater for the newer applique peeps who found me during Big Woods, as well as for those who are my applique tragics... the peeps after my own heart. I think I've done that and it will become more evident as we move through the rest of the quilt. As a little sneak peek for you, next month we are working on the H blocks in both layouts. Here is the basic level of applique, you can see that if you were making the small quilt and doing the simple applique option you'd have that finished in a trice. I won't show you the more complex applique yet though as it will spoil the reveal for those in the program ;) you can have an early peek a little bit closer to the pattern drop. Now that I'm a decent way ahead of everyone on Slodki, I've gone back to my log cabin quilt. I want the pattern finished for the Sydney Quilt Show, even though it now won't be hanging in the show. Damian and I have a stand at the show this year too, for both Sarah Fielke and That's Accurate. We have been working towards the full launch of That's Accurate for this date - Damo has been so busy with getting the BOM orders and orders for wholesale customers under control that we haven't been able to roll it all out yet. Instead we have decided to hold it over for the Sydney Show - StitchyMites will get a preview of all the new product, and you will be able to use your That's Accurate discount code (I'll remind you of it closer to!!) for any purchases of the new products you might want to make.  What will be released at the show?? OMG it's a total avalanche of excitement. I will show you things as we get closer, but for starters That's Accurate will have -  Pattern stands Thread stands Thread cutters Point turners Thread drops and Thread organisers - All custom cut in fun coloured and sparkly acrylics!! As well as:  Exclusive EPP kits Two brand new EPP blocks/quilts designed by me, with an EPP shape you won't ever have seen before. Sound good?? I hope so... because then Sarah Fielke Quilts will be releasing  The new log cabin/applique quilt pattern (it's called Fun With Dick and Jane) Christmas Town (the Christmas version of Tiny Town) Jingle Bell Christmas Stocking A new Christmas quilt/embroidery pattern that's under wraps AND the new Big Woods book! Plus on stand giveaways, a StitchyMites giveaway, demos, an in person tour of the show.... Sooooooo you can probably tell that things are a little hectic around here at Fielke Central. We will get it all done, we always do :) In the mean time though you can colour me frantic but excited. I will leave the giveaway for the Tudor book from last week open until Wednesday August 13 so that everyone has a chance to see it, and I have another fun giveaway next week of some cutie patootie patterns that I was generously sent by a designer. I'll close them both off at the same time so that I can get the winnings out to everyone asap. Right, off to stitch in front of the fire, those patterns samples simply will not sew themselves!! Happy Sunday peeps, I hope it's cosy where you are. Sarah x ** QuiltNSW's wonderful event, the Sydney Quilt Show will be held at Rosehill Racecourse from September 18-20.

Hi Smites Things are settling down again here... things on the Charlie end are still not wonderful as it looks now like he can't have his appendix surgery until August 8!! He's not feeling the best but at least now we have a definite date and then we can get him back to normal. It's been a bit of a drama all around but we will get there. I've been keeping something under my hat, and its still under my hat a little bit but I've decided its ok to tell my Smites about it :) I have signed a contract to start designing fabric again! It's been a looong time between collections, and I can't tell you yet which company I will be designing with or what the new collection will be, but you will be the first to know I promise. I had fairly much decided that my fabric designing days were over - mainly because I am a pretty busy girl between the BOMs and the online shop and the various other things I do. But I was asked, and it was an exciting ask, and they are excited about an idea I've been sitting on for a long time so I just couldn't say no!  Being me, the collection isn't all about drawing some things and choosing come colours but also about a bunch of research and a story and something I'm really passionate about. The upcoming collections will be a lot more about ME and the things that I am personally inspired by than the previous collections have been. I've been wandering around second hand book shops both in person and online, because using my existing library and a library I need to build will be a large part of where this is all going. Oooh goodie.... new books! Here are some I already had and some I bought recently.... I've also been purchasing some vintage books about Polish embroidery and textiles because - research! :D This is one of my favourites. I've been using it and some others as inspiration for the additional appliqué on my Słodki Block of the Month blocks. I can't tell you how happy I am with this quilt, I am loving it! I will be showing you some of my fabric design progression as I go, and a little insight into what I'm doing. Obviously I'm not allowed to show you the actual designs until the fabric is revealed at Market, which won't be until the end of next year, but I can show you some of my process as I go. Bear in mind this will be sporadic and probably pretty slow, so it will be dropping in here and there.  In the mean time, I was a little too excited about my research and I managed to buy this book twice - once as a new copy and once second hand. Well done Miss Sarah! If you're a history nut like me or just think you would enjoy reading about textiles in the Tudor era, and would like it, drop a comment below and see if you can guess what the general theme for my new fabric collections might be. All the guesses will be entered into the draw for the book. If you're an Aussie I will pay the postage, if you're overseas and would like to enter I will pay the Aussie shipping equivalent ($15.50) but ask you to pay the difference as books are heavy!  I'd also like some input on things you would like to see on StitchyMites for the rest of the year. You can drop a comment about that below too, and those will be entered into the book draw - unless you say otherwise and don't want it hahaha not everyone it interested in Queen Mary's skirt patterns. Have a great day peeps Sarah

​Ooooooh so this post is supposed to be full of photos from classes and the quilt show day and all the other lovely things that usually come after my annual Sisters trip! Instead I've been hibernating and trying to get my sleep back :D I have to say that I think the jetlag going over there is worse than the simulated jetlag of being here.... basically I got up at 12.45am every morning, and started teaching at 1.30am, then went back to bed at 3.30, to get back up at 5.45 and teach until 8.30am. Then it was daytime, so instead of falling into bed and trying to sleep your weird schedule off like you do with jetlag, I was awake for the day..... I was completely wrecked after 5 days like that!  The good thing about it all was that everyone enjoyed their classes from what I could see and have heard. I've received some lovely messages from students, and lots have posted their work for me to see as well. Val organised for me to have the wonderful Helen Brisson in the classroom for the Scrap Mountain class on Monday and Tuesday, and then Tonye Phillips - who knows a thing or two about applique! - in class for the Mystery Class on Wednesday (which was for my Tweedle Dee bag, they got a lovely surprise I think!), and for the improv Hop, Skip and Jump class on Thursday and Friday. My gratitude and appreciation for them and for Val, and for all the students who were so accomodating and kind about me teaching them from inside a massive TV, is enormous.  I don't have any photos from the Mystery Class, except this one of it from inside my screen hahaha. The Mystery Class was an idea I came up with last year and Val decided to implement. Essentially, there's some teachers whose classes sell out minutes after they become available for sale - mine sold out in 4 mins this year! Some student book for the same teacher over and over, and it means that new students don't get to come in a try those teacher's classes. It's lovely that people want to take more classes with teachers they love of course - but it's also nice for others to have a go! So the Mystery Classes are all popular teachers, and you don't know who you're getting or what project you will be making. Fun, huh?  Hop, Skip and a Jump is an improv design class. My quilt using the techniques taught in class (pieced improv triangles and curves - no applique!) is this one which I made quite a number of years ago for Sherri Lynn Woods' book, The Improv Handbook for Modern Quilters. I had in my mind when I made it that the triangles were like little girls playing hopscotch... the big triangles at the top are the jumps when the stone throws are easy, and then they get harder and harder and require more balance.... down until the little tiny triangles bouncing about at the bottom of the quilt. These are the strange things I think about when I design :D Everyone in class worked on making loads and loads of wonky, improv triangles on Day 1, and then we designed with them on Day 2. At the end of Day 1 I got them all to tell me their quilt ideas (they had been asked to come up with a theme of sorts before class), and then I did a little sketched idea for each of them overnight while they slept (and I was wide awake) before class the next day. Some of the ideas they came up with were wind chimes flower beds and pieces of pie Here is Patti's finished flower beds top! She wanted all the blocks of colour from the flowers in her garden to be represented, I think its wonderful! Alice worked on a layout similar to mine, she nearly has it finished. I think the fabric she used for the solid curved sections gives the quilt a feeling like a river... she thinks it looks like "cosmic sky space" so you can interpret it how you see it! Her curves look wonderful though. When I finish teaching at an event like this I always have so many ideas and so much sewing mojo. I have things that have to be done right now though so I can't dive in to anything new... mainly my next Block of the Month, Słodki, begins on August 1 and have to get a little further ahead of everyone before I can rest of my laurels. I think this might just be my favourite of all the BOM quilts I have ever designed. The more I sew the more I love it. If you haven't ever done one of my BOMs before this is the year to dive in.... Not only are there two different sizes of each quilt, but there are two different applique levels (easy, more piecing than applique, and lots of applique with the piecing) and I'm making both the small and large quilts, in very different colourways and distribution of prints and solids.  I also have some very exciting things up my sleeve for the coming months, things I'm not allowed to tell you about yet. I will be showing a few little hints here and there though, so stay tuned. Sarah x

Hi there Smites,  I hope you're all well. ​That little interlude was a bit longer than anticipated. Long story short, while we were away in Bali Charlie started to feel a bit ill... by the time we all got home he felt that something was really wrong, and ended up at the doctor. A CT scan and some blood tests later and he was admitted to hospital with appendicitis. They decided to take his appendix out the next morning, but overnight he was coughing, so the nurses tested him and bingo... he won the Covid lottery. It seems there is a thing in young adults (who knew?!) called covid associated acute appendicitis and apparently its likely that is what is going on. The Covid makes the appendix worse and the appendix makes the Covid worse and they can't operate with the Covid (the respiratory issues makes the general aesthetic dangerous). Dump trucks full of antibiotics and pain killers later and we are still waiting for him to test negative and be able to have the appendix taken out, but he has improved a lot and the drugs have all helped. All this has meant emergency trips to Canberra, and also that I am in Sydney where I can be nearer to him and NOT in Sisters, over 32 hours travel away, where I am supposed to be teaching! Lucky for me Val and her incredible team at The Stitchin' Post have just done a gigantic pivot for me and the students, and I've been teaching on Zoom. That does mean that class starts for me at 1.30am (eeeeek!!) and finishes at 8.30am. I've been teaching, and then going to back to bed and then getting back up and teaching.....  All of this by way of saying SORRY I haven't given you a Smites post but I've been doing a few little panic pivots of my own.  My first class at Sisters was Climbing Scrap Mountain, which is one of my favourite classes to teach. Everyone brings their scraps and we make a massive scrap mountain on the floor of the classroom, and then everyone works out of the pile. The pattern for the quilts comes from the workbook supplied for the class - which has nearly 30 quilt patterns in it, all using a precut acrylic template set. It means that everyones quilts are totally and wildly different, and as simple or as complex as they choose, all using the same set of shapes in different combinations. It's a class I took several years to develop, and I've taught it now for 4 years at Sisters and will probably teach it again next year! (I've never taught it anywhere else - but if you want to take it and can't get to Sisters, its available on demand at my website - except that of course you have to work out of your own stash or scrap bucket).  As I'm not physically in the classroom this week, Val has organised some spectacular helpers and I am there for a good portion of the class on a giant TV, teaching and helping everyone out. Helen has been my helper for the past two days and she made herself a Sarah-on-a-stick which made me laugh very hard when she pulled it out this morning!! :D All the students have made a fantastic start on their quilts over two days. Please excuse the quality of the pics as they are taken on my iphone of the computer screen - I'm hoping there will be some better ones posted on social media in the coming days. But you can see how different they all are. Such fun. I have massive FOMO. As I'm not there, the annual fundraising postcard that all the tutors make is here with me and not in Sisters. I'm auctioning it off myself, and then it will be framed and shipped to the winner of the auction - you can bid on it and read all about it at this link I have another class at 1.30am today so I am going to go now and try and get myself an afternoon nap. Oh and BTW the trip to Bali was absolutely lovely despite Charlie not being very well, very restful and quiet and relaxing. Here's some pics I took for you, including a couple of visits from Mr Nutter's Balinese cousin. Which reminds me to remind you that the Big Woods book is now available for preorder! Have a great day peeps Sarah x

​Hi StitchyMites! I hope you're having a wonderful day. Today I'm working on my final Lemonade Stand pattern, the I Made a Tote project bag, which releases for program members and for general sale tomorrow. If you're not a member of the program and want to make the bag, heres a cheeky code for 10% off the pattern for you - as usual, the pattern is chock full of information, and comes with information about how to make a mini quilt to go with it, and video instruction. Your code is MAKE IT and it's valid from tomorrow (midday Syd time), June 15 when the pattern drops, until Friday June 20 at 5pm Sydney time. There are a few fabric kits still available here , they contain all the fabric, the handles, the  acrylic bag base and the seperating zipper. We also have the hardware available seperately if you want to use your own colours. Don't forget too that we can custom cut acrylic bag bases (and rulers, EPP papers and all sorts of things!)  for you - just email Damo for help! he's  hello@thatsaccurate.com.au Today I'm also working on getting the next border on to my log cabin quilt. I'm running very behind with it, theres still two borders to appliqué and I leave for my holiday next Saturday... I really wanted it basted while I'm away so I am going to have to sew like the wind. It goes to show you how a few weeks of turmoil can throw absolutely everything out of whack! The best laid plans of mice and men... and quilters :) I did find the most perfect backing for it though. I ordered it a while ago, and it's just come in as its a brand new collection. It's from Selvedge Magic by Ruby Star Society for Moda. I love it so much that its inspired a few of the motifs I'm going to appliqué into the next border, which is fun. I'm looking forward to showing you all the next bit when it's finished - hopefully by Wednesday or I'm in big trouble with my deadline. Happy stitching peeps, I'm off to work! High ho Sarah

​​So last week when I decided this red and white quilt needed some mad appliqué I had to come up with what it was going to be! I had in my head hat I would do a big sort of droopy coneflower, so I drew up half of what I thought (I always draw something like that in a half so that I can trace the other side out and it's symmetrical). As I work entirely by hand I just measured out a piece of paper the right size for the fabric and went from there.  Once I had drawn it I laid it down over the quilt - nope. What I had in my head didn't work one bit. I fiddled around for a while with some other ideas and eventually hit on just your bog standard daisy shape, but I wanted it to look a bit lopsided and not perfect so I drew it all up freehand with all different petal shapes. I added some leaves and cut them out to see how they looked on the quilt.  All happy, so I cut out each template, laminated them and traced them out! I made sure to number them all so I didn't get confused - also I never know when I might teach this quilt or do an online workshop or something, and there is nothing worse than going back to write a pattern and finding that all your templates are missing or not labelled :D I have files with everything in them, all neatly labelled and waiting.  I laid the pieces out loosely onto the border directly to make sure they all had good contrast and the colours were balanced. As all the petals are different shapes, I didn't want to have to move them around into different spots if I didn't like the fabrics, because that would have involved recutting them.  Once I was happy, I laid the quilt over my light pad with the drawing underneath and used it to position everything properly. I drew the stems on with pencil - the stem for the flowers goes from the border into the main body of the quilt, but I didn't want to have to appliqué onto the whole quilt for longer than I needed to, so I did all the petals first, except for the ones that were going to be stitched over the stem.   Then I sewed the top border to the quilt and stitched the stem. Once it was all done it was on again to the bottom border! The space it sat into was slightly different so I did one flower instead of two, but I like the balance. The quilt has gone off to my amazing machine quilter to be custom quilted. I wanted to incorporate some paper dolls into the quilting, to represent the blocks that. were in the first quilt I ever made using this technique, the one that led me to my friendship with Freddy in the beginning. I sent some drawings to Kat, and this is her layout of where she's going to put them. She has the quilt on her machine this weekend, so keep your eye on @twocatsquilts on Instagram if you want some peeks into the quilting! I can't wait to see it myself. Happy day peeps :) Sarah x

Oh Smites what a week. Covid set me back weeks and weeks and as a result I am ​wildly flailing my arms in every direction at present! I can't complain through, because next week I have 5 days in the Hunter Valley wine region (about 2 hours drive from me) with my best school friends - some of us has been friends since we were 3. THREE. Thats fifty years. It's a long time to like someone. You know the people who you are just completely yourself with, who you don't have to be anyone other the person that they know you are, which is the real you and no filter? That's them. They're the best. We only see each other once a year because we all live in different states, and its one of my favourite things in the world to do. I leave on Thursday, and before that happens I have the Słodki BOM material requirements to launch, the new Lemonade Stand kit to put up (its up, its up!! I'll show you in a second), a quilt to finish and send to the quilter, a pattern to write for a class in Sisters, a quilt to make for a fundraiser in Sisters, Big Woods Month 11 to make live... OMG hahahaha I'm losing my mind. I really can't complain though, because a week after my delightful Hunter Valley interlude I leave for Bali for a week with Damo and my son and his wife, and her parents. And then I get home and 5 days later I leave for Sisters. so if I sound like I'm running a million miles an hour - I AM! The new Lemonade Stand pattern is a project bag called I Made This Tote. I absolutely love it, I'm so pleased with it. It's lovely and sturdy and stands on it's own because of the Soft and Stable inside, and it has a custom cut acrylic bag base to keep the bottom from sagging. The premade handles are Japanese linen, and theres a seperating zipper to keep all your stuff inside safe and clean. The pattern comes with options to say Make This, Sew This or Knit This. The kit is available now but the pattern will go on sale seperately on June 15, unless of course you're a member of The Lemonade Stand Club and then you get it already! The Słodki material requirements come out tomorrow, along with the layout for the smaller quilt. It's 68" x 72", and you could always leave the outside borders off if you wanted it smaller. No one has seen it yet so here's a sneaky Smites peek just for you. If you haven't joined the BOM yet I really hope you do, its such a fun one this year and so many ways to make the quilt your own. There will be options for more or less appliqué, and the size option.... if this helps any of you decide, here's a pic of where the piecing in each block is: and heres one of where the appliqué is. That's for the basic amount of appliquè, if you're batshit crazy like me you will add all the other bits and wish there was more bits to boot :D And LEAVES! And HEARTS! My favourite things. Oh peeps I had a whole story planned for you on Wednesday about how I designed the mad appliqué on my red and white and black improv quilt, but I'm just too muddled to put it all together today so you shall have it on Wednesday, the bonus of that being that the appliqué will be finished stitching by then and you can see it from pencil scribble to finished bit. I hope you're all having a lovely weekend and I am going to go and keep working so I can get everything done and go and see my girls! Happy Saturday Sarah xx

Hello there! Just popping in this week with a quick update on QIP​ - Quilts in Progress. Sadly I have nothing to show you on my Tripping Out top (the Sew Kind of Wonderful quilt that I've been making for ages, see previous posts!). It's coming along, VEEERY slowly, but I keep having to put it aside for actual work which I suppose is every quilter's curse - except that my actual work is just other quilts!  The quilt I'm making for the Sisters show and the Sydney show is coming along fairly fast. I've had some ideas about putting some mad applique flowers out into the top and bottom borders, hopefully by next week I will have that done to show you because I have to get this puppy into the post and off to Kat for quilting. The house borders are the same on either side, and then across the top and bottom too except for gaps between some of the houses where there will be the applique. Big, slightly weird, black and white and red applique. I can't wait to start it, so I need to go and make about 100 wonky triangle units today.  The Log Cabin quilt is coming along nicely too, Covid set me back a bit but I will still get it done and hand quilted in time for the Sydney Show in September. The tulips are only half stitched down and I have to finish a lot of the leaves too. The next border goes back to a small plain one again, then a medium one with applique and lastly a large border before the binding. I didn't plan this quilt AT ALL until this point, it's been very fun just playing along with how it wants to go. The last three borders transition in rainbow again from the green to navy and dark purple, which will be night time. The medium sized border has a lot of bits and pieces like scissors and apples planned for it, and then the last one is the Big Boy and will have a night sky and city skyline all the way around. (S orry for the wrinkles, but it’s in the process of being hand stitched!) Ok I'd better get stitching, as you can see I have a lot to do!!! What are you making today? Sarah

Hi Smites, I hope you're all well! My Mouse About Town Lemonade Stand pattern is now out - I think it's one of my favourite small projects I've ever designed. The little Mouse is a needle sharpener, he's filled with Walnut shells. And the thread roll is the perfect size to fit a large roll of Aurifil 50 weight, along with a tin of thread conditioner. Everything you need for stitching out and about! All my Lemonade Stand patterns come with a mini quilts to coordinate with them - Mouse About Town comes with this little Trip Around the World mini, and I thought you might like the pattern. The squares are only 1" finished, but you could easily just make them bigger if you wanted to make a big quilt, or leave them the same size - there's some info about that at the bottom. Enjoy! Sarah Mouse About Town Quilt Cutting - Quilt: From your 7 fabrics, cut:  - two strips, 1 1/2” x WOF each. If you re using fat quarters, you will need three strips. From your 8th fabric, cut: - one square 1 1/2” From the binding fabric, cut: - three strips, 2 1/2” Construction: I strongly recommend that you check your seam allowance before you piece this quilt! Sew together two pairs of 1 1/2” squares, press them, then join the pairs. You should have a 2 1/2” square. If you do not you will need to adjust your seam allowance.  The following method is for the strip sewing construction of a Trip Around the World block. I did not use this method. Instead I cut individual 1 1/2” squares, laid them out in rows and pieced the rows together square by square like this: It’s the pedantic quilter in me, because I don’t want to repeat a fabric :) It takes a lot more time, but it does have the advantage of a) choosing where each fabric goes and not having a repeat and b) I personally find it more accurate. The strip piecing method below is quicker, but do make very sure that you press all your seams open from the front so that there are no rolls in the seam allowance, and that you check the straightness of your sewing and your cutting every few strips. You can do this by making sure that your ruler is still at 90 degrees with your seams as well as your cut edge, before you make the next cut. To strip piece your quilt, lay your 7 strips out in a row until you are happy with the colour placement.  You want to make sure that you have some lights and darks, and they are placed apart from each other, or from light to dark, so that you have some contrast in the diamond pattern when they’re pieced together. You will need two sets of strips pieced in the same configuration for this quilt.  Take note for yourself which of your fabrics is FABRIC 1 and which is FABRIC 7. Sew the strips together along the length. As you are sewing long strips, its good practice to piece one from right to left, and the next from left to right. This helps to stop the strips from warping as you sew. I like to sew strips 1 and 2 together for both sets, then press, then sew on the strip 3 then press, etc, instead of piecing them all in a big wad and then pressing - it helps you to make sure that all your seams are flat and your strips are not pressed out of shape.  When you have the strip sets pieced, cut rows of squares from each set, taking care to check the 90 degree angle as you go as mentioned above, and straighten the cut if needs be. You will need 32 set pieces in total. I strongly suggest that you mark these sets of rows as you go so that you don’t get mixed up! Set aside 8 sets, just as they are. These are four for Row 1 and four for the sashing. Take another 4 sets. Unpick the Fabric 1 square from these sets, and stitch it to the end of the row, to Fabric 7. Press. This is Row 2. Unpick the Fabric 1 and 2 squares (unpick one seam only, you want them to be a set of two squares!) from another 4 sets, and stitch them to the end of the row again. This is Row 3. Repeat this method until you have 7 sets of rows, plus the ones for the sashing. Lay the rows out from 1 to 7, keeping the sashing sets aside. Press the seams on every second row in the other direction so that they will nest as you stitch. Stitch the rows together in order of the seven strips, to make a square 7 squares x 7 squares.  Make 4 squares the same.  Take your remaining 4 sashing strips (you should already have these cut!) Lay the four squares out, rotating them as you go, so that the diamond pattern forms (see the photograph of the quilt for reference). Place a sashing strip between each pair of squares, making sure that you have the fabrics in the right place.  Making sure you have everything in the right configuration, stitch a pair of squares together with a sashing strip, and then the second pair. Stitch the 8th fabric square in between the two remaining sashing strips and press. Stitch the two pairs of squares together with this sashing strip in between. Press well. Your quilt top is done! I hand quilted my little quilt using masking tape to guide my straight lines. Quilt as desired, then join all your binding strips into one long strip using a mitred seam. Press the strip in half with the raw edges together, then stitch the strip to the front of the quilt, with the raw edges of the binding matching the raw edges of the quilt. Mitre the corners as you go. Turn the binding to the back of the quilt and hand sew it down to finish.  **a note!! I realise that these squares are SMALL. It’s a dolly quilt after all, they can’t be too large! However if you would like to piece this to be the same size quilt but with larger squares, cutting the strips at 2” instead will give you 1 1/2” finished squares, and the quilt will come out at 17” finished. To do this, you will only use FIVE sets of fabric instead of 7 (and the extra square at the centre). This block is one of my favourites for a large quilt. At 16” finished, you would need 16 blocks to make a 64” throw (four rows of four). Here’s an idea of what the layout would look like - personally I would use different fabrics for every block though. You will be able to buy the full pattern here if you aren't in the Lemonade Stand program.

Hello peeps, while I am playing catch up on pattern writing and making a galah and finishing the next Lemonade Stand dolly quilt and making another felt mouse (I got WAY behind on everything while I was sick!!), it occurs to me that we haven't had a reading update in some while. I know from your messages that lots of you like seeing what I've been reading,  and stuck in bed I watched almost no television, did absolutely no sewing - but I did read quite a lot. In the past few weeks this has included: One Hundred Years of Betty by Debra Oswald Aussies will know Debra as the writer and creator of Offspring (which I LOVE... Nina is my spirit animal), and she is married to Richard Glover, who I also love. She also happens to be very good friends with my step-aunt, writer Geraldine Brooks, so what's not to like about this book, right? Betty is writing this book on the eve of her 100th birthday. Born in London to extreme poverty just before the Blitz, Betty struggles through a difficult life with passion, humor and love. She moves to Australia which was fun to read because a lot of the places featured are very familiar to me, some also where I grew up and where I live! Betty is a wonderful character, and I enjoyed the book very much... I did get a little tired of her describing herself as ancient and unattractive from the age of about 40, I would have thought Debra as a writer of modern women was past that particular trope. Aside from that though, its a really fun and quick read, nicely written and full of endearing characters. Silver by Chris Hammer If you were in my Stitch and Story Book Club during Covid, this is a name you will recognise. Chris is a writer of some of the best Australian crime fiction out there. He has a few different characters that have their own line of books - during Covid we read The Tilt, which is in his Ivan and Nell series. This book is the third in the Martin Scarsdale series, Martin is my favourite of Chris's characters and this is a great read if you like this kind of thing. Punchy, quick, set in wonderful Australian landscapes and full of interesting mysteries but no gore or graphic violence - if you have't read any crime books before, Chris is a good place to start. Scrublands is also a great TV series on Stan in Australia - not sure if its available anywhere OS but its worth looking for. It also has delicious Luke Arnold as Martin Scarsdale which is an extra bonus :) His book series are in the following order (but can be read in any order really) -  Ivan Lucic/Nell Buchanan series Treasure & Dirt The Tilt The Seven The Valley Martin Scarsdale series Scrublands Silver Trust Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen Yes, yes, you've all seen the films, and some of you will have watched the BBC TV series... but have you ever actually READ them? You really should. I've read them all a load of times but I recently bought some beautiful Penguin Classics editions that I couldn't resist, so of course I had to start again. If you haven't read any Austen before and aren't sure wether you can wade through the formal language, Pride and Prejudice is a better place to start than Sensibility. The Penguins are worth having just to be pretty on the shelf though!! The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley I LOVED THIS BOOK. I absolutely loved every word. It's Kaliane's first novel and I hope she writes many many more that are just as good. I also home that someone has optioned the TV rights for this and that there is an amazing series on the way, perhaps with someone like Tom Holland as the Commander. The novel is a sci-fi romance about a government employee in the newly founded Ministry of Time, taking care of one of the first time-travellers, known as "expats". It sounds terrible, I know! It's NOT terrible. It's very very funny, and tender and sweet and a beautiful romance. And it's serious and deadly and threatening and sobering. I ate it in a weekend like a fresh packet of TimTams and then was instantly sorry I didn't make it last longer. If you read it I hope you love it too, please tell me if you do! And I'm halfway through.... The Empress Murders by Toby Schmitz Toby Schmitz is another Australian writer, who Sydney theatre goes might recognise as a Sydney Theatre Company regular - you might also know him as the corrupt detective in the TV adaptation of Boy Swallows Universe. (Also if you haven't read THAT wonderful piece of genius by Trent Dalton or seen the series, what have you even been doing?!) This is Toby's first novel, and I have to say it's taken me a bit to get into. The writing style could best be described as unusual, and there's so many characters that I have to keep jumping back to see who the heck he's talking about. I'm finally there though, and it's settling in to be a ripping yarn. It's set on a passenger ship from London to New York in 1925, and ranges from the staff quarters to top deck and everywhere in between. The bodies are piling up and the suspects are multiple. The book is a character in the story which is an interesting addition. Halfway in and I can now say I'm enjoying it, so you need to persevere if you try it and you're finding it odd. The murders are a little more grisly than Chris Hammer though, but nothing too graphic in the scheme of crime novels! Next I'm starting James by Percival Everett. It's been sitting next to my bed for months and I keep starting something else - but as it won the Pulitzer yesterday I thought I should finally crack it open!! The Wikipedia synposis of the novel is "a re-imagining of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain but told from the perspective of Huckleberry's friend on his travels, Jim, who is an escaped slave." Lots of people have told me how wonderful it is, and as I read several times as a kid both Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, I'm looking forward to it.  What are you reading? I've had SO MANY people ask me to do the book club again... I can't quite decide to do it. The price of the club included a book box each month that had a copy of the book, food treats and quilty treats, a section of a 6 part pattern and book club participation, including chats, zooms and recorded (and some live) interviews between me and the authors. If I did decide to do it again, would be interested? Would you want the box? Or just the online participation? It's a LOT of work to put together, hence the hesitation... during Covid it was fab. I actually have a few copies of the books we did for the club left over, I ordered more than we needed each time because I was worried what would happen if a box got lost or damaged (which it never did!) they are now up on the website for sale at $10 a book so that they're not in the warehouse any more! Happy Wednesday peeps Sarah

Hi all, I'm back! Still not 100%, I had a real dose of the rotten thing, but back on my feet at the very least. While I've been laying around I had a bit of a fiddle with something fun that I thought I would share with you! I had seen Jo Avery's triangle bird pouches on Instagram (you can see them at @joavery), they're very cute and I was planning to buy her pattern and make some Australian birds. I am very much all about that - if another designer has done something already, I will purchase their pattern and not attempt to work it out myself. I would expect the same from them. We all work very hard on out ideas and I respect their time and effort as much as I respect my own! Jo announced that she wasn't going to release the birds as a pattern as she thought people would copy them (? ok), and instead the pattern was going to be available for a short time as a free class to promote the classes for another group in the UK that she works with. I duly signed up, but the window to watch the free video was so short that I missed it. Reading Jo's information after signing up though, I realised that she had actually taken the pattern for the pouch itself (not the bird component) from Arounna Khounnoraj (you might know her as Bookhou online ) - which may also have influenced her decision not to make these pouches a saleable pattern! Anyway once all that had happened, I still wanted to realise my little collection of Australian bird pouches, for no other reason than that they tickle my fancy. So I did! I managed in the Covid fog to get the cockatoo done. I'm planning a galah and a magpie and maybe a kookaburra and lorrikeet if I can work them out. For now though, you can find Arounna's excellent YouTube video on the construction of the pouch here.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aivw6m8zniU I made mine in the exact same way (other than a few differences outlines below), machine stitching the L shape and then hand sewing the other parts together. It's very simple and makes a really lovely and tactile little piece. I didn't hand quilt the cockatoo, mainly because the idea of trekking to the studio (which is under our house) for white quilting thread was not appealing at that moment, but I will quilt the galah because I think it will add some fun feathery texture.​ DOWNLOAD TEMPLATES So what did I do differently to Arounna? I used one piece of fabric (that she refers to as lining), without adding the boro pieces on top. It might actually be fun to do boro for the magpie and the lorrikeet, to do bits of black and white or rainbow? I will see! I used iron on fleece for the batting, which saved me having to baste the piece at all before it was turned. I know she didn't baste, but I felt like that was going to make things a little baggy. So I fused the fleece to the front piece of fabric, then layered the piece of the lining (the yellow inside on my pouch) and stitched as she did. Fusible fleece is light and easy to use, and it made the pouch and wings easier to turn through without too much bulk. I added a small bead to the inside knot as well as to the outer end, so that it was nice and secure and wouldn't pull out through the hole. I want to try making some larger pouches using this technique too and I think the bead would be essential in that instance.  I added a beak, wings and an eye! So how did you make the wings and beak you say? Well as Jo hasn't released a pattern I made up my own, and as I'm not selling them or publicising them or putting them into the public eye, just releasing them to you fine peeps, that's fair game. You will find the files for the wings and beak for the cockatoo, lorrikeet and galah, as well as a magpie, and a generic beak, as well as a few differently shaped wings, attached to this post, along with a diagram of where to place the pieces when you stitch. Please note that you need to make the wings, beak and eye BEFORE you stitch the L shaped fabric pieces together!! To add the wings and beak, I cut the beak shapes from felt. You could make them from fabric and turn them too but I felt it was unneeded fiddle. To make the parrot beak, I cut two pieces of the top section and one of the bottom section, so that it wasn't too chunky and thick. I whipstitched around the outside of the beak using matching thread, and when I got to the bottom edge I placed the bottom beak section between the two pieces and stitched along both sides to secure it. You don't need to stitch the edge thats going inside the pouch closed. For the other beaks, I will just cut two pieces and stitch them together with nothing between.  For the wings, I cut a piece of the fleece using the template, and then ironed it to the back of the fabric. I them used the fleece as a template to cut two pieces of fabric for the front and back of the wing, around about 1/4" larger than the fleece. This really doesn't need to be exact. I then put the fabric pieces right sides together and stitched by hand around the outside edge of the fleece. You need to use little stitches, as small as you can manage for this, partly so that you get a nice smooth curve in your wing but also because you don't want holes in the edges of your stitching! Stitch all the way from the flat end of the wing, around the curvy part and out to the end of the fabric on the other side, and tie good knots. Then turn the wing through to the right side and give it a good press. I stitched a little bit around the edges of the wing, just with sewing cotton, for some definition. Make two wings! The eyes are just a little circle of black felt. I attached them with a big X for cuteness but you can stitch around the edges too using matching thread. Once you've made all the additions, place the beak xx and the wings xx. They need to be facing inwards, towards the body of the bird. Check the position of the wings particularly as its very easy to have them point the wrong direction... ask me how I know :) Pin or baste them in place, and then stitch around the outside of the L as directed by Arounna. Everything else proceeds as per her instructions, except when you come to stitch the area with the beak together by hand.  When you do that, stitch the INSIDE edge of the fabric together first, with the beak pointing to the outside edge. Then turn the piece through and stitch the outside edge. When you go to the beak, one side will already be stitched in (because it was machine sewn into the seam) so stitch the fabric to the other side of the felt with a slip stitch before closing the rest of the seam.  To make a bigger pouch, simply enlarge Arounna's template! It's important to keep the proportions the same, so it's easiest to just make hers bigger than reinvent the wheel imo. I've put together some little kit situations that are only for StitchyMites, if you would like to try making these little feathered friends and don't want to gather all the little bits! Not fabric, because Lord knows we all have plenty of that, but a little package with beads, leather thong and the fleece. Mind you, if you would like me to put some fabric and felt together for a certain kind of bird I can do that for you too, just ask. The fleece strip is off the bolt, so its enough to make four pouches, but once you've made one you'll be hooked I swear.  The kits will be $5 AUS (about $3 US) for the fleece, and enough leather to make one pouch, and a large and small bead - they're lovely wooden beads, not plastic. If you want more beads and leather, you can add another set of two (one large and one small bead) and enough leather for another pouch for an extra $3 per set. You can choose from any of the colours and sizes of beads that are shown below! As the sets aren't available for the general public, to order just send me an email  sarah@sarahfielke.com  and I'll sort you out. Make sure to tell me how many sets of beads and leather you want (just the one that comes with the $5, or extra on top), and what colour, shape and sizes of beads.​ They are nice and light to post, but if you want to add other things from the website, just place that order first on the site and then email me to add the bird kit in for no extra postage. Here's the bead options! I used a hexagonal bead for the end of the leather and a small round yellow one for the inside. The large round ones would be fine for the end bead, they're about 1/2" wide. You could also be more decorative and add extra beads onto the end for colour. If I was going to try a larger pouch, I would put the medium bead inside. Colour names from top left to right: red, hot pink, pink, orange yellow, green, blue, purple dark purple, brown, white And the sizes left to right: large, medium small The shaped beads are a bit larger than the largest round one, but not much. They only come in one size, and in fewer colours. pink, dark pink, yellow green, blue, dark blue So there you go! I hope you have fun making a bird, please send me pics if you do so that I can post them for everyone to see. They're so cute! Please ask any questions about their construction too, I'm happy to help. I'm hoping now I'm up and around a little more that I'll play with the other bird types, I'll make sure to show you when I do. Happy Thursday peeps  Sarah xx