This was a quilt that someone dear to me made for me almost 10 years ago. As I moved forward into a different phase of my life, I felt to transform this quilt into a dress. I thought it was going to be a jacket actually, as I was in the beginning stages with it, but after really listening, I realized it wanted to be a dress! I cut off the quilt border to symbolize letting go of the old and instead transformed the quilt border into a belt for the dress. All of the dresses I make begin from the original Russian intuitive way to make a dress without a pattern that I learned at my friend’s sewing retreat and then I listen from there. This dress is so comfortable and warm…perfect for winter…and the colors of it make it feel so joyful. I call this my “jubilee” dress.
This is the dress I sewed at my friend’s sewing retreat and is the first dress I sewed by hand. It’s made out of linen and hand stamped with a dandelion stamp. The process of making this dress was so beautiful, as I felt my ancestors guiding me the whole way…from the purchase of the fabric from a little shop in Minnesota all the way to deciding the style of the dress and through the whole sewing process as well. This dress inspired me to repeat every morning when I awoke, “I am Rebecca Jane Anundson, daughter of Dennis and Sharon Anundson, Granddaughter of Vic and Charlotte Anundson, Granddaughter of Mabel and Jim Miller.”
This was a blanket that I purchased from my friend’s little shop in the Northwoods called “The Healing Shop”. I loved it when I purchased it because it reminded me of the spirit of the Buffalo for some reason. One day, about a year after purchasing it, I looked at it and had the thought, “this blanket is becoming a poncho!” (It was only a matter of time, lol) And so, again, I began with the intuitive way of sewing and then let it speak to me from there. This is so warm and comfy, it’s like wearing a big “hug”.
This skirt was actually a sweater that I had had for years and wasn’t wearing anymore. I got the inspiration one day to turn it into a skirt. Sometimes I wear it as a skirt, but sometimes I actually wear it as a warm underdress for some of my lighter dresses.
This is a dress I most recently made that was also a quilt. The quilt was from a dear Grandmother in my life and I had carried it with me on my journey for some time. One day as I was doing something in the kitchen, I “heard” the quilt and the Grandmother who made it say to me, “turn that old thing in a jacket or a dress or something!”, lol I felt so inspired to transform it into something new after that moment that I brought the quilt upstairs and just began sewing away! I debated whether or not it wanted to be a jacket, but as it came into form as a dress, I just loved it that way. When I wear this one, I really feel like I’m embodying the true essence of myself. Of course, I always feel like I don’t need anything outside of myself in order to embody the essence of who I am, but it’s also fun and beautiful to have physical things that hold so much meaning and that I can really feel like “me” in.
This is an old organic cotton bedsheet that we weren’t using any more and a white cotton scarf that I was gifted from a dear friend. I decided to use both materials to create a baby wrap carrier for a dear baby in my life. The leaf print fabric isn’t very stretchy, so I added in the cotton scarf to give the wrap more movement.
The yarn for this scarf is from a beautiful little alpaca farm in Minnesota. It’s nice and soft. I knitted this one as a scarf, but also use it as a belt for my dresses.