Tiny Town Sew Along Final Week
Week 4 already!
Wow that was quick. Judging by the amount of you who are telling me how addictive those little houses are, most of you are flying along with your Tiny and Spooky Towns! I’ve loved seeing them on social media - if you are making one and haven’t posted about it please show it off, or if you’re not on social media feel free to email me a pic and I will show it off for you. You can post it in my Facebook group Sarah Fielke Quilts, or to Instagram with the hashtag #tinytownquilt, #tinytownpattern or #tinytownsewalong, of #spookytownquilt if thats what you’re making!
Loads of you have also asked if there will be a CHRISTMAS Town coming as well, and the answer to that is YES. The Christmas Town add on pattern is underway, it will be available in mid November. It’s an entirely different size AND shape, and comes with Christmas appliqués and another Spoonflower fabric panel option - and a Tiny Town CHRISTMAS STOCKING pattern!! Somebody stop me.
Unbeknownst to those of you who are not members of my StitchyMites subscription club, I did some packs of 3 1/2” squares for the Spooky Town quilt, with 30 different Halloween themed and spooky fabrics from my stash in them. Its not enough to make the whole quilt but it certainly gives you some extra options. I had some spare, so I’ve opened them up for anyone who would like to buy one (until they’re gone). You can find them at my website here
This week we are talking about your borders, and finishing the quilt off. The thing to remember about both Tiny Town and Spooky Town is that the borders are completely customisable. You can put extra houses, less houses, more trees, less, trees, extra ghosts… the borders are really about how much more work you want to put into your quilt, rather than them being a perfectly laid out exercise. My borders I would say are a minimum of applique unless you want your quilt to look a bit bare.
I’ve thought since I first made the quilt that it would look very sweet with the houses all around the border instead of trees, so if you like that idea it works beautifully too! You would of course have a space at the corners but I think thats good actually, as it allows for the rounding and will look natural.
I hand quilted Tiny Town and I’m also hand quilting Spooky Town. With all the things I have going on at present its running a little behind, but I promise to post a picture here when it’s done and bound.
For Tiny Town I used masking tape to make straight lines behind the houses, and I outline quilted just outside of the roofs. I outlined all the applique too, and I rounded the corners of the quilting to echo the rounded corners of the quilt. I used white thread for the straight lines, green around the trees and hot pink around the houses and the other applique.
For Spooky Town, I originally started quilting the white backgrounds in black and the black backgrounds in white, but it was too stark and I wasn’t at all happy with it. I pulled it out and started again (no wonder I’m running behind….) and I used a silvery grey thread instead. I’m really happy with it - its an Aurifil 12 weight (my preferred hand quilting thread) in colour 5007. Its silvery enough to look soft and grey on the black and still stand out on the white background. Perfection.
I am quilting along just inside the seams of the strips on the white side of the fabric, rather than on the black, as that’s the down side of my seams. I have outline quilted the houses, but as the strips are thinner than the Tiny Town strips and the quilt is so much smaller, I haven’t bothered quilting the straight lines behind the houses.
All the tombstones are quilted a little inside them for decoration, as well as around them, and I double quilted the ghosts to make them look spookier :)
The blue threads you can see there are just my basting stitches, they will come out after.
For those wondering, I use 100% cotton batting with scrim when I hand quilt - it’s Matilda’s Own brand. It’s easy to needle, keeps its shape and drapes beautifully. I always use a hoop - you can find the brand I like here - and I always use a thimble. I like Clover Open Sided thimbles, which you can find here. I also have my own brand of hand quilting needles.
I use Aurifil 12 weight for all my hand quilting. Its finer and easier to work with than Perle 8, but still gives your stitches beautiful definition. It also doesn’t pill as easily as Perle 8, which can look very ratty if you cut it too long. I don’t sell single spools but I do sell my own Aurifil collection here
Because I like to do big stitch quilting, these aren’t the same as ordinary hand quilting needles. It has taken me quite some years of research to find ones I like and that are the perfect thickness and strength, while having an eye thats threadable but not so big it won’t pull through the fabric. Not an easy task but I’ve got them in my hands finally! You can get them here.
I hope you’ve enjoyed making your little town!! Please let me know in the comments below how your town is growing. I hope you decide to come and play again at Christmas! Happy stitching
Sarah