Four Creative Aprons

In August 2019, I attended a wedding as a server where I knew many of the guests.  I figured I needed a silent way to communicate with people I knew that I was not free to visit.

 Old aprons available to me were not suitable or worn out.  So I took an old rayon and cotton table cloth with a hole in it and made this assymetrical apron.

Back view.  Made with a button for a closure instead of a tie.

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 Next is an apron I started in November 2019 which was a result of answering a facebook advertisement for a bag of buttons offered at $15.00.  When I went to buy the buttons, the lady asked if I would be interested in other sewing supplies.  Of course I would be.  She was responsible for her mother's estate and her aunt's estate.  Both those ladies were seamstresses.

There was a pile of Christmas holiday inspired fabrics that were left over scraps from someone's project...probably runners or tree skirts or place-mats.  I started with a pocket and built around it; First finishing the vertical row and then adding the two horizontal pieces:

 

Then I needed a skirt piece to put it on and found a scrap that was about 1/8 yard.   When cut in half and sewn together the other way, it became the skirt of the apron.  It's the background of red poinsettas with gold outlines. 

There were many, many of those partially finished triangular shapes with about 1" strips. 

So I added more to make this at the bottom of the apron:

The mottled cream/tan was another strip of fabric that was just right for separating the darker colors.  You can see this apron is evolving little by little.

I did not start with a plan other than to make an apron.

The next step was to make the skirt part wider as it was just not quite wide enough.  So I cut and pieced until I had enough for each side of the apron like this:

It isn't likely you thought this was a quick project.   You would be right about this.  I did have fun letting it evolve day by day though.  It took a few weeks of working on it here and there to complete.

Now comes the part that really took a long time...the bib section:

And the neck strap.  All pieced and pieced and pieced.

And the small fabric piece showing a stocking was especially placed to hold the strap rings.

And this is the finished front view:

 Even the waist ties are pieced from scraps.

And the back view.

The back lining was a splurge.  I wanted to finish this and wear it for the holiday so I went to the fabric store and bought a backing fabric:

I kept wearing this through Valentine's Day.  Now it is put away for next year.

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This next apron was designed and made for a friend.  Kauai postcard fabric obtained from www.VickysFabrics.com

I am excited about the parts I found at the fabric store to make the neck tie adjustable without tying or using a set of rings.  I will repeat this.

Waist ties, neck strap and lining are from this blue/white pineapple fabric also from www.VickysFabrics.com (Kauai). 100% cotton.

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And the forth creative apron is a version of the white rayon/cotton assymetrical apron shown first in this post.

This next one was made of 100% cotton from www.VickysFabrics.com and it is reversible.  I thought this would be easy.  And it was not.  Looks simple, but I ran into difficulty at every turn.

And after much reworking, I was rewarded with something that works.  Such is the life of a pattern designer hobbiest.

 

Last time I used adjustable neck strap hardware I said I would do it again.  It worked on the second try.  The first try turned out too long.  After cutting off 5 inches it was successful.

But I like it better if I have to cut something off rather than piece together something that was too short.

Also, this neck design turned out to be about 3 inches too high.  But I did not discover it until it was all sewn together including the neck strap which just would not turn out at the correct angle.

So it took me much of a day to renovate it.

And a pocket.  Now this pocket looks perfectly innocent and one would think it would turn out just fine the first time.  Think again and again.

Maybe this was over the top, but I wanted to match the florals on the pocket to the rest of the front of the apron.  Success!

 

The white apron this one was modeled after did not have a button tab.  It had a button and a button hole on the main part of the fabric.  But this one turned out too small so adding a tab seemed to make sense.

And the tabs slant wrong.  And that's how it will stay.   I had to go back and open up the seam to add the tab.  Thankfully the top stitching was not done yet.

And in the photo above and below, you get a peek at the reversible feature of this lovely apron.

 

And here is the reverse side of the same apron:

One of the unforeseen challenges is that the dark purple on the reverse side of this apron showed through the yellow.  So it started the sequence of renovations.  I cut up a white sheet to sew between the two layers.  It became a three layer apron.  Which means it's not the best weight for summer.

Next time, I will be more careful about choosing colors that do not show through each other.

But then it made the yellow layer heavier and with the bias shape here, the two sides did not match.

So back to the drawing board so to speak to shorten the yellow and white layers to match the purple layer.  And the top stitching was already in place by the time I figured it out. So it was a lot of picking to get back to the point I could start over.

 

Next is the pocket for this side of the apron.  I wanted to match the floral pattern here too, but in order to do it, I had to piece the fabric.  

Not my first choice, but I did not have enough extra fabric to work with.

I ended up stitching this pocket on by hand so it won't show on the other side.   Next time I would sew the pockets in place before sewing the front and back together.  But it was an after thought to add a pocket to this side of the apron.

And finally, the back view: