Here’s a favorite dress I made by cropping a midweight cotton Western shirt and attaching a skirt cut from a vintage quilt top (yoke details and sash are made from the same quilt top).

I grew up in a shit-kicking ranching and rodeo town in Central California. This ensemble is a nod to the rodeo queens I so admired in my youth, women who arrived in pretty dresses, perfectly coiffed and in full makeup, and ended the day covered with dirt and (sometimes) wearing bandages and slings, having given their all in the arena.

In them, I caught a glimpse of a multifaceted life, in which I could be ferociously strong, highly capable, and uniquely beautiful. It took me decades to mature into, but, in my own way, I made that life.

Thank you, queens ❤️