Welcome fellow Sewcialists

In the last six months I have done A LOT of sewing, and not just because I do it for a living.  With Colette Patterns contest for their new sheath dress pattern they call Laurel, a new surge of inspiration hit me and I really started sewing for myself again.

Their contest offered six categories to enter and I put in four dresses for consideration.

The dress I have centered in the collage won in the category of self made fabric. and the detail shot on the bottom right was nominated in the fan favorite category.  It was so much fun that now I am positively trolling the internet for sewing competitions.  

One that I found is the community match competition from SewMamaSew.  They are having a huge competition called the Super Online Sewing Match.  I wish I had known about it earlier! I would've applied for sure!  What's past is past and I will look for it to happen again maybe next year and I will apply if it happens again.  But that said I will be a fierce competitor in the community tag along.  

The first competition is to draft an a-line skirt and give it flair and style.  The contestants have a week to create their skirt, but we community folk have to the end of the competition to enter any of the challenges that inspire us.  I bought my fabric yesterday and I am excited about the sky blue a-line skirt.  But of course I cannot do anything standard, so I am going to add welt pockets with great flaps, and then to push it over the top, EMBROIDERY!  I had so much fun doing the embroidery and screen printing in dress I did for the Colette Pattern Laurel competition that I want to do more of it.  I think it just turns up the volume in the best way.

There is another competition I am so pumped about is the competition and sew-a-long for the Colette Patterns Hawthorne. I love the way that Colette Patterns is choosing to promote their new patterns and how they've changed they way they release patterns.  They used to release all their patterns for the year at one time, so there were 3-4 patterns emerging on the market at once.  By releasing one every few months and adding a sew-a-long/competition people get excited to try the new pattern.  I also love seeing everyone's modifications of the pattern.  It's really fantastic to be a member of such a creative community.

With my winning dress for the Laurel Competition I was really inspired by the idea of tattooing my clothes.  I LOVE tattoos but there is only so much real estate available on my body, so I have teken to the idea of tattooing my clothes using a combination of screen printing, embroidery, and applique.  I want to continue that idea with my dress for the Hawthorne competition.  I am going to be working on a dress in a dark green/blue and pulling in graphic elements that evoke the south west, sewing, and Dia de los Muertos.  I want to do a big piece for the back that is a nod to the Virgin of Gaudalupe but with a sewing twist.

Basically where the virgin Mary is in the painting I want to put an awesome dress form and then the cherub on the bottom will be replaced with spools of thread and a tomato pin cushion.  Jazzed for it.  Then I want to use the same idea to do some detail on the cuffs and collars.  With my winnings from the Colette Laurel Challenge I bought some embroidery patterns and templates from MagPie Patterns.  One that I purchased was the Dia de los Muertos pattern done by Sublime Stitching.  I think it will be a great way to tie in my love of the south west and sewing.  I'm really jazzed to see the end result.

When I get further a long I'll show off some process shots but till then, get sewing!