Holiday Gifts Sewing Series (and a Giveaway)

This giveaway is now closed. I’ll be posting the (randomly selected) winner on Sunday. Thank you and good luck to you all 🙂

Earlier last month I got a sweet email from Virginia (from Gingercake blog and patterns), asking if I would like to sew one of her patterns for the Holidays Gifts Sewing Series.

What she didn’t knew was that we were already fans of Gingercake sewing patterns.

The Crayon Art Folio was one of the first patterns I did for my younger kids – perfect for travelling and for keeping younger kids entertained while waiting in lines, I had quite a lot of fun picking the fabrics for these. Obviously, the ones I did for my kids have been used to exhaustion and are now ready for “retirement” (I might need to sew them some new versions soon).

I’ve also pinned the Love your Lunch Box  pattern a while back, but still haven’t found the time to actually do it (but I will).

So, needless to say, I was so happy to get a chance to test yet another of her patterns.

As my kids loved their Crayon Art Folio so much and they are always jumping at a chance to get more involved in my sewing, I asked them if they like to select one pattern from the Gingercake portfolio for me to test.

As soon as I said these words, I knew there could be trouble ahead – asking three kids to agree on one pattern looked like an impossible mission.

They scrolled up and down the pattern gallery, clicked on every link and pictures and after what seemed like an-hour (but I’m pretty sure it was just 10 minutes), they decided on Luky, the Elephant 🙂

After this first (group) decision, I knew that this was going to be a collective sewing challenge.

You see, if my children get involved in the pattern selection, they will feel the need to be engaged in the actual sewing process as well 🙂

So, to make a long story short, let’s just say that fabric and button (eye) selection was made by my younger kids (5 and 6 years-old).

(Lady-Elephant was made with Liberty tana lawn (Betsy) and pink linen and Mr-Elephant was made with blue gingham and a pirate print from the Out to Sea collection from the wonderful Sarah Jane).

Luckily for all of us, this is a super simple project perfect to be made with smaller kids (I did all the cutting and pining and tried to sew the trickier parts like the buttons and closing the elephant): They did the actual sewing (supervised by me, of course) as there are mostly straight lines to sew (the outcome is not as perfect as I would like, but at least both elephants are so cute).

They had the time of their lives stuffing their Lucky Elephants – I got to clean all the mess after they finished it, but it was so worthwhile.

The pattern has great step-by-step illustrated instructions and you can actually do it in a couple of hours (even if, like me, you have some extra help …).

I’ve already been told that “we” now need to complete their Elephant family: baby elephants and a cute elephant wardrobe was now requested! (each elephant has a special place in their bookshelf and sleeps with them at night).

If you wish to win a copy of Lucky, the Elephant (pdf sewing pattern), just leave me a comment bellow.

Virginia has kindly offered to send a copy of this pattern to one lucky winner (wouldn’t this be a great gift for the Christmas season ahead ?).

The giveaway will be open until next Friday (November 8th). The winner will be selected randomly and announced next Sunday.

Thank you, Virginia!

Good luck 🙂

xo, Ana Sofia