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Saturday, March 15, 2014

Celebrate World Wide Quilting Day and an Invite to Participate in the March Linky Party for the Make It A Handmade Christmas Challenge.

Today is a busy day for many of us.  It is worldwide Quilting Day and I hope you are able to find time to quilt.  SewCalGal is certainly enjoying spending the entire day quilting.  Today also starts the March Linky Party for the Make It A Handmade Christmas Challenge



First, I want to share a insights on a couple of opportunities to celebrate  Worldwide Quilting Day that you might be interested in:

The Quilt Show is celebrating International Quilting Day by opening up over 160 shows for free viewing on Saturday, March 16th and Sunday March 17th.   Plus they have an amazing giveaway.  Click here for more info.

Craftsy is celebrating this weekend with ALL of their online classes on sale, many of which are 50% off.


51 Quilting Classes on Sale.

57 Sewing Classes on Sale

10 Embroidery Classes on Sale

24 Food and Cooking Classes on Sale

51 Knitting Classes on Sale


Time to talk about the Make It A Handmade Christmas Challenge, as today starts the March Linky Party for this monthly challenge.

Participate in any one or all of these challenges and you will automatically be entered to win prizes.  The more monthly challenges that you enter, the more chances you get to win prizes!

2014 Christmas Handmade Pledge

This event is all about making projects for Christmas gifts, making handmade decorations for your home, sharing insights on designs perfect for the Holidays, as well as inspiring others to make handmade gifts throughout the year vs waiting till the Holiday season and risk of the chance of creating more UFOs.  Plus we want to inspire others to make hand made gifts and share insights on designs, free patterns, tutorials and tips to make handmade Christmas projects.

To help get us in the spirit of making Christmas theme projects for gifts, or to decorate our home, I want to showcase a design from one of our sponsors.  Indygo Junction has a super cute pattern that is perfect for many holidays, called the Holiday Purseonalities pattern While you can make a super cute Halloween purse, a delightful Thanksgiving purse, this pattern also includes a heartwarming Christmas theme purse that are all whimsically cute and make for perfect gifts.  Even great bags for wrapping small gifts too! 

  One lucky winner in the Make It A Handmade Christmas Challenge will win a prize bundle of this cute pattern and a fabric pack of crossroads denim.

If you are looking for inspirational ideas for making handmade gifts, definitely check out all the prizes that our sponsors have donated as they'd all help you make wonderful gifts for Christmas or to decorate your home for the Holidays.  Plus you can view the entries in the  January challenge  and February challenge to see many inspirational projects, 



SewCalGal wants to recognize and thank our sponsors for this event, as they have generously donated wonderful prizes, many of which are also perfect for making Christmas items!  And, I'll be showcasing these projects throughout the year.  Here is our list of our current sponsors for this event:

    Before you add your entry (a link to this Linky), please be sure you read the rules below.



Rules to enter this challenge:
1) Projects need to be made in 2014 (they do not need to be made in the 10 day window of a given monthly and they must be something you make for a Christmas gift or to decorate your home for the holidays.  Please do not enter projects that you giveaway throughout the year, or previous holidays as that doesn't bring you good quilting kharma!
2) You can enter one or more completed projects, but your linky needs to be in a current post (or non-bloggers can upload their photos and provide a link to a view able line tool like PhotoBucket, Flickr, etc.).   note:  Future challenges will require you to use only Flickr.  Click here to see a tutorial for using flickr.
3) Participants are asked to include comments in their post that share insights on the design(s) they use, any tips they wish to share, and if they made something with their own design they may wish to share a tutorial.

4) Bloggers are asked to include in their post information that that shows they have taken the "Pledge to make handmade Christmas Gifts in 2014" and are participating in this challenge.  It would be appreciated if you would encourage others to also participate, or at least come look at all of the entries each month, as hopefully we'll inspire other quilters and increase awareness of designs, tips, tutorials to help make beautiful Christmas gifts and decorations.  Your blog post also needs to be dated during the period of this linky party (do not link to old posts).


This linky party will be open thru the 25th of  March, to give participants plenty of time to enter the challenge this month. If you are not familiar with how to use a linky click here for a tutorial.
Please be sure to read the rules before you add a link to enter the challenge this month.



Don't forget our Challenge #4 Linky Party will be posted on April 15th.   You don't have to participate in every monthly challenge, but the more monthly challenges you enter in 2014 the more changes you have to win prizes and the more handmade Christmas items you will have made this year!

There is also an optional email list for this event, that participants may want to sign up for.  As, SewCalGal realizes not everyone follows blog posts every day, I will try to send out reminder emails when monthly challenges are released to those that sign up for these email alerts.   There may also be additional Holiday theme clipart and related info shared in these emails that are not shared in my blog.


For blogger participants that are interested in posting a badge, I need to work on the code. But you are welcome to take any images from this post and link to the main page for this event.

Let's not forget the spirit of this challenge is to make handmade gifts for Christmas or decorations for the holiday season, throughout the year vs waiting till the holiday rush.  We also hope to help increase awareness of designs, free patterns, tutorials and other products that help to make such products. And, your help in inspiring others to make handmade for Christmas is appreciated.  PR Angels are also appreciated.

If you have questions for this Challenge, please read the FAQ.



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4 comments:

Missy Shay said...

I just moved so have not had any time to sew since I have been unpacking, but I'll have something next month!

Barb said...

I really need to join you.... I still have time this month,,,, I just love my Christmas fabrics.

beaquilter said...

I really need a kick in the behind to start this AND my mom's birthday is in April, I need to send her something too....

Unknown said...

I signed-up for the email reminders and plan to start with the April challenge. I am really looking forward to this. Thanks, Jackie