I get a lot of emails from christian sisters out there who are making the change to a plain and simply lifestyle and more particularly, dress. They have a lot of questions and are usually seeking advice and ideas on how to make the change without having to try every style and pattern, which can really be a pain and cut in to the usually small budget.
~Obviously, all I can offer is what my own experience has been! So I thought I would write a post explaining my practical choices and why I have decided on the ones I did-
Dress and Apron-
If you open my closet right now you would find about 5 zipper-back dresses of various colors ( 3 work, 2 nice) and 2 button-front dresses ( 1 work, 1 nice). They all have elbow-length sleeves or longer. I wear these dresses year round. In the summer I push the long sleeves up and in winter I wear sweater with the elbow length sleeves. They are worn in rotation so that when a Nice one gets stained or torn, it is patched up and becomes a work dress. Now these "numbers" are not always kept consistent, That is just what I happen to have right now. There have been times when I had just one for going out and 2 for working in.
At least half of the dresses I have right now I have owned for several years.
As most of you know, my family feels that ladies should wear 2 layers for modesty according to biblical standards, so we wear full aprons over our dresses. Now, up until last year, I always made a matching apron for each dress I made, in one of three styles. I would then mix and match the dresses and aprons when I would put them on. This was not done for "style" or to in anyway give me more of a sense of choice, but just depending on what was already ironed, or was not already stained. Often times the matching apron would wear out well before the dress, so I would have to wear another apron over the dress to go out. This often made for confusion and irritation, when I could not find a suitable apron to wear with a certain dress because of color (while I do not think we should worry about looking perfect, I do think that as Christians we should at all times present ourselves in a clean, orderly way).
Then I received an order last year from a customer for a Blue dress with a black apron, instead of a matching blue. This idea set me to thinking about all the benefits to just making myself black aprons, and sticking to one style. I decided on the pullover Apron in black for many reasons:
- The Pullover apron is the easiest to make
- It requires the least amount of fabric
- Black hides stains wonderfully!
- Black can be be worn with any color!
- Black is also very helpful in hiding certain "curves" on Ladies, making it a more modest choice
These things were more than enough to sell me on the idea. So I made myself 3 aprons and I have been very happy with the outcome! It is so nice to just grab a dress and a black apron and not have to make sure they will match and look neat and orderly.I really enjoy the real sense of comfort and modesty that comes just by wearing these aprons. There is such a joy to be found in uniformity and order!
SO I would encourage any plain sisters out there to try the black apron idea! You will love it!
( And NO this is not a sales scheme, although I am open for orders :)
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