Legacy of a hotelier and seamstress
Sisters in Design - Dress by Sheila Jenkins Hlubucek and fabric by Shari Jenkins Schmit
My great grandma wore dresses when she worked. She ran the Montana Hotel in Big Sandy until she retired in the late 70s when she was in her late 70s. In work dresses, she did it all: scrubbing tubs, changing sheets, checking in guests and keeping the books. She always looked unflappable to me, so I am following her lead and sewing dresses for flower farming.
My fabric inspiration comes from another strong entrepreneur, my sister, Shari Jenkins Schmit. She is a western artist melding historic images into designs for greeting cards, canvas prints, bandanas and I’m not sure what else at the moment because she’s always innovating. https://www.sharijenkins.com
Shari’s Lipstick Cowgirl collection of cotton fabric, milled by Moda, is so much fun! Her ombré splatter series is downright poetic. It makes you want to rhyme out a pattern. So I did.
The late Alma Gustafson, Hotelier, Seamstress & Bad Ass - Great Grandma holding sweet Aunt Judy, one of her many granddaughters.
Like an athlete who cross-trains in the off season, designing and sewing cotton dresses this winter has allowed me to maintain a creative flow in the absence of garden fresh flowers. (Burnout with flower farming is real. The challenge of working with highly perishable ingredients wears on you. Wrangling with Mother Nature daily to manage weeds, pests and weather is exhausting, and by December you need a creative reboot.)
When sewing during the dormancy of winter, I can play with colors, forms and textures while never breaking a sweat. And I will have something cool and comfortable to wear when I’m back out planting and harvesting flowers.
Great Grandma sewed her work dresses, and she sewed and crocheted the most beautiful Barbie Doll clothes for her many grand daughters. As I cut and stitch, I imagine her at her sewing machine, rebooting from the rigors of running a small town hotel, which was also the Greyhound bus station. I am certain she was inspired by the delight her creations would bring her grandchildren.
But I wonder if the late Alma Gustafson realized the can-do example she was setting for all those grand daughters who went on to be successful?
The farmer florist great granddaughter modeling the dress made from fabric by the artist great granddaughter Shari Jenkins Schmit, who designed the trailer park scene on the wall.