Indie Pattern Month – the ‘Indie Fan Girl, Level: Ultimate’ sewing contest

Ae you ready? Here are the details for the fourth (and grand finale!) of the Indie Pattern Month 2014 sewing contests!!!

This one’s all about expressing your true love for an indie design range of your choice. Whether it’s one you’ve sewn with a lot, or one you’ve just discovered, go all-out with it for this contest!

(Remember – you don’t have to take part in the contests to be involved in Indie Pattern Month. They’re just to add a bit of extra fun to the month. Just like other Monthly Stitch monthly themes, during June anytime you make anything using an indie pattern you can post about it on the Monthly Stitch blog and put it in the ‘Indie Pattern Month 2014’ category. Whether it’s for a contest or not, we’d love to see it!)

And now, here we go – the Indie Fan Girl, Level: Ultimate sewing contest!

The theme

Since Indie Pattern Month is all about celebrating indie patterns, we’re rounding out the month with a bang! For the Indie Fan Girl contest, your challenge is to choose an indie label and create an entire outfit using their patterns.

Since it’s all about being an ‘Ultimate Fan Girl’, everything you make for this challenge needs to be from the same designer. Maybe you’ll make an entire outfit from Papercut designs? Or put together a combination of Seamster patterns? How about a dress and jacket outfit combo from Pauline Alice? Whichever label you choose, get creative and show your love for the designs!

For this contest, an ‘outfit’ is one consisting of two or more garments from the same indie label. (Unsure what we mean by ‘indie pattern’? To keep things simple, any patterns by labels on this list count.)

Now, since we’re nice, we are going to give you a bit of a free pass with one of the garments, if you choose to use it. If you’ve entered a garment in the ‘Dresses’ or ‘New To Me’ contest, you can include it in the ‘Indie Fan Girl’ contest, as long as you make (at least) one new garment to go with it.

The sponsors

Every sewing contest has some amazing sponsors. For the Franken-Indie contest, the sponsors are:

Sew Independent is an online resource focussed on indie pattern designers, their patterns, and the online sewing community. As well as a blog, where the writer (Donna) puts reviews of indie patterns, there’s a fantastic list of indie designers that’s being constantly updated as new labels appear on the scene.

Seamster patterns strives to create interesting patterns that you will love to wear again and again. While most patterns are geared towards intermediate sewers, adventurous beginners will enjoy stretching their sewing skills, while advanced stitchers will have fun working with clever pattern shapes.

Papercut is a modern take on sewing patterns. The designer has worked on both design and packaging to give each pattern a workroom look. Each package contains the pattern ready for you to cut out, easy to follow instructions, a lovely image of your garment, a tie to hang up the pattern, and the envelope transforms into the hanger to hang it from.

Lekala are a small company of 4 employees with an office in San Francisco and in Russia. Their original patterns are in Russian and are being translated into many other languages for all of the Indie Pattern lovers worldwide. They have 100’s of styles for Men, Women, and Children, and add new styles every few days. Lekala patterns are unique in that you put in your particular measurements, and within minutes, you have a PDF pattern made to fit. Barbara, native English speaker and knowledgeable sewer (and Monthly Stitch contributor!) is busy editing Lekala patterns to make them easier to understand for English speakers. You’ll see ‘Edited by a Native Speaker’ on the patterns that she has worked on. Lekala have also offered all Monthly Stitch readers a special 15% discount off patterns during June – use the code TMSINDIEC.

The prizes

Now that you’ve met our fabulous and generous sponsors, are you ready to find out what the prizes are for the Indie Fan Girl, Level: Ultimate sewing contest?

There will be four winners in the Indie Fan Girl, Level: Ultimate contest, each winning one of four awesome prize packs.

The Sew Independent prize

From Sew Independent – a $50 voucher for online store Stitch 56, stockists of a large range of indie designer patterns and gorgeous notions and sewing tools.

The Seamster prize

From Seamster – a $50 voucher to spend on Seamster patterns.

The Papercut prize

From Papercut – the winners choice of any two patterns (paper or PDF).

The Lekala prize

From Lekala – any 5 Lekala patterns of the winners choice.

How do I enter?

Now that we’ve got you all excited about the amazing prizes up for grabs, here’s the low-down on how to enter.

The Indie Fan Girl, Level: Ultimate contest will run from 22 June 2014 (00:00 UTC) until 28 June 2014 (24:00 UTC).

To enter the contest, make an outfit consisting of at least two adult garments between 1 May 2014 and 28 June from the same indie label. Then write and publish a post on The Monthly Stitch showcasing your creation between 22 June and 28 June. Add it to the ‘Indie Fan Girl, Level: Ultimate (June 22nd-28th)’ category so that we can find it easily when we do the round-up post for voting.

That’s it! As long as your entry meets the rules (written below) you’re officially entered. 🙂

How does the contest work?

Anyone can enter the Indie Fan Girl, Level: Ultimate sewing contest, as long as their entry meets all the rule requirements (written below). Plus, you can enter as many times as you like! (Again, each entry must comply with the contest rules.)

At the end of the contest week, all the eligible entries will be pulled together into a round-up post, where Monthly Stitch readers can see vote for their favourite outfit. Anyone will be able to vote, and will be able to place one vote each. (If you want to spread the word that you’ve entered, there will be ‘vote for me’ badges available for you to put on your own blog.) Voting will be up for five days from the time the contest round-up post goes live.

The winners will be chosen using a combination of the Monthly Stitch community votes, and scores given by the judging panel. 50% of the final score will be from the community vote, and the other 50% will be from the judges scoring, which will take into consideration things such as creativity, execution, photography, and so on. The judging panel is made up of the Monthly Stitch editors (Kat, Mel and Juliet) and our guest judge Penny from Dresses & Me.

The winners of the four prizes for the Indie Fan Girl, Level: Ultimate contest will be announced on The Monthly Stitch on 5 July, and will also be contacted by email.

The rules

Like any contest, there are some rules and guidelines that you need to follow to be eligible to enter. We’ve tried to keep them simple, but if you have any questions, please ask in the comments or fill out the form at the bottom of this page and we’ll get back to you as quick as possible!

Anyone is eligible to enter, except for the members of the judging panel. If you aren’t already a Monthly Stitch contributor, you can sign up using the form at the bottom of this post and we’ll give you a login to post your contest entrie(s) to the Monthly Stitch site.

You can enter any of the Indie Pattern Month contests as many times as you like as long as each entry follows these rules.

Any Indie pattern brand is eligible. To keep things simple, a label counts as an indie pattern if it’s on the Sew Independent list, which can be found here.

Items must be sewn specifically for Indie Pattern Month 2014 and begun no earlier than 1 May 2013. No earlier makes to be submitted. Items can not have been previously blogged on The Monthly Stitch.

Each make can be entered into only one sewing contest (i.e. if you make a dress from a new to you company you may enter it in Dresses OR New To Me, but not both)
(Exception: A previously entered item from Challenges 1 or 2 (the Dresses contest or the New to Me contest) may be re-entered into Challenge 4 (Indie Fan Girl, Level: Ultimate). Additional item/s must be sewn to create a whole outfit. These additional items must be from the same pattern company as the item they are paired with and be made specifically for Indie Pattern Month 2014 (no earlier makes to be submitted)).
Please note that creations cannot have been entered into other contests previously (e.g. those on Pattern Review). (However, if you wish to enter your creations into non-Monthly Stitch contests after Indie Pattern Month, you are welcome to if they meet the other contests guidelines.)

You must write and publish a post on The Monthly Stitch during the week for the sewing contest category you are entering. For the Indie Fan Girl, Level: Ultimate contest, posts must be written and published between 22 June (00:00 UTC) and 28 June (24:00 UTC).

Your post must be correctly categorised and follow ALL the Monthly Stitch posting rules. You can find them all, and tutorials on how to do things, over here. Key posting rules that need to be followed are:

A minimum of 3 photos plus a feature image
Only one image can be uploaded per post, to use as the feature image. All other images must be inserted using URLs.
The following information must be included:
- What pattern/s you used: the brand, pattern name/number, and a link to a website where readers can find out information about the pattern (e.g. the indie designers website or a review round-up on Pattern Review)
- What fabric and notions you used
- How you found the pattern and the instructions. Were the instructions easy to follow? How was the pattern fit? Would you recommend it? Would you make it again?
- Any pattern alterations or design changes you made, if you made any. Or, is there anything you’d change if you made it again?
Posts must be under the correct category for the contest, and have between 1-5 tags. For the Indie Fan Girl, Level: Ultimate sewing contest, posts must be categorised ‘Indie Pattern Month 2014’ and ‘Indie Fan Girl, Level: Ultimate (June 22nd-28th)’.

Posts that do not meet these rules will not be eligible. Your post will be placed in the ‘drafts’ folder and you will receive an email to let you know. You may edit your post and republish it within the competition time frames to re-enter the competition.

Voting will begin for each category at the end of it’s week when a round up post will go up for voting. Voting is open for 5 days. One vote per person.

Winners are chosen by 50% weighting by the judges (Kat, Mel, Juliet and Penny) and 50% from community votes.

“Vote for me” buttons will be available for you to post on your own blog if you wish to do so.

Got any questions, or want to sign up?

Want to enter the contest? If you’re not already signed up to post on The Monthly Stitch, it’s super easy to do – just fill out the short form below and we’ll set you up with a login so you can post your entry.

Got any questions about the contest? Let us know either in the comments or using the form below, and we’ll get back to you as fast as we can. 🙂

The Monthly Stitch

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