Such Treasures

Every year our church has a Harvest Banquet at the beginning of November. For our church, it is the event of the year. Most everyone dresses up in an early American prairie style. Last year was our first time attending and we had a great time.

The girls didn’t want to have the same dresses as last year last year. See the patterns we chose, Haniya’s finished dress, Naomi’s finished dress, and pictures of our family at the Harvest Banquet.

Last year’s prairie dresses…

Since I have been learning to draft my own patterns, I thought it would be good to try to design their dresses myself. Yesterday, we began the process. To me, the pattern designing felt like the biggest hurdle to overcome.

I have a working fitted t-shirt and jumper for each of the girls. So using those, I drafted the bodices and the sleeves and added some ease for movement. The skirts were easy — both the front and back being rectangles, waist-to-floor dimension by about 3 times their waist.

Naomi wanted to take a picture of me cutting out the pattern pieces for her dress.

I haven’t decided yet on whether or not the dresses will have a waistband. These are the three options as I see them:

1) bodice goes directly into gathered skirt;
2) same as option 1 but with wide grosgrain ribbons tied around their waists; and
3) bodice attached to gathered skirt via a waistband.

I am leaning toward 1 or 2.

Yesterday, both girls cut out their own dresses (see their fabric). Naomi sewed her bodice, but not the lining. It seems to fit well. I am anxious to see it with the sleeves attached, to make sure she has enough ease for movement. Haniya sewed her bodice and lining bodice, but has yet to sew them together into one.

Today I need to work on my dress. I did not like my dress from last year. It was so dark and heavy I felt like I was wearing a curtain. Also, the sleeves were way too full. I am going to try it on today and see if my new dress could be made from the same pattern with changes. I am not going to draft a pattern for my dress, but will work with what pattern(s) I have. So I should say that today, rather than working on it, I will be thinking on it…

Maybe I’ll get farther than that. I do remember that the bodice of last year’s dress fit well. So with a sleeve change and a lightening up of the fabric, perhaps that will work.
Jeff and Mikah will just have to be cowboys and that is easy. They’ve got stuff to wear already.