Be a man

This community service announcement is brought to you by the Southern Cross Crazies Nowra retreat. If you are a real man, get a prostate cancer checkup. Thank you.

And now for today's blog entry. After the National Retreat in CanBra last year, where we were challenged to create embellished bras to raise money for breast cancer research, this year's focus for the fundraiser challenge was on raising money for prostate cancer research and public education. Although there are currently no male members of the Southern Cross Crazies (Hi, Tom!), many of us have friends and family who are men, so we still care about them.
Instead of bras, the instructions were to make and/or embellish a pair of men's underpants. Once again, the imagination and stitching skill of the participants were unbelieveable and we had a hilarious time as the underwear was paraded around the room. The fundraising part consisted of voting for one's favourite pair of underpants by coin donation. The underpants that raised the most money were declared the winners.
Today I have images of the first, second and third place winners. The entire parade can be seen on flickr (click on the flickr button in the sidebar to check them all out and go to the Nowra set of images). We are looking into posting hi-res images on a website soon, if you want to see the embroidery close up, so stay tuned for the details.
And now... drum roll, please... the winners are:

Third Place: Maureen III's Cod Piece

Maureen's wicked sense of humour once again came to the fore this year with a three-dimensional interpretation of a traditional male undergarment. She had a lot to live up to after her Maurdonna bra construction, but she never disappoints her fans!

Second Place: Maureen IV's Crown Jewels

The front of this pair of cotton jocks is encrusted with jewels and treasures and surmounted by an applique crown and an ermine shawl -- very regal. Maureen wanted to highlight the need for men to take care of their crowning glory. She also said that she would have added more of the handmade beer-bottle-cap buttons (contributed by her husband) but she didn't have time to drink any more.

First Place: Florence's Crazy Pants

Florence's bra was much admired last year and now hangs in her local hospital's oncology ward. She plans to donate the matching pair of undies to the same institution. Lavishly embroidered and decorated with jewels and feathers, it's no wonder this pair received the most votes.