Capstone:My 1930's Feedsack Dress Reproduction

Jenna Andrew 2021
House	Liberal Arts
Advisor	Erin Wilkins
Plans	TCC
Advice	Pace yourself with the project. Maybe even just writing down the order of what you have to do is a very good visual to work with. Also I recommend trying smaller scales of your projects in different settings. If your painting maybe try painting outside, painting in a quiet room, painting with music, with friends etc, and find what settings you're comfortable but focused in. Having a comfortable workspace leads to art you can be proud of.
Type	Presentation
Subject	Sewing
Discipline	Visual Arts

I went through many changes with this project. Inspired by my great grandmother I decided I would recreate a 1930's style house dress, and like many dresses during the Great Depression, I would try to make it look as close to the feed-sack dresses of the era as possible. With the help of my family and teachers I was able to work out the process and worked past all the issues to give it my best effort. I'm very proud of the result and hope others will be interested in learning about my process.

How It Began

I started of planning to make a early 1600's maid winter dress, with dyeing fabric, entirely hand sewing, the whole nine yards. My list of supplies was very long and I had checked out several books on the idea of natural plant dyes and era specific fabrics. The general idea was inspired by a fashion historian Youtuber Karolina Zebrowska. She'd express how she had hand sewed her entire 1607 polish maid costume by hand, and despite my many reading of Greek mythology warning me against it, hubris got hold of me.

How It Changed

With advice from my mother and grandmother I decided the maid's costume was too much scale for me to do, I had underestimated time and overestimated my sewing skills so I knew I needed to downscale. I decided on keeping it a historical recreation piece, and I wanted to use my sewing machine, so I looked into eras around the early 20th century as I could 100% use my sewing machine their accurately. At first I considered a kimono sleeved 1910's jumper, but I found very little. I thought about it and after talking about it with my grandmother, I decided I would recreate a 1930's feedsack style dress.

Reflection

I learned is that when it comes to creative projects like this, never overestimate on skill or underestimate the amount of focus the projects needs. I was in for a rude awakening just from trying to print a online pattern and tape it together. Creative projects can also be very detail oriented, during my sewing I made a lot of mistakes just trying to rush to get one edge sewn, I had to pull out a fair bit of stitches as well. Maintaining a straight line when it comes to sewing or even cutting needs all the attention from your eyes and hands in the moment.