If you follow my blog you may well have read about my recent entry to this year’s Simplicity Star Sewist competition. If you know me quite well then you will have definitely heard about it – more than once!! If not, the initial background to the competition and preview of my make can be seen here and more details including pictures of my entry is here.

My entry

The results were announced by Simplicity via twitter on July 1st. There were 3 winners in total, one for each of the 3 categories (Best Vintage Make, Best Dressmaker and Best Newcomer). When I saw Scruffy Badger’s name as the winner of my category (Best dressmaking category) I was not at all surprised…her entry was awesome! – very inspiring and a truly beautiful outfit – quite unrecognisable from the original pattern. Some amazing pattern alteration skills and use of fabric demonstrated (in my opinion!!). Aswell as including the winner’s names the tweet also included a link to the Simplicity blog page where further details about the results were included. So I clicked on the link to read more. There were the pictures of the 3 winning entries. I read more. Then there was this intriguing paragraph:

“Having reviewed each entry, the celebrity judging panel were hard pushed to whittle down the makes to one winner for each category. So, we created a ‘highly commended’ spot for bloggers that just missed out on the coveted top spot, but produced a project that both the judges and Simplicity recognised as a great make.”

I read on…no pictures this time but a quick scan of the 2 highly commended entries in the Best Dressmaker category and I saw a link to MY BLOG!!! I was one of the 2 highly commended entries. I had to look a couple of times over but yes it really was mine. I was so happy! Whoopee!

So I am now able to proudly display this badge on my blog – Cool or what?!!!

I am really chuffed about this, having only been sewing things for myself for about 18 months. A real confidence boost and motivator to strive to keep learning and developing my skills. I also really enjoyed looking at all of the other entries; how one pattern can be interpreted and made in such different ways but all starting off from a common point. That really is the beauty of making your own clothes -the possibilities are endless.

That wasn’t the only positive outcome from the challenge though for me. It was also quite a technological advancement on my part – seeing the competition advertised was a driving force for me starting my blog in the first place as you had to have a blog to take part. Through this process I have also learnt loads! I am also now on twitter as this was one of the routes through which you could submit your entry. I am enjoying developing new links through this and discovering many new parts of the sewing community that I never knew existed – a whole new world indeed!!

So if you see a similar competition or opportunity advertised I would say go for it!!

Well until next time

Happy Sewing!

Lorna x