Hi everybody!
Happy December! We’re full into the holiday season now it looks like. I had a great Thanksgiving and did a lot of fantastic online shopping from fellow Etsy sellers & small businesses alike. I hope you all are having a great holiday season as well! I have a new pattern to add to your festivities ♥
A Jackalope!
As the year was drawing to a close, I got so many requests for a Jackalope 😀 I can’t blame you all for being nervous! I saved it until the end because it’s my personal favorite legendary creature! It is of course a combination of jackrabbit and antelope. So basically a rabbit with horns or antlers. They’re a popular kitschy touristy mascot of sorts to the American west and I think they’re adorable!
As for difficulty: This one has a lot of tiny pieces, particularly the narrow feet, that are sewn on by hand. So it’s best to position them carefully and check on them frequently as you sew. With all that in mind, I gave it a 4/10 stars in difficulty.
★ So how do you get this pattern? ★
If you’re NEW to this site, this pattern is my one time only FREE gift to you! Just submit your email address to subscribe to my blog between now and December 31st (found in the submission box on the right sidebar above “My Books”). This will earn you the pattern ONE TIME for THIS MONTH ONLY.
Give it about 24 hours for your new pattern to arrive after signing up. But if it doesn’t, or you have other troubles, you can check out more info at the main Monthly Crafting Challenge page, the FAQ, or by emailing me.
★ What if you’re not new to this site? ★
If you’ve already signed up for email updates, that’s where the CHALLENGE comes in. You can also earn this pattern if you make one of the projects from this blog, my books, or my Etsy then email me or message the finished project to my Facebook.
★ What if there’s no way you can participate this month? ★
If you think you can’t make anything this month, I also have the pattern ready for purchase on my Etsy for a very low price. And you can use coupon code MCC2016 for an extra $1 off.
★ So what’s next? ★
As many longtime fans know, I start up a new challenge theme at the start of every year. So what does next year have in store? Unfortunately it’s with a very heavy heart that I have to say this will be the last year of the Monthly Crafting Challenge 🙁 It’s been going on for 4 years – since the start of this blog! And it’s been a wonderful and fantastic journey. I created and distributed 48 free patterns for everyone and it’s been a blast. So I can’t thank everyone enough for your continued support and interest in my silly creations!
The truth of the matter is that the challenge is difficult to maintain with a large following. I get so many submissions now that I barely have time to respond to all of your lovely emails and keep track of who got what pattern, and that’s not fair to all of you. I knew going into it that the challenge couldn’t last forever of course 🙂 The process of evaluating photos and sending out patterns is hard to automate, so responding to every message personally got difficult as my readership grew. Not to mention it’s a challenge to come up with 12 distinct and fun plushies that follow a theme every year, haha!
However! I will still be posting free patterns to this blog just as I always have ♥ There will still be tips and tutorials and other fun projects. With all that I’ve learned from you fantastic people I hope to branch out into creating even better and more complex sewing patterns – maybe even get into making videos! So of course this isn’t the end of the blog, just this particular part of it.
But! There is good news to come from all of this! This was the most successful year of the challenge yet, so as a thanks to all of you, I’m extending it by an extra BONUS MONTH! I’ve got one more pattern waiting in the works for January, which will be the official end of the 2016 Legendary Creatures Monthly Crafting Challenge. And in February? We’ll end things with a bang by doing both a CONTEST and a GIVEAWAY!
So stay tuned for all of that as the weeks roll by. Thank you everyone for your amazing support, kindness, and friendship over the years 😀 Creating all those patterns has been tiring at times, but seeing your amazing creations always makes it worth it. And thanks to everyone that read this far too ^-~