March 11, 2013

My Easter Dresses

One of my favorite Easter dresses ever was light green polyester. It was plain to begin with solid green. Grandmother made the dress and decided that it needed something more. To this day light green and pink together are two of my favorite color combinations. The collar of the dress was pointed. On each point of the collar she tacked a pick flower that she took from an old nightgown Aunt Elaine brought to me when she visited from Orlando Florida. It was always neat to me that I had an aunt that lived in Florida. The pink flower on the collar was so pretty to me. I was happy with that. Grandmother still thought it needed one more thing. She found a piece of pink cotton material and made a bow to tie and tack to the center of the neck. Thus I had another wonderful Easter dress. One Easter when I was older my dress was off white cotton with black berry prints on it. Both black ripe blackberries and red not ripe; it was the prettiest fabric I had ever seen. The pattern Grandmother used was simple as most patterns she used were. If the pattern was very complicated she would just alter it to her liking. Fabrics of the past stand out in my memory. There are a couple of quilts that are still around that I can pick out which one of my dresses was cut into quilt pieces. Even one of the quilts has stitching that my daddy stitched. I can still pick out his section of the quilt after forty years. The immediate family consisting of Mama, Daddy, my little brother and I were rescued by my grandmother when I was seven. We came from up north when Daddy had lost our house, because he drank too, much to keep his job. My grandmother and they were well known in the rural southern community. The neighbors and relatives were ready to give her whatever she might be able to use for feeding and clothing my family. Hand me down clothes were always exciting to me. There are many that I wish I still had today. Grandmother was frugal to say the least. A ladies adult suit could be cut down to a size seven little girls if you were my grandmother. There was a maroon cotton skirt and jacket worn by my thin small middle aged great aunt, she cut down for me. I wore it with the greatest of pride. It had black and brown mingles giving the appearance of paint brush strokes. It was the seventies and it gave me all the style a seven year old ever wanted.

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