Thursday, September 5, 2013

Back to School Stitching Competition

Back to School - &Stitches competition

The &Stitches Team is very excited to present Back to School month! All month long, we will celebrate our love of learning new embroidery skills by sharing our favorite educational books, taking a look at our stitched ABCs, and hosting a new stitchy contest!

We are counting on your creativity and embroidery skills to make this a wonderful event for everyone in the &Stitches community. Before you grab your needle and thread, be sure to carefully read the guidelines posted below so you don't miss out on some really fabulous prizes!

What will I be stitching?
Your entry for the Back to School Stitching contest should be an embroidered flash card (or more if you feel *really* inspired). The theme of your flash card can be anything from the traditional 'A is for Apple' style, to scientific themes, superheroes or, well, perhaps an Embroidery theme?!

You must include at least one image and one letter or number in your piece. Your image could be an apple, an atom or Scooby Doo - or anything else you can think of! More text than just one letter is absolutely fine as well, and you don't have to stick with the Latin alphabet either. Arabic, Japanese, or any other alphabet are welcome (as long as you keep it 'clean' and provide a translation). You can create your own design or base your flash card on an existing design. For inspiration, please visit our special Flash Card Pinterest Board!

What about size & shape?
The size can be anything you like: from tiny pieces to door-sized flash cards. Flash card are usually a rectangle.

What media/supplies/techniques can I use for my flash card?
Use your imagination! But make sure the focus is on embroidery. This can be hand embroidery, machine embroidery, cross stitching, etc. Maybe you want add some quilting to it? That's cool too!

How do I enter my piece?
Post two photos of your finished piece in the &Stitches group on Flickr before or on October 15th 2013. One photo should be of the whole piece and the other a detail shot. Make sure you make the best photo you can: in focus, use natural daylight if you can, etc. Let us know in the description what inspired your piece, the approximate size, the techniques you used and any other interesting details you may want to add. And if you used someone else's design please give credit to the designer too!

Tag the photo with FlashcardStitches. You can use this tag on Twitter and Instagram too if you fancy showing WIP shots! :-)

Obviously I'm taking part because it's fun but what if I win?
In that case we have a fabulous set of prizes for you!

For the winner we have:
A copy of Mary Thomas' Embroidery Book, a 'must-have' classic handbook of styles and techniques!

A fabulous DIY 2014 calendar panel for Embroidery, kindly donated by Corrine of Septemberhouse. You'll find this calendar, lots of pretty patterns, and adorable custom order ornaments like this one in her shop as well.

A quirky ABC Animal PDF Embroidery Pattern (letter of your choice) from Penguin & Fish. Find the full alphabet here (and while you are there you might want to check out Alyssa Thomas' new book Sew & Stitch Embroidery too)!

Book Love is the name of this fabulous PDF pattern by Lucky Jackson. In addition, Lucky offers up a Sulky Iron on pen as well! Check out her shop with unique stitched art, patterns and prints.

The runner-up will receive one Penguin & Fish PDF ABC Animal pattern of their choice, Lucky Jackson's Book Love PDF pattern and a Sulky Iron on pen!

Lastly, the person who comes in 3rd place will receive Lucky Jackson's Book Love PDF pattern.

The entries will be judged by the &Stitches team and Lucky Jackson herself! Entries that do not follow our contest guidelines will not be considered, so make sure you've read over this post in detail before entering. Winners will be announced on Friday the 25th of October.

Good luck everyone!
The &Stitches Team

15 comments:

  1. Excited to see this! I've been thinking about making flash cards for my grandson, he's two the end of this month and already knows his alphabet and numbers 1 - 10.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you! Maybe you can find some inspiration on our Pinterest board (see link above) if you want to do something else instead of an alphabet or number flash card. :)

      Delete
    2. I'm thinking I will do shapes and colors. I started following the pinterest board.

      Delete
  2. This is such a fun contest! I'll definitely be stitching for it. Looking forward to seeing all the entries. :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Oooooh, I really want to do this. I'm getting married on 10/23, so time is tight. But I'll try!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hope you will have a fantastic wedding day! I think embroidering for a contest can be a very relaxing way of mentally preparing for your wedding ;)

      Delete
  4. Thank you for the link to the Penguin & Fish site - I had seen these funky letters at FQR but I hadn't done that class so didn't know where they were from. I wonder if I can get away with buying the whole set without my husband noticing it going on the credit card ....

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. uhm...maybe if you balance it out with buying some stacks of fat quarters as well??? ;)

      Delete
  5. Very interesting idea, look forward to seeing the entries!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you, we can't wait either to see what everyone will be making! :)

      Delete
  6. What an interesting and great contest! I've never heard of the term flash card but I like it and hopefully I'll be able to come up with something! Thank you for the opportunity.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Love this idea so much that I had to go do it, like, right away. http://www.flickr.com/photos/96082266@N02/9712525368/in/pool-andstitches

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Oh my word, that is adorable! Thank you so much for entering! :-)

      Delete
  8. I uploaded my two photos to flickr but also blogged about it here http://eclecticlamb.com/2013/10/12/flash-card-stitching-contest-entry/

    ReplyDelete

Hi there, thank you for stopping by &Stitches. The blog is no longer updated, but you can still explore the archive of posts. Because the blog is no longer active, new comments have been disabled. Thank you for understanding. :-)

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.