Shiela's Saura Two Hide One Shoulder Dress In Action at Ft Caroline

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Nothing makes a Seamstress feel better than seeing her creations at work and play!

Her is Sheila at Fort Caroline portraying a Sauratown Native American Woman in the dress we designed for her.

It is a One Hide, One Shoulder Two hide Elk Dress of the South Eastern Variety.

Dancing The One Shoulder Dress

Finally, Sheila's dress is essentially done and gets to wear her dress at the Mt. Dora Powwow in Florida.

Here she is with the shawl removed and tied at the waist.

Every once in a while you meet someone like Sheila, who is just as excited about your projects as you are.

She will take you call at early morn or late at night when you are bone tired and finger sore, frustrated beyond all hope of ever finishing what you have begun.

Just when you are ready to throw in the towel, she calls and has found just what you need, or had found someone to help in the project.

She never lets you quit or backslide, she is always holding the hot iron to your feet.

I look forward to many more years of research with my lovely friend, we already have at least three more dresses to make, a Native Girdle, (belt), a Headdress or two and we want to goof around with a fiber set of shoes too.

What a Gal, what a friend.

Here she is getting ready to take part in the "Round Dance", (Sheila was so excited, she forgot her moccasins, but she looks so good in her new dress, no one will even notice!

This was a great project that I enjoyed more than I can say.

Sheila has been my inspiration and support as I have plodded my way through tons of historical documentation looking for the Sauratown dress, and others).

When I was lost or confused or just plain fed up with the lack of information, or if my path was blocked with paperwork, she pushed me on encouraged my endeavors

Although the true Sauratown dress was probably a great deal more brief in design and function, Sheila wanted this dress made this way to fit her dream and since I wouldn't ever say no to her wishes after all she has done for me!

As you can see below, this dress surely can dance and did!

This dress can dance!

Later we will be adding shell bead work and a headdress, but for now at least, she gets to enjoy the fruits of our labors.

Now, on to finishing my Elk Two Hide Dress!

Fringing and Finishing The Dress

 After marking the boundary edges with masking tape, I cut fringe for about three days.

Sheila really wanted the "dagget" look on the hem, so it was easily marked and added.

Later a row of shell beads will accent this hem, following the triangles.

Here it is, all fringed, Sheila chose not to cut the fringe short, but leave as much of the hide intact as possible.

The upper edge was given a fold over look by tucking the fringe edge up and under.

A strap was added under the fold that wraps under the arm and crosses under the folded edge at the upper shoulder. This gives a little extra hold for the bust edge at the armpit. It can be tied, but is currently just pinned because someone needed to get out and dance.....isn't all our regalia held together with pins anyway? Be truthful now! Honestly, the most valuable person at the Powwow is a person with a pocket full of safety pins!

Here is the dress with the cape over one shoulder, acting as the separate sleeve.

I added another strip of fringe to the fold over edge of the cape to balance out the collar.

And now... to the dance!

Resizing my C Dress Form for a New Project

Back showing tape job

Have I mentioned that I love my size C Dress Form? Probably too many times....but none the less, I love my  Size C Dress Form!

Recently, my friend Sheila B. and I decided to put our research into action and create a One Shoulder Elk Hide Dress of the Eastern Woodlands type.

Since I am the seamstress and she is the research maven, I decided that it was high time she had a dress to wear for all of her tireless work.

Sheila is a bit robust than I am and had no desire to stand for several hours while I built the dress to fit her so we turned to my dress form and with just the loosening of a few screws and some well placed padding we made her a twin sister!

Now, Sheilas measurements are her secret and will remain so since I couldn't find my tape measure, (although I have three), we just used a stretch of bias tape to mark her size and then ran over and duplicated it on the form.

We used duct tape to fill the gaps but first placed folded paper towels between the tape and form to prevent tape sticky build up and round out the gaps to a firmer, more natural pinning surface.

Any remaining awkward gaps were taken care of with painters masking tape.

Sheila, meet Sheila...

We then topped it off with a large T shirt to keep the dress from snagging on the tape as we pulled it off and on various times for live fittings. We pinned the T shirt around the bottom edge of the form being careful to push the pin heads flush to the dress form surface to prevent it also from snagging.

You could not get a modern, cheap dress form to go from my size to Sheila's without some major body distortion, I guess you need a '50's dress model for a '50's classic Bod!

Also, these hides I'm hanging weigh about ten pounds or more per hide, lets see those cheap new mannequins hold that up with style! I'm sure it would wilt like last weeks cut daisies!

Here I am in one of those rare, "lets get a picture of you" moments when someone grabs my camera and makes a spectacle out of me. I include it just so you can see how happy I am when I'm hanging hide on my form!

Your Resident Seamstress in action....