SMS Giveaway winners!

Last night, after I realized that it was already Friday (where on earth does all my time run off to?) I picked the 3 winners for the Sew Mama Sew Giveaway Day. I used a random number generator to pick 3 numbers and then used the corresponding comment number to determine the 3 winners. Each winner will receive any 3 Elysium patterns of their choice.  These are the numbers that were generated. Congrats ladies! <3 

#60 ~ Crunchy Con Mommy
#52 ~ Liz, Quilt Adventurer
#105 ~ debbiekl



That was fun, but I was way too tired to put together a post that made any kind of sense last night. So, I drug myself to bed with plans to post the winners in the morning. Today I woke up with blogging on my mind and my first thought was why not give even more patterns away! Either I just really like playing with the random number generator or I felt bad that I couldn't give something to everyone who commented. I'm not really sure... Either way it sounded like fun so I went with it.

So, as I sat here looking through all the comments and thinking how nice you all are I devised a plan for picking a few extra winners! I mentioned in the giveaway that you could get an extra entry by liking my Facebook page, following my blog and/or adding my Etsy shop to your favorites. I know what a pain it can be to go and do all of that stuff but I really appreciate that you took the time to do it anyway so I decided to have a separate drawing for each of those.

What I did was make a separate list of everyone who did each thing and commented on it here. Then I went back to play with the random number generator again!  I picked one winner from each list.

  Please feel free to ignore my horrid penmanship. It's almost as bad as my grammar

Each of you lovely ladies will receive 1 Elysium pattern of your choice :)  

From the people that followed my Blog ~ CarrieM

From those of you who were sweet enough to click over to Facebook and like my page ~ Jen
the craftng fiend

From everyone who took the time to check out my Etsy shop and add it to their favorites ~ Elisabetta

That was fun, but reading through all the comments I still wanted to give away at least one more pattern. So just for fun I clicked the generate button again and got #29  Sumi you will also receive 1 Elysium pattern of your choice.

Even after all that I still didn't feel like I had thoroughly expressed my thanks. So of course I did another drawing. This time I made a list of all the people that had expressed their thanks in the comment they left.  SarahB was the lucky # on that one!  Sarah you will also receive 1 Elysium pattern of your choice.

I figured I better stop there....for now!  Did I mention how much I love doing giveaways?

I want to thank everyone who took the time to comment here and enter the giveaway. I truly appreciate all the kind words. Hopefully soon I'll be able to get some fun stuff posted so you'll have a good reason to come back and visit me!

A Pattern Package Giveaway!

After releasing The Good Deeds Dress I got such a great response from so many wonderful women that I was really excited to come up with some more fun stuff to post! This blog seems so empty with just one lonely post. Unfortunately I've been so busy finishing up my two latest skirt patterns that I haven't gotten much of anything else done. So, when a friend of mine told me about the Giveaway Day at Sew Mama Sew I was really excited. I love doing giveaways and this would be a fun and easy way to ease the guilt I've had this past week about neglecting my brand new blog!

So, for this giveaway I've decided to offer up 3 prizes. Each winner will get 3 Elysium sewing patterns of their choice.  To enter all you have to do is leave me a comment telling me which 3 patterns you would choose if you win and who you'll be sewing them up for! Just click the picture above to check out the patterns I have available.

This giveaway will be open until 5 p.m. Friday, May 25. The winners will be chosen randomly Friday evening. I'll post an announcement here on Saturday morning with the winners. 

Patterns will be sent via email on Saturday morning as well.

For additional entries in the giveaway you may do any or all of the following things. Each one will count as an extra entry, just leave a comment letting me know which ones you did. If you've already done any of them leave a comment letting me know and that will count as well :)

Like Elysium on Facebook. 

 

Have a look around my Etsy shop and add it to your favorite shops!

 

Follow this blog

Thanks for stopping by and entering my giveaway! I hope you'll come back soon to see some of the fun posts I have planned!

The Good Deeds Dress

I've been meaning to start a blog for a long time now. I've always managed to put it off though. It's been one of those irrational fears of mine, kind of like sewing a zipper. I've been sewing since I was 5 years old and yet I was 31 before I finally made myself sew a zipper onto something. Of course I immediately laughed at myself once I'd finally done it. It didn't look perfect but it certainly wasn't as hard as I'd had myself convinced that it would be. I'm really hoping blogging will be the same ;)  

Like most fears people don't tend to face them without some sort of reason, something pressing that forces you to finally suck it up and push past whatever it is that has always stopped you before. So what was my reason? What was it that finally kicked my butt into gear and convinced me to give this whole blogging thing a whirl?  The Good Deeds Dress! What better reason to start a blog than to be able to offer up a free pattern?

You see, a few months ago I discovered this really amazing blog called Hopeful Threads. Every month Kristy organizes a project of some charitable sort. She has an amazing group of followers with generous hearts and mad sewing skills. During the month of April the project was to sew 100 dresses to donate to Dress a Girl Around the World.  Not only did they meet that goal but they more than tripled it! Like I said, an amazing group of women! <3  
A dear friend of mine, Becca from Night Owl's Menagerie is also a fan of Hopeful Threads. Becca is a kind and generous soul with a passion for sewing and a penchant for hoarding fabric so of course she wanted to sew up some dresses for the April project. All she needed was a pattern...  She knew exactly what she wanted in a dress, something simple but versatile and most importantly fast and easy to sew. Now, if you're not familiar with Becca and what she does let me just stop for a second and tell you. Becca draws! She draws with amazing amount of talent and loads of creativity. Everything from cute little peanuts for the allergy warning posters she sells on Zazzle to business logos and even little cartoon girls brushing their hair for my daughters PECS book! In fact you can see the logo she recently made for me right up at the top of this blog <3
So as I was saying... Becca, who draws, of course drew me exactly what she wanted in a dress! I drafted the pattern, graded it and then we appealed to a wonderful group of mutual friends to sew up some tester dresses for their daughters. I have to say, the group of  women who test my patterns are fabulous! They sewed up their dresses quickly, happily and with no compensation other than the smile it put on their faces to help out. The final product is a cute but simple dress. A fast and easy project that will hopefully inspire you and many other seamstresses to sew up a dress or two and donate a bit of handmade goodness to lots of little girls around the world!

As you can see, it is very good for dancing in! 

 You can download the pattern here or if you'd like you can head on over the to Becca's blog to download it and read her side of the story! Also be sure to check back soon as both me and Becca will be working on a few tutorials to show you how to embellish this simple dress. We've come up with a lot of fun and easy ideas to add a little frill here and there and make each dress special! 

 For more great pictures of some of the dresses sewn with this pattern check out my Flickr pool  

Although my usual policy is to welcome individuals to sew and sell garments made from Elysium patterns, this pattern is geared towards charity and goodwill sewing and as such I kindly ask that garments made with this particular pattern not be sold for profit. Feel free to make a dress for your daughter, grandchild or next door neighbor, but please keep this pattern for personal use only. Also, please note that this pattern is the intellectual property of Elysium and sale or reproduction of the pattern itself is prohibited. And last, if you know someone who would like to download the pattern, please be kind send them a link to here or the blog and not a copy of the pattern itself.