Contest Failure

In my last post, I told you about a contest at PatternReview.com that ran from September 1 - September 30.  It was the Mini Wardrobe Contest and required all entrants to make two bottom garments and three tops within the month of September.   As I wrote my Sept. 26^th post, I had completed one garment and partially finished three others.  That left me with one garment to cut out and complete in addition to finishing the other three.  I knew that completing all that within four days would be difficult, but I set about doing it.

My husband provided support for me by making the meals and doing the dishes.  He also encouraged me by assuring me I could do it.  This was definitely a race to the finish line.

With that kind of pressure, you know what always happens.  Everything that can go wrong goes wrong!  That is exactly what happened.  When I put the fly front zipper in the jeans, it looked great until I did the two rows of top stitching around it.  Then I could see how really ugly it was!  The orange jeans thread I used for the top stitching really called attention to the too long fly.  It had to go.  I had to rip out all the top stitching, the fly guard, and the zipper.  I shortened the zipper and started over. 

When I went to cut out the sweater knit fabric for the third top, I could not convince myself it was navy striped; instead, it looked like black to me and I knew that would not look good with navy pants or navy jeans.  I used another grape sweater knit instead.  It was thin and difficult to cut.  It was even more difficult to sew.    The edges curled under as I tried to put seams together.  Ripping out stitches was almost impossible.  I finally completed the fifth and final item on September 28th.

I was exhausted, but my work was not done yet.  On September 29 my husband took the pictures of each outfit as required by the contest and I spent most of the day writing the required pattern reviews and posting the pictures. 

I had just one more item to complete.  I had to write an overall review of my process and post a composite picture of each top with each bottom garment. 

Today, September 30th, I threw in the towel!  I just could not do it.  I spent hours teaching myself how to use Windows Paint to stack six photos into one. I am done with it.  I deleted all the reviews and pictures I posted. 

I do not like to admit defeat, but I did complete all five garments within the timeframe before I gave up.  Now I need to move on.  I do not want to burn out on sewing.  I want sewing to be something I really enjoy.  I may enter another contest in the future, but it will not be anytime soon. 

Pictures of the three tops are shown below with the jeans.

A picture of the navy pants is shown below.

I hope you are having fun sewing!

Judy