Its all done! Nothing super exciting to show you, but a couple of really useful thing I've learnt.

1) When gong from a curtain lining muslin to a duchess satin finished item, expect to loose about 3/4", or in my case to end up with a 3/8" seam allowance on one side seam and 1/2" on the other. Now I know how much to allow, if I make a duchess satin again (which I hope I will because its lovely fabric), I'll work that into the pattern adjustments next time.

2) Its impossible to do a narrow machine hem on duchess satin. For some reason, it insists on curling out to the wrong side, no matter how much you press it. I did some research into how to solve this problem, and was glad to find its not just me! Apparently the only really nice way to hem duchess satin is to interline the dress and catch stitch a wide hem allowance to the interlining. Too late to do that, but fortunatley I was cloning, so I took a look at the dress I was copying. They'd overlocked the edge and then folded it once and sewn it down, so I tried that - success!

The other thing worth sharing is how I finished the top edge. In case the lining creeps up at the top edge, I added a band of the duchess satin at the top of the lining, before joining and top stitching in the usual way. And look, there's my label - I get excited every time I use one!

Hopefully after the wedding I'll be able to show you pictures of the clone with the original dresses be
 

I wanted to share with you something I did a couple of weeks ago - I organised our ward Relief Society Birthday party. For anyone who doesn't know, Relief Society is the womens organisation of teh Church of Jesus Christ of Latterday Saints (also know as the mormons). Its aim is to support and trengthen the women in the church, while giving them opportunities to support and help others. The organisation was established in the 1840s and is one of the biggest and oldest womens organisations in the world.
I prepared a presentation on the lives of some of the early members, and also talked about how Victorian women dressed (I'm afraid I did that bit off the top of my head so I can't share it here). The things I found out about these women and their lives completely amazed me, so I wanted to share them with you too. I've written them in the first person, and where ever possible I've used thier own words. Thank you to Jess, Emma and Ana for being my models and reading these pieces on the night!

Emma Smith (1842-1844)

Thursday, on March 17, 1842, twenty women assembled on the upper floor of a building, often called “the red brick store,” where Joseph Smith had an office and a business to support his family. They met under the direction of Joseph Smith and two members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, Elders John Taylor and Willard Richards

Rather than pattern a Latter-day Saint women’s organization after the women’s societies that were prevalent and popular at that time, the Prophet Joseph Smith organized them in a divinely inspired and authorized manner.

Emma Smith became the first president of the Relief Society when it was organized in Nauvoo, Illinois, on March 17, 1842. Under her leadership the Female Relief Society of Nauvoo raised funds for the Nauvoo Temple, sewed clothes for the temple workmen, nursed the sick, cared for the poor, and gave relief where it was needed. During the early years of the Church, Emma suffered many trials and persecutions with the Saints. A revelation given to Emma in 1830 through the Prophet Joseph Smith gave her instructions and promised great blessings, even “a crown of righteousness” (D&C 25:15), if she obeyed the commandments. She was married to Joseph Smith, and they had eleven children, including adopted twins.

Emma was a great woman, and we’ve heard a lot about her in other lessons. Today, we want to focus on some of the other sisters in the church in the nineteenth century, and on what their lives were like. I’m going to talk about the clothes they wore, Jane is going to talk a little about every day life and my three models are each going to share a bit about the life of a particular sister.

1861-1863

(Blue-grey dress, chemise, bloomers, shoes, socks, corset, crinoline, petticoat, bonnet)

My name is Lucy Meserve Smith. You probably haven’t heard of me – I was never relief society president or anything like that, but for the next 20 years there was no relief society president. I’m here to represent the sisters who lived in those in between years.

The last meeting held in Nauvoo by the Society was on 16 March 1844. I don’t think anyone realised how long it would be till the relief society would next be organised. Joseph and Hyrum were shot at Carthage, Illinois, on 27 June, 1844. After this, we knew that sooner or later the mobs would come, and everyones efforts were put toward finishing the building of the Nauvoo Temple before the exodus west.

We moved down to Winter Quarters in1846 when my babe was two weeks old. There we lived in a cloth tent until December, then we moved into a log cabin, ten feet square with sod roof, chimney and only the soft ground for a floor and poor worn cattle beef and corn cracked on a hand mill, for our food. Here I got scurvy, not having any vegetables to eat. I got so low I had to wean my baby and he had to be fed on that coarse cracked corn bread when he was only five months old. We had no milk for a while till we could send to the herd and then he did very well till I got better. My husband took me in his arms and held me till my bed was made nearly every day for nine weeks. I could not move an inch. Then on the 9th of February I was 30 years old. I had nothing to eat but a little corn meal gruel. I told the folks I would remember my birthday dinner when I was 30 years old. My dear baby used to cry till It seemed as tho I would jump off my bed when it came night. I would get so nervous, but I could not even speak to him. I was so helpless I could not move myself in bed or speak out loud. . . . When I got better I had not a morsel in the house I could eat, as my mouth was so sore. I could not eat corn bread and I have cried hours for a morsel to put in my mouth. Then my companion would take a plate and go around among the neighbors and find some one cooking maybe a calf's pluck. He would beg a bit to keep me from starving. I would taste it and then I would say oh do feed my baby. My appetite would leave me when I would think of my dear child. My stomach was hardening from the want of food.

The next July my darling boy took sick and on the 22nd, the same day that his father and Orson Pratt came into the valley of the great Salt lake my only child died. I felt so overcome in my feelings. I was afraid I would loose my mind, as I had not fully recovered from my sickness the previous winter"

During the 1850s, while church members tried to gain a foothold in the Utah desert, church meetings were held irregularly. However, several wards in Utah had temporary Relief Society organizations. Among their purposes was the feeding and clothing of Native Americans. Though these women were poor themselves, they felt the need of Native Americans exceeded their own.

At the October 1856 general conference, President Brigham Young announced that handcart pioneers were stranded hundreds of miles away. He declared: “Your faith, religion, and profession of religion, will never save one soul of you in the celestial kingdom of our God, unless you carry out just such principles as I am now teaching you. Go and bring in those people now on the plains, and attend strictly to those things which we call temporal, or temporal duties, otherwise your faith will be in vain.”

 Women “stripped off their petticoats, stockings, and every thing they could spare, right there in the Tabernacle, and piled [them] into the wagons to send to the Saints in the mountains.”

We continued to gather bedding and clothing for Saints who would arrive with only a few belongings in small handcarts. Sister Smith wrote: “We did all we could, with the aid of the good brethren and sisters, to comfort the needy as they came in with handcarts late in the fall. … As our society was short of funds then, we could not do much, but the four bishops could hardly carry the bedding and other clothing we got together the first time we met. We did not cease our exertions [un]til all were made comfortable.” Sister Smith said that when the handcart companies arrived, a building in the town was “loaded with provisions for them.” She continued: “I never took more satisfaction and, I might say, pleasure in any labor I ever performed in my life, such a unanimity of feeling prevailed. I only had to go into a store and make my wants known; if it was cloth, it was measured off without charge. [We] wallowed through the snow until our clothes were wet a foot high to get things together.”

1870-1871 (Yellow stripe, oval crinoline and petti, straw hat)

Eliza R Snow (1868-1887)

My name is Eliza R. Snow. When Joseph established the first relief society back in Nauvoo, Emma asked me to be the secretary. This was a responsibility I took seriously, and carried relief societies Book of Records with me all the way to the Salt Lake Valley. I expect you know that I loved to write, and the hymn book you use every Sunday has ten of the hymns i wrote in it.

In 1866 President Brigham Young called me to help bishops organize a Relief Society (and later a Primary and an organization for young women) in every ward and branch of the Church. By 1888 the Relief Society had more than 22,000 members in 400 wards and branches. Meetings were held semi-monthly. One meeting per month was devoted to sewing and caring for the needs of the poor, and at the other meeting, members received instructions and encouragement from the discussion of elevating and educational themes and bore testimonies.

"What is the object of the Female Relief Society? I would reply—to do good—to bring into requisition every capacity we possess for doing good, not only in relieving the poor but in saving souls. United effort will accomplish incalculably more than can be accomplished by the most effective individual energies"

President Young placed great emphasis on what the women of the church could achieve. During one conference in 1873 he said “We have sisters here who, if they had the privilege of studying they would make as good mathematicians as any man.  We believe that women are useful not only to sweep houses, wash dishes and raise babies, but that they should study law . . . or physic . . .The time has come for women to come forth as doctors in these valleys of the mountains.”

This was a hard thing to ask of the sisters – in order to study, they left their families and travelled across the country to attend medical school. Some sisters even took young babies with them. The work they did is essential, saving the lives of many sisters and children, and some of the brethren to.  “Are there here, now, any sisters who have ambition enough, and who realize the necessity of it, for Zion’s sake, to take up this study? There are some who are naturally inclined to be nurses; and such ones would do well to study Medicine. … If they cannot meet their own expenses, we have means of doing so.”

The  number of sisters trained as doctors, and the number that they trained as midwifes and nurses when they returned was so great that we were able to open the deseret hospital in 1882, “where the sick of the Lord’s people could be attended and have the benefit of the ordinances of the Church [priesthood blessings] as well as skilful treatment.” The hospital continued for a little more than a decade until its operating costs exceeded the donations given and other facilities became available.

“We like to be appreciated but if we do not get all the appreciation which we think is our due, what matters? We know the Lord has laid high responsibilities upon us, and there is not a wish or desire that the Lord has implanted in our hearts in righteousness but will be realized, and the greatest good we can do to ourselves and each other is to refine and cultivate ourselves in everything that is good and ennobling to qualify us for those responsibilities.”

1887-1889 (Red and black dress, built in bustle, red and black hat)

My name is Zina D H Young, and after serving on the Relief Society Presidency with Eliza I was called as Relief Society President when she passed away in 1888. I played the cello, was a trained midwife and delivered hundreds of babies. I also worked to pass this knowledge on to other sisters.

One of the hardest things President young asked me to do was to serve as the President of the Deseret Silk Association. Me and the other sisters raised colonies of silk worms, feeding them on mulberry leaves. I hate silk worms. They actually give me nightmares, and they’re big – they grow to be 3” long! We spent over 20 years raising silk worms and harvesting the silk – we never made a lot of money out of this, but we did have beautiful silk fabrics to make dresses from!

In February 1870 the territorial government of Utah had granted women the right to vote in government elections. At that time, the territory of Wyoming was the only other place in the United States where women were given this right. Unfortunatly, the  national government rescinded this privilege as part of the punishment for Latter-day Saints living the law of plural marriage. But Latter-day Saint women remained vocal and articulate about their rights. Many sisters actively sought women’s suffrage, or the right to vote. Their increasing ability to speak articulately was a blessing when they needed to represent themselves as strong, dignified, and ennobled women. Through their efforts, they regained the right to vote when Utah was granted statehood in the United States of America. They also gained the respect of other women’s movements in the United States and around the world.

“I rejoice in putting my testimony before the daughters of Zion, that their faith may be strengthened, and that the good work may roll on. Seek for a testimony, as you would, my dear sisters, for a diamond concealed. If someone told you by digging long enough in a certain spot you would find a diamond of unmeasured wealth, do you think you would begrudge time or strength, or means spent to obtain that treasure? … If you will dig in the depths of your own hearts you will find, with the aid of the Spirit of the Lord, the pearl of great price, the testimony of the truth of this work.”