Laurel Contest Submissions

I made two Laurels for the Colette Laurel contest.  Spring is always a busy sewing season for me, with all of my spring chickadee birthday gifts, plus Pascha dresses to sew.  I usually sew two for my oldest daughters, and another matching dress for my goddaughter.  If there's time, I'll sew one for myself.    Most importantly, we make church a priority as we carve out more time to attend special Lenten services.  Clearly, the last thing I needed was a sewing contest to add to my spring time "To-Do List!"

But oh... then came The Laurel.  Colette Pattern's latest release.  With the pattern release came the news that there would be a contest, with several categories and an impressive list of prizes enough to tempt anyone into giving it a shot!  Lord have mercy!  No, no, no, I said!  It's the last thing I need!  I don't even need shift dress pattern... wait, wait, what am I doing?  Why am I suddenly downloading the pattern..?

... and before you knew it, I was taping together a pattern, freshly purchased,  downloaded and printed here in the comfort of my own home.  Sheesh!


May I present, the Wild Sleeves Laurel ...

Self-inked! 

Wait now, what?

Look out, Mom's nuts!

There's Max on his sailboat!  Drawn by me using fabric markers

A tamer moment for this Wild Thing

"And they rolled their terrible eyes...", also drawn by me, using fabric markers

I'm submitting this in the "self-design fabric" category.  You see, I have all of this pasty-flesh tone fabric, which I believe was a fancy Egyptian cotton sheet in it's former life.  So silky!  So luxurious!  And since I myself am quite pasty, I thought -- hey, what if I made myself some "sleeves"?  You see, I'll likely never choose to get a real tattoo... but I've always been fascinated by them from a purely artistic standpoint.  So I decided to ink up my arms, using direct inpsiration from Maurice Sendak's classic storybook, Where the Wild Things Are.  You know the book, right?  :)  I love it, and so do my kids.  I really enjoyed the movie, too, though I'm proud to say I actually read the book before the movie...  Yes, it was a rare and monumental feat for me ;)    My personal favorite "wild thing" in the movie was Judith, mainly because she was voiced by Catherine O'Hara.  But Carol (above, as he was named in the movie) made for a better fauxttoo. 

I like the dress, but it could either be received as A) cool, at best or B) a huge, disturbing flop.  I hope real tattoo enthusiasts are not offended.  It's just that the only needles I really like are sewing needles.  :)

And the Second Laurel... The Oyster and Gold Sleeveless Laurel

Back view

Many thanks to my adorble model!

Shiny, vintage buttons! 

 
Modeled by the awesome Fo!  I needed a skinny little person to model this for me, as I loved the concept but didn't have enough of the lace to make a Laurel in my size.  The lace was-- get this-- a vintage curtain I found at Goodwill that I had in my stash.  Just a few skinny panels of it-- that's all I had.  I underlined it with the same beige-- can I call it "oyster"?, that sounds so much more elegant in this context-- the same oyster Egyptian cotton sheet that I made my sleeves out of in the Wild Things Laurel. 

The buttons were from my late grandmother's stash (thank you Grandjo!), and I just love them.

Funny story; I had sleeves cut out for this dress, but decided I liked the way it looked much better without them.  Ok.... that was funny, wasn't it?  Aren't you dying of laughter?  :)

The biggest compliment was how much Fo liked it!  So I'm letting her keep it :) 

There you have it!  My submissions for the contest.  Now I'll go upload them onto Flickr and jump right into the beautiful week ahead of me, hopefully free of sewing distractions!  :)  And even though it wasn't on my "to do" list, I feel good finishing two dresses and submitting them into a contest.  Folks, I think the last contest I entered was a Kroger coloring contest back in Atlanta.

 Thanks for reading this!  And to my Orthodox friends, have a blessed Holy Week! Kalo Pascha!