Swing Your Partner
April 16th, 2012
Do any of you remember the Amazon Drygoods catalogue? Now they’ve got a website of course, but I’ve got such fond memories of poring through their pink-paper-bound booklets, dreaming about all the historic and ethnic costumes I’d make.
I did end up buying quite a few patterns through them, including my first forays into Ms. Altman’s excellent Past Patterns. Among the patterns that my mother firmly discouraged however were the square dance dresses. She realized, as I was not then able, that I would have absolutely no use for a square dance dress in northern Delaware. Looking back, I can see that she was probably right. But I always carried a secret regret.
So you can imagine my joy when I found a whole pile of the very same patterns at the local thrift store. For 90 cents a piece!
Which of course begs the question, what on earth am I going to do with a square dance dress on the central coast of California?
Hmm, that reminds me — gingham is on sale at Walmart…
I think they have square dancing here! That’s actually part of freshmen PE at AGHS. It’s a ritual almost. They teach square dancing and on the final day have a caller come in to call the dances. As a teenager it was terrible, but at least now I get why they did it.