IPM2016 – Super Secret Announcement Post

It’s time to release the details of our three super secret surprises!

For this years Indie Pattern Month we are excited to be able to offer three amazing indie pdf pattern bundles for you to buy.

We’ve been working hard with several of our sponsors to put together three pattern bundles, each with a different theme, that can create little capsule wardrobes.

Read on to learn more including when these bundles will be available.

The Why.

So, what’s in it for you?

Well, you get to buy patterns at a heavily discounted price from some of our best indie pattern designers.

You get LOTS of patterns all at once to try plus it’s fun to discover new patterns and their designers.

We’ve taken the hard work out of combining patterns by creating little capsule wardrobes with their own theme.

There’s a bonus reason too, but you’ll have to keep reading to find it out…

How will it work? Where can I buy the bundles and when?

There are three pattern bundles organised into two tiers. You can buy the basic bundle of three patterns or the extended bundle with an additional three patterns added on for a total of six patterns.

The bundles will be launched individually on the timeline set out below. Each bundle will be on sale for two weeks only and then the next bundle will launch immediately after.

Bundle One: Announced 26 May – for sale until 8 June

Bundle Two: Announced 9 June – for sale until 22 June

Bundle Three: Announced 23 June – for sale until 6 July

Currently we are unable to sell the bundles directly from the The Monthly Stitch blog so each launch post will provide a link to the Shopify site where you can view the bundles in full and make your purchase. Everything will be secure and you will receive your purchase download links automatically through SendOwl.

For each bundle you will have the option of buying the basic bundle or the extended bundle for extra pattern goodness.

Which designers are participating?

The 18 participating designers are all part of our overall sponsors for Indie Pattern Month but as to who exactly, well, you’ll have to wait and see.

We’ll be sharing sneak peeks of each bundle in the week leading up to it’s release so make sure you follow us on Facebook or Instagram so you can try and guess!

What happens to the money?

The profits from each bundle sale will be split evenly between the partici[ating designers and The Monthly Stitch. A portion is also going to a New Zealand based charity chosen by the designers. We will be supporting a different charity for each bundle and will announce this at each launch.

The Monthly Stitch’s portion will be paying for all the website hosting and other feesa ssociated with running the bundles.

Anything left over out of our portion will go directly towards making The Monthly Stitch bigger and better than ever.

Currently The Monthly Stitch is run on of a free WordPress.com account with lots of great graphics and clever work-arounds (and some less clever ones, e.g. URL image insertion) to give you the experience we have today. We have limited free media storage (of which we are currently at 75% capacity and running out fast) and we are restricted to the WordPress.com templates and coding rules as well as any site design changes they make whether we agree with them or not (I’m looking at you, “improved posting experience”). We feel that The Monthly Stitch is outgrowing the functionality of a free platform and as we evolve we feel the limits of these restrictions more and more.

We’ve been dreaming and planning the next evolution of The Monthly Stitch for some time (self-hosted, no random adverts and more freedom for us and our Collective) but up until now it has been just that, the dream of two very busy ladies who love being involved in the online sewing community and squeeze as much as they can of that into the gaps between professional full-time jobs, family and our own sewing!

We hope that the remainder of our profits from the bundles sales will be enough fund this next step. If everything goes well and you give us good feedback (and buy lots of amazing patterns) it’s possible that we could run bundle sales every Indie Pattern Month directly from new self-hosted The Monthly Stitchsite and continue to fund the running of a self-hosted Monthly Stitch solely through those profits.

So, in short, you get amazing patterns for cheap and in return we all get an amazing community blogging site.

You mentioned another bonus?

Oh yeah I did, didn’t I? 😉

We are running a bonus competition just for bundle purchasers. There will be prizes too but we’re keeping those secret for now…

In early July we will be running an extra contest to round out Indie Pattern Month. Sew up an outfit from any of the pattern bundles you purchase and write a post about it on The Monthly Stitch as per the rules below.

Bonus Contest, July 13th-19th – IPM2016 Bundle Sale Contest!

• The IPM2016 Bundle Sale contest runs from July 13th (00:00 UTC) until July 19th (24:00 UTC)
• Make an outfit consisting of a minimum two items.
• Only patterns purchased as part of the three pattern bundles offered for Indie Pattern Month 2016 are eligible.
• Your two items may be from different bundles.
• You can enter only once.
• Both items must be new and sewn specifically for Indie Pattern Month 2016 Bundle Sale Contest. No makes started prior to the contest announcements are to be submitted.
• Items must not have been blogged about, either on The Monthly Stitch or on another blog, prior to the week of the contest. You may blog your entries elsewhere after posting on The Monthly Stitch.
• Your post must go up on The Monthly Stitch blog during the week stated and must be correctly categorised and follow ALL the usual posting rules.
• We need your entry post to be of a good quality. The more photos and details you include, the more people will learn about what you’ve made, and the better chance you have of being a finalist and, ultimately, a winner! Posts must include the following:
  • A minimum of three photos (that have been inserted using URLs, not uploaded to the blog directly please – we’ve got a tutorial here for how to do that)
  • A feature image (here’s a tutorial for how to add a feature image)
  • The contest category selected (so that we know it’s a competition entry post!)
  • Information about the patterns you used: the brand, the name/number of the pattern (you might also like to include a description, image, and link to the pattern page)
  • What fabric and notions you used
  • Any pattern alterations/design changes you made, and what (if any) you’d make next time
  • How you found the instructions. Were they easy to follow?
  • Why did you choose the pattern and fabric you used?
  • You might find is useful to read Kat’s post about Creating a Great Monthly Stitch Post.
• The competition deadline runs on UTC time – you can check the current UTC time here.
• 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. You may edit and repost within the competition time frames to re-enter the competition. For this reason we suggest you do not post at the last minute – give yourself time to check your post and then to correct it and repost if needed.
• The post category is Bonus Bundle Sale Contest (July 13th – 19th) 2016

Keeping Up to Date: 

Don’t forget you can keep track of all things Indie Pattern Month on our dedicated page here.

How do I sign up?

If you’ve previously posted on The Monthly Stitch blog then you are good to go!

Otherwise you must apply and be approved, please use the sign up for at the bottom of this page.

Please keep in mind that we get really busy working on Indie Pattern Month and we often get a lot of sign up requests in June at the last minute. We must approve sign-ups manually and it can take up to 72 hours for us to complete the process. You also need time for the sign up email to arrive and if you do not yet have a WordPress account you will need to set this up. So, please don’t wait until the day your contest is closing!

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