The Haysville Times
By Patricia Barkley
This year’s Kansas State Fair was a very special event for one Haysville girl. Eighteen-year-old Katherine McCartney won a red ribbon for a dress that she designed and sewed herself. She made the dress for the volunteer work that she does at Wichita’s Old Cowtown Museum. She didn’t originally plan to enter it into a contest. McCartney has been volunteering at Cowtown since she was about seven, first through the Girl Scouts and later on her own. According to her mother, she has always had a talent for sewing outfits. She enjoys making her clothes for Cowtown and starts by looking through books of patterns for ideas. She roughly sketches out her designs before she gets started on the sewing.
The dress that won McCartney the second place ribbon at the Fair is lavender and includes all of the pieces that typically made up a dress in the 1800s. She made each piece herself, including underclothing, bustle, corset, underskirt, and overskirt. It was her first completely historically accurate outfit. Her mother suggested she enter it at the Fair. There was an application to fill out, including a description of the outfit, and the dress was set out on a dummy to be judged. The red ribbon was for the Lady’s Best Dress division; the other part of the prize was a six-dollar check.
“It was an honor just winning,” said McCartney. “I was so excited.”
McCartney participates in numerous skits performed at Cowtown, including “Calamity at Cowtown” in November, for which she’ll be playing one of the lead roles as a mail-order bride. There are dances as well, and she is part of a horsemanship group. She has also played the violin for two years now.
McCartney’s next sewing project will be an old-fashioned reception dress, which she will wear for her high school graduation in spring of 2006. She has been homeschooled since first grade. The ceremony will take place at Cowtown, where they will be re-enacting an 1879 graduation, and all the student participants will give speeches and perform some talent, just the way it was done in the 19th century. She expects to design the new dress with a train and a high neckline, and she hopes to enter it in the next State Fair.