By my apron strings

I've been making great strides with my apron... I managed to get the "skirt" finished yesterday, contrast piping and all.


I tried to do a pin ticked detail on the top... which didn't go so well. It looked right on the surface, but there were some serious structural flaws which meant over time it would have looked like a hot mess! So, today I went back to the drawing board, and brought out the big guns (aka a sewing book, yup... I went old school... a real book, no Google-ing was involved in the process), to learn how to properly make pintucks.

Luckily I was able to use my practise top as a chance to determine the correct size, spacing, and pattern for my final design, so it wasn't a total waste. And with the help of my friend, about an hour or so later I had properly executed pintucks.

Then It was a case of adding the neck straps and connecting the skirt to the top, et voila!

My version of Tea and Crumpets , complete!

I ain't no Tina the Tailor

I've been working on my apron, and I now remember why I don't make clothes! My quilting generally follows a plan, but the plan is always pretty flexible. For the apron, I found a pattern that was pretty similar to the design I wanted to make, and thought.... easy peasy, this'll be a breeze..... um yeah, right.

After opening the package, I realized that I had no idea what to do..... so I called in re-enforcements -- aka Mama Waffles! My Mom made tons of clothes for us as kids (heck she made her own wedding dress!) so I knew she could be the Obi Wan to my Luke Skywalker!

So, with a bit of begging and pleading bribery with home made baked goods, Mom was in. So we first settled on the kitchen floor to lay out the pieces... about 5 minutes in we realized that that wasn't going to fly, so we moved downstairs to the sewing room ping pong table.

Once we got going it went pretty smoothly, it seems that I bought too much of everything, but that's not a bit surprise especially since I didn't really know how to read the pattern recommendations!

About an hour later, after turning the pattern pieces in all different directions in an effort to conserve as much fabric as possible, we were left with the pile of parts. I have to seriously wonder what the heck would have happened if my Mom wasn't around to give me a hand... my Home Ec classes from back in the day, obviously instilled in me a love of baking, and sewing... but I obviously forgot the pattern construction lesson!

Well actually, since the piece of clothing I made in highschool Home Ec was a pair of sweat pants that were totally wrong (ie. the legs in the patter were too short for me, so instead of adding length I went up in size... so instead of a small/medium with extra long legs, I made a XXL.... oops!) maybe I never learnt it properly to start with!

Tea and crumpets anyone?

Although my parents are both British, I consider myself 100% Canadian. However, I think my British heritage is sneaking through, because of all the aprons in the world, I chose this beauty....

Anthropologies Tea and Crumpets apron, as my guide for the apron sew-along. Since I'm using a bulk manufactured apron as my inspiration, I have no pattern to follow. My plan, is to fly by the seat of my pants improvise as I go. Considering that I have very limited clothing sewing skills - my last attempt about 8 years ago went horribly amiss, this is probably another one of my less brilliant hair brained ideas. But hey, nothing ventured nothing gained right?! ... right?!

My supplies for the project were super cheap thanks to my local Fabricland's renovation sale... $1.99 for an apron pattern to hopefully help me figure out how the heck to build a multi-piece apron, and 3 fabrics. I think the fabrics were a whopping $3/meter for the plains - the orange is poly cotton, sorry all you quilters for the fabric blasphemy, but it was all I could find in a coordinating fabric, that rusty orange colour was a b*&ch pain in the bum to match, but I think I did pretty well-, and $4.5/m for the printed one. I figure that for $15, it's worth a shot.

The plan is that the blue and orange print will be the main skirt (hello.... a plain fabric for the skirt of an apron, what the *beep* was Anthrpologie thinking?! Well I guess they were thinking of aesthetics, not how real people actually cook, but I digress... Anyways, the blue will be the skirt with the orange solid as the trim, I love me some contrasting trim), and the ivory will be for the top, not sure if I'll do the ruffles on the top or not.... Hah, who am I kidding, I'm not sure if I'll be able to pull off a reasonable imitation of the original, let alone worry about ruffle trim!