It was while they were living in Nauvoo that the Prophet came to my grandmother, who was a seamstress by trade, and told her that he had seen the Angel Moroni with the garments on, and asked her to assist him in cutting out the garments. They spread unbleached muslin out on the table and he told her how to cut it out. She had to cut the third pair, however, before he said it was satisfactory. She told the prophet that there would be sufficient cloth from the knee to the ankle to make a pair of sleeves, but he told her he wanted as few seams as possible and there would be sufficient whole cloth to cut the sleeve without piecing. The first garments were made of unbleached muslin and bound with turkey red and were without collars. Later on the Prophet decided he would rather have them bound with white. Sister Emma Smith, the Prophet’s wife, proposed that they have a collar on as she thought they would look more finished, but at first the Prophet did not have the collars on them.

After Emma Smith had made the little collars, which were not visible from the outside, then Eliza R. Snow introduced a wider collar on the finer material to be worn on the outside of the dress. The garment was to reach to the ankle and the sleeves to the wrist. The marks were always the same.