Why I Wear This.

Today I read this post and decided I should do my own. (you really need to read Dorcas Smucker's post for this to make much sense.)

Actually, I think I am probably a bit lazy when it comes to clothes. I have used the same two styles of dress patterns for the past 20 years.

Well, maybe three patterns....the bodice of #4448 and one of the other skirts...and trust me, they don't turn out fitting quite like that.

So I pretty much just find fabric that
 #1 Isn't too expensive and
 #2 doesn't wrinkle too much and
 #3 is an OK color/design

I stopped looking in the mirror and checking if the color is right for my skin tones etc.
I just hold the bolt under my chin and turn toward Hope...she says "yuck" or "nice" and off we go.

Unlike Doris' Beachy Amish heritage, I have always been allowed to take pretty much any fabric and turn it into a dress. Up until about three years ago, we attended a more conservative Mennonite church and they frowned on neon colors with big flowers splashed all over.  But I have always been more bound by my dress making skills.
 I can make any quilt that you can design ( I think)....but they only have to lay flat.
 Dresses however....have to, sort of ....fit.

That would be why my dresses pretty much look the same, except for the fabric, for the past 15 years. I stick with the same pattern because it normally ...sort of....fits.

Then ten years ago, God gave me this tiny little girl.... (then He laughed and gave me 2 more)
  Hope soon taught me that wearing the same dress pattern over and over gets BORING!  When she was  still a little girl I could go to W-mart and buy a dress off the rack! Oh what fun!  But unfortunately, by the time my girls entered first grade the dress styles at affordable prices were barely fit to wear in the privacy of your bathroom.  So I had to start sewing...

Now, she is almost eleven and she looks at other people's dresses...and she says "mom, did you see how ____did her skirt on her dress?"

OK, new church, new wonderful people to learn to know,

old lady

Who does not remember names

I remember faces and whether we talk about food, adoption or CPR when we meet, but names?

So by the time I figure out who she is talking about, then I realized that she wants a dress like theirs!

She doesn't realize yet, that mom just doesn't have the knack of copying other people's dresses.

The other day, though, I got an ad from one of the local stores and saw that dress hemlines seem to be coming down! Then we went to W-mart to buy fabric for "Spring Program" dresses and we wandered into the young girls section....

They had dresses!
That came down to the floor!

Now they didn't have sleeves, BUT

The same store sells t-shirts...
The girls shirts were OK    BUT
the boy's shirts were in pinks and oranges and teals

I think they had us in mind!

Now would I dare to look in the women's dept and see if I could find something similar?

Nah, I doubt it, but maybe I'll try to find a nice sweater or shirt to wear over my dress just to change the look a bit.....but those sweaters do just that...make you sweat.