As The Grass Sways
...als were finally in hand the process began. Measure and cut, measure and cut for the entire next week. That’s all I did was measure and cut all of the yarn for both halves of my regalia. Once the bottom and top halves were sewn together I started in on the beading. I picked my colors from the traditional northern plains style and once I finished the headband, necktie and my moccasins, which were all very easy once I got the hang of it. The entire regalia is colored black, white, gray and red. It has a diamond shaped bottom with a straight line across the shoulders. 2 I leaned that when managing your time you should always give your self at least a week or two just because you never know what’s going to happen and because you can never ever rely on someone other than yourself. My mentor, who is also my mother, was the biggest help in all of this. She taught me how to sew and how to manage my time seeing how we both had two different schedules. It was also nice having my mother as my mentor because she knew when I needed to have things done; it was more like having a human alarm clock than a mother. If I had my project to do over I would definitely try to get more done in the first two weeks rather than put it off until the end. I have to admit the first couple of weeks I was slacking off and oh man I wish I wouldn’t have because it was only hell to make it up. I had to work twice as hard to keep up and I didn’t have the time I wanted. Let’s say if I didn’t understand something enough I would just have to bite my lip and keep on going because I didn’t have that first two weeks. Another thing I would have done differently is my planning. I never made a planned schedule and I think that hurt my time a lot. I would just finish one thing and than ask my self, hmmm what else needs to be done? I think that if I had made a planned schedule and had exact days for certain 3 things that needed to be done I wouldn’t have been struggling as badly. But in reality my project turned out exactly how I wanted it to; it’s awesome. The colors are perfect and the design is all original so I’m very happy I reached one of my goals. My other goal, however I am not so proud of. I think that if I had more time I would have learned a lot more about all of the native regalia instead of just the grass dance outfit. Because of my restraint with time I had to narrow down just a bit and change my goal to focus more on just the grass dance outfit. The questions I still have are just little ones like the design in the bead work. I know that it has a meaning but I am not sure what it means or what it stands for. Another question I have is more of a general one and that’s how it all evolved into this, like the yarn, they didn’t have that back in the old days or the ribbon or even the bells they wear today. I never found that info. I think that the most I learned from this experience was that in life you can’t be a procrastinator because it will come back to haunt you in the long run, I also know that if I hadn’t slacked off and screwed around for those first two weeks than my knowledge for the native people and their regalia would have been five times as great as it is now. Another thing...