work garments are made so that the bands of patterns are horizontal. These bands wrap all the way around giving the garment a circular, flowing motion. Though color, texture and rhythm are important, the biggest element in patchworking is pattern. Every garment is made with a special pattern that has either a religious, family, historical or everyday life significance. These patterns were first given names by a white woman named Harriet Bedell, who was an Indian Arts Activist. She encouraged the Seminole women to give the patchwork patterns names to facilitate their growth in the business market. The first two patchwork patterns documented through photographs were bold and basic. They were the rain and fire patterns as seen in source one. Another popular pattern made around the same time was one that looked like a checkerboard and named rain and storm (source two). As time moved on, the development of patterns augmented. The pattern rain was no longer just vertical stripes; it was now comprised of horizontal stripes (source three). Another development in patterns was that certain family units had special representational patterns such as the bear, snake, panther, crawdad, toad, turtle, bird, deer and so on (source four). Along with fire and rain patterns, other everyday life patterns were just as common. Some example of these are lightening bolts, crosses, spools, arrow, mountains, trees, wave and storm (source five). Any of these patterns could be put into any one garment. As shown in source six, the womens skirt has patterns such as fire, tree and rain and storm incorporated into its design. Both women and mens garments looked the same, but each had their own distinctions (Downs, 1995, 90-108).All of the patterns mentioned before and then some can be found in all Seminole clothing. No pattern was gender specific. Womens attire consisted of a skirt, blouse and jewelry. The skirt was a very full, floor-length skirt. ...
