Portrait in Blue, by Gabriel Nicolet, 1856-1921

To see a more detailed view, be sure to click on the picture.

Gabriel Emile-Edouard Nicolet was a Swiss painter, as far as I know. Other than that, I cannot find much about him, but you can probably tell from the painting that he painted the details of female dress, in this picture of a blue skirt.

Advertisement for a lawn mower in the 19th century, an era of invention. From the looks of these paintings, women of the past did a lot of things in the traditional garment called a dress.

Inspiration for a dress can be found anywhere, from the color of paint on a house, with the trims, to the blue sky on a clear day. Just look around you to get ideas for fabric selections. I often call this "mood dressing." This is a house from Sunset Magazine.

This outfit is made from the same skirt and blouse pattern mentioned in previous posts. The fabric was 100% cotton, with a metalic sheen on the stars. The white satin ribbon outlining the neckline gives it a sailor, beachwear look. If you had some fabric like this, and wanted to be more creative with it, you could choose star-shaped, silver or white buttons for it, to match the stars.Although this is blurry, you can see the white ribbon sewn on the cuff of the sleeve. Spools of this ribbon are often as low as 33 cents apiece. I buy a lot of them when I see them on sale.
The cotton fabric with the metallic sparkle in it, tends to be sturdier and wears better. The fabric is thicker and the "give" is not as great, so I sewed the bias skirt. This is a garment I can wear every day for homemaking, and gardening and still go to town, without having to change into something else.

I am still trying to get one of the pale pink (like the inside of a sea shell) dress finished, to show, with a painting. Hopefully, it will happen before next year.

The discussion about creating your own style, has been going on with family and friends for some time. My idea was to choose a pattern and make it in several different colors. Using the same pattern will familiarize you with the steps, so that you do not have to stop and read the instructions. Your sewing speed will then increase. If each woman would choose her own pattern and work out her own preferences in colors and trims, she could rise above the tacky clothing that the stores have in store for women today.

Americans have always been do-it-yourself-ers, especially the country people or those who were from hard working families who made their own way in life. In just the past 3 decades, many Americans decided that they could do a better job of teaching their own children, and decided to take the responsibility to do so. The home school movement is still growing.

Many Americans wanted to bake their own bread, just so they could personally monitor the ingredients that go into the food. Gardening is also on the rise, and food is so plentiful from these gardens that people hide when they see someone coming with free zucchini or lettuce. You know what I mean. Everyone wants to do it themselves. There are people around here who build their own cars and their own houses and just enjoy figuring out how things work and making something by themselves. There are even now a lot of little churches meeting in small buildings, or homes, where people have decided to go back to the way things were done in the 1st century.

American women understand the need to investigate ingredients in store bought food. They like to investigate the latest drug on the block and determine for themselves whether it is really necessary for the body, and they are ever more alert about protecting their families from the unwanted intrusion of media that runs down the family. There are more women learning the art of hair dressing, and taking care of their own family's hair, just because they want to do it themselves.

Women can understand things like the above, but we need to investigate more fully the garment industry, from the creation to the fruition, and see what is happening here. If we can teach our own children, cut our own hair, grow our own cucumbers, bake our own scones, and clean our own houses, then it might be time to make our own clothes and take control of several different things.

When you make your own clothes, or have them made for you, or order them from a catalog, or even buy them, you control the market. If you leave the junk on the shelf, the stores will no longer want to invest in it. If you make your own clothes, just like home schooling, you put the ingredients you really want in a dress or garment. If you decorate your own home, it seems like you could create your own fashion designs.

We understand what it means to take matters into our own hands when we want things done right. We need to go further and take control of the clothing industry, too, especially women's clothing. Does not it strike you that men's clothing is basically the same, consisting of jeans and shirts, but women's clothing just gets wackier and wackier, and women bare more and more of their flesh to the public, even if they are not fit and trim, and let the designers tell them it looks good.

I actually saw a fashion "expert" on a show, tell heavier, older women, that they would look younger and thinner if they wore skimpy outfits. She paraded her models on the stage, and to tell you the truth, they looked better in the "before" pictures. I am sure other people have observed this.

This painting-inspired dress series was designed to show you how exciting it can be to choose fabric or ready-made clothing based on beauty. Even if you do not sew, it is possible to find some things that are pretty.

We do need to stop allowing others to do our work for us, if it is something personal, like raising our children, or worshipping God. We need to also stop being so dependent upon the store-bought clothing and make clothes that are personalized. The home is more that just a place to stay. It is a place where creative ideas abound, if we will open our eyes to it and not be influenced by the designers of clothing.

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