Country Music Clothing 4, or Make Your Own Kind of Music

I found these amazing "create your own country music outfit" coloring pages at the Country Music Hall of Fame. I like to give credit where credit is due, so I looked all over the website for attribution or links to these items, but no such luck. I've scanned these in, so print them off if you'd like to create your own country music outfit! While you're coloring, listen to what may be my all time favorite country song...Rocky Top by the Osborne Brothers.


I could turn them into PDFs & email them to you if you'd like...email me at bellaindustries 'at' gmail 'dot' com & I'll get back to you...

Yukata! - In which I decide I need a dress form...

So, I finished it.  Again, I need to reiterate how pleased I am about how well the batik (blue) goes w/ the Japanese poet print.  You can see from the photo at right how messy my house is...NO! you can see that it is really a boxy Japanese kimono pattern, modified a bit to hopefully be a bit more flattering.  However, there is so much bulk under the arms, at the side seams.  I do like the final result & will wear it a lot (it's so loose that I can wear my pajamas underneath it easily)...but, I may try to think of a way to take in the side seams to reduce some of said bulk.

I need to mention though, that kimono are not meant to be shaped, the pieces are rectangles made to efficiently use the narrow woven fabric.  When we lived in Japan, one of my students was studying tea ceremony (the Japanese make everything an art & it always involves lots of study & practice)...and she had to wear a kimono.  She told me that her kimono hated her!  This student, Akiko, was a normal female shape, but she said that when you wear kimono, you have to have no shape.  "Like the trunk of a tree," was how Akiko put it!  Which surprised me, but if you think about it, she's correct (look at some photos from Kyoto, if you need more evidence).  Which again brings me to the question of why I thought I would get a shapely housecoat if I copied a kimono pattern?  Oh well...it was a fun project.

A reminder, a yukata is a kimono, but made from cotton, not silk or wool.  It's a summer kimono, essentially.  If you've ever spent a summer in hot, muggy, Japan, you know why they invented this version of the kimono!

Here's the back--you can see I added some darts in the back to give it some shape.  I also added them in the front, but they don't show much because of the overlap.

Under the arm, where the
sleeve (R) is attached

I had to look at the Roommate's yukata to figure out how to do the underarms.  Attaching the sleeves was easy enough--just lots of straight line sewing, but after sewing up that little flap at the bottom of the sleeve, there's actually a gap in the fabric.  I top-stitched that to make it lay smooth & look nice.

I tried it on w/ my hapi coat belt, but the Roommate & I didn't think it looked very good, so I decided to make tie fasteners.  There are 4 of them, and I'm also quite pleased with them--I made them by folding the fabric 4 times and sewing a few times--so they are rather sturdy & flat--and I think they make nice little knots.  2 are inside, where they don't show, so that the overlap stays put.

One thing I kept coming up against over & over was how to fix it while it was on me.  The Roommate is extremely helpful & willing to do most anything w/ regards to textiles & sewing, but he doesn't always "get" what I'm talking about.  I really feel like a tailor's dummy, or dress form, or adjustable mannequin is the next item I want for my sewing room.  I may have to wait a while--we have to pay for our new south wing, first! The duct tape version is looking better and better!

Another issue...of course I don't have any matching pajamas!  Uh oh.  I do have some great stretchy fabric that sort of matches, maybe I'll make some pants out of that. 

Country Music Clothing 3, or Silver Threads and Golden Needles

Miss Minnie Pearl

Well, there's really not a "best" in this series--all the stuff was amazing & a thrill to see in Nashville, but this is sort of the best: the women's outfits!  Not quite as flashy as the men's clothing, and some of them were really not at all photogenic; the lighting on the outfits was great for looking, not so great for photographing.  Anyway, you'll enjoy these, I'm sure, and the music to go along with it...

Porter Wagoner & Dolly Parton

I couldn't get a good shot of the one Wanda Jackson dress at the Country Music Hall of Fame, but here's an amazing video of her singing Hard-Headed Woman, which was playing on a loop (with some other great dancing stuff--Jerry Lee Lewis, Elvis, etc.).  Look at her dress...and her dance moves really show off that fringe!  She's still performing, btw here she is w/ Jack White on Letterman a while back, singing Shakin' All Over, and still wearing fringe. Go Wanda!



If you need more music to get you thru this tour, here's Loretta Lynn singing another of my favorites, You Ain't Woman Enough (To Take My Man).  I cannot resist that song.

Audrey Williams (Hank's wife) - you saw her
boots before

Dolly Parton

Tammy Wynette

Dotty West

Taylor Swift

Connie Smith

Kitty Wells

June Carter & Johnny Cash from the Ryman

Patsy Cline

Two of Loretta Lynn's outfits

Sam Bush

Porter Wagoner

Ernest Tubb's guitars always had this on the back!

Here's one of Ernest's hits, Drivin' Nails in My Coffin (Over You), a great example of Texas swing...find out more about Ernest, his record shops, the Midnite Jamboree shows, live from his record shops (there's an audio archive), or his 1970s tour bus at the Ernest Tubb Record Shops site.  

Country Music Clothing 2, or, Clothes Don't Make the Man

Nudie's Singer Sewing Machine

However, you'll see here that clothes DO make the country music star!

What could YOU make with this Singer sewing machine?  Well, Nudie, the Rodeo Tailor, made all sorts of costumes with it--all of them gorgeous.  His work is so important that his sewing machine is in the Country Music Hall of Fame!  Something to aspire to--having my machine displayed somewhere! Nudie's got his own website, so head on over there, pardner, if you want to see more of his creations or find out more about this artist...

Hank Williams

Hank Williams

The clothing at the Country Music Hall of Fame & the Ryman Auditorium was created by three artisans.  Nudie, Manuel (who is still working--Jack White or Merle Haggard ring a bell?) and Nathan Turk.  Follow the links to see more of their work.  And, as always, clicking on the photo will get you the full-size version.

First, a couple of Hank Williams' suits.  And you can listen to Cold, Cold Heart while you're looking...

If you look closely, you'll see that this suit on the right (with the musical notes on the sleeves) is the one he's wearing in the videos I posted previously: I Saw the Light and Hey, Good Lookin').

Gram shown wearing the suit, with the
Flying Burrito Brothers

Nudie designed this for Gram Parsons

I don't think I can convey how much fun it was to see these.  All I can do is recommend you head down to Nashville yourself; and don't forget to check out the Ryman Auditorium--there's a lot of great June Carter & Johnny Cash stuff there.

And the back of Gram Parsons'
leather outfit

Hank Thompson

Lefty Frizzell

Hank Snow, Nudie designed this one

Jim Reeves

Don Gibson

Faron Young

Ray Price

Merle Haggard

Red Foley's Sugar Foot suit

Porter Wagoner

Assorted Hank Williams, Jr. items

Not OK Kimono!

Okay, we can all have a little think about What was I thinking? now.   Here's what's up: I did translate most of the kimono pattern into English; at least I did enough so I could use it to make myself another yukata.  And I could have used the measurements in the pattern (it's in centimeters), but for some dumb reason I decided to use the old measurements for my hapi coat.  Which was big & boxy.  I realize that the kimono would have been boxy, too, but narrow boxes, not wide boxes.  Why did I do that?  Now I have a voluminous housecoat that doesn't really look good when I wrap a belt around it.  It looks so bad, in fact, that NO!  You cannot see a picture!

I am however quite pleased with my fabric choices, so I'll post a picture of it so far so you can admire that:

Bella is always eager to assist me! 

I decided I need darts (not exactly a Nobel prize winning decision, I realize), and googled sewing darts and one of the first pages I found was Saraicat's! She did a guest post at Sew Mama Sew about darts, so I'm going to use her information & see if I can add some shape to this box.  I was pleased because I follow her tweets fairly closely (and get hunger pangs at the food-related tweets).

I am also glad that I have the Roommate's yukata to look at; the Japanese pattern book I'm using doesn't have instructions (and I probably couldn't translate them if it did), so I have referred to it many times so far.  The biggest deal is how the sleeves connect to the sides under the arms.  Nothing like what we do in the west for most armholes.  I'll show some photos once I get that figured out...

Country Music Clothing, or These Boots Are Made For Walkin'

The Roommate & I met my parents in Nashville, TN for the weekend.  It was great; there is so much to do, plenty of live music and sites to see.  3 days was good, 5 would have been better.  If we'd had more time, we'd spend more time on Broadway on Fri & Sat nites seeing live music.  It was great, though; we had a super time.  It was also nice to see the sun (and lots of it) as this past month has been g r e y here in the DC area.

A disclaimer about the photos--of course these treasures are behind glass and aren't that easy to photograph.  I appreciate your patience.


I had never thought about all the amazing stage clothing the performers wear. But you get in a museum where they're all together & you start thinking...Wow!  Let's get started with footwear...stay tuned for clothing.

First, at the top--Dale Evans' boots!  Roy Roger's are shown behind hers.

And some blue suede shoes--those would be Carl Perkins'.  Though I heard him talk about writing that song on Letterman once, and he said that he saw a guy at a dance get made at his very pretty girlfriend because she stepped on his blue suede shoes.  Perkins said it gave him a great idea for a song--but he would never have said anything to the girl--she was a very pretty lady.  So I suspect these were his, but were purchased after the song was a hit...

Jim Reeves' (my dad's favorite) shoes & gold cufflinks!  Here's Four Walls to give you an idea of his amazing voice...

The following 4 pairs are from the Williams family...Hank Williams, that is.  The first were Hank's himself.  Let's start off with Hey, Good Lookin' , is that my favorite?  I can't decide.  Considering Hank died in 1953, I was surprised to find any old TV clips on youtube.  And take a good look at that suit--it ws on display in the Country Music Hall of Fame (where most of these pics were taken), too and I got a pic.  I was thrilled to see him wearing it in this video.  Here's another great song, with June Carter singing backup & Roy Acuff taking a verse on I Saw the Light.

The next blue & white pair of boots are Hank Williams, Jr.'s when he was a little boy.  That kid started performing when he was 4!

This next pair belonged to Audrey, Hank's wife.  The amount of work that must have gone into any of these is amazing.

Finally, the last pair were Hank Williams, Jr.'s, too, but when he was grown up.  He's still performing, too (and he's not 4 anymore).  But who is?

Hope you enjoyed these.  I don't think of myself as needing great stage clothes to have good music, but at the museum, you really see how much a part of the culture these clothes are...and have been for a long long time.