When I was a young girl…. what the heck….. when I was an older girl, a young woman and a middle-aged woman, I didn’t like to wear dresses. I still don’t. They are foreign to me. It’s like putting on a….

Hmmm. I’ve been sitting here trying to come up with an analogy for about 5 minutes. The only thing that is coming to mind is…

It’s like putting on a ….. a DRESS! (It must be how dogs feel when they have to wear the collar of shame.) So it is pretty clear that I don’t like wearing dresses. But why? I suppose (mainly) it is because it kept me off the ball fields, and out of sandboxes. I wasn’t allowed to do much good playing in a dress.

I have a brother who can make just about anything he sets his mind to. Beautiful homes, amazing cakes, magical gardens, and, you guessed it. Dresses. He sews like a mad man. He makes crazy-good dresses. He does it for a living. (Shameless plug for my bro: http://www.reeddiefyingspace.com )

Why do I speak to all of this today? Well, today is Ebenezer Butterick’s birthday (May 29, 1826 – March 31, 1903). Who in the world, you ask? Ebenezer was an American manufacturer and he developed use of paper patterns for clothing and dress making. Happy Birthday Eb. Because I know there are a lot of people out there who like to wear dresses. Way to sew, dude. Way to sew.

What Ebenezer came up with.

What it kept me from.