Mother/Daughter Emmeline Aprons

I'm currently avoiding cutting out more Halloween costume stuff, so am posting the final aprons as a semi-productive form of procrastination. 

I made my sister an Emmeline for her birthday back in the spring.  Well, technically her birthday is in the winter, but I didn't give her the apron until spring.  Not my proudest sisterly act.  It's a good thing she loves me anyway.

Tardiness aside,  I really, really loved how it turned out.

Side A

Side B

The one good thing about waiting so long to deliver the gift was that I got to give it to her in person.  This was especially advantageous because my niece LOVED it, and she had a birthday coming up, so her gift was a no-brainer.  She turned 11, so I made hers a bit smaller, but not a lot.  I think I cut the pieces 2" narrower and the skirt part of the apron 2" shorter.

Side A

Side B

You can't tell in the full-length photo, but the black and pink print has glitter in it -- perfect for a bling-loving tween.  The close-up also shows that despite declaring after the first time I made one of these that I would hand sew the final bits next time, I didn't.  I did discover that generous use of a fabric glue stick kept things lined up well enough for respectable machine-stitching.  Yay!

Okay, back to the costumes. I had hoped to get them pretty much finished this weekend, but am not even close.  After looking at all the things on our calendar this week, I don't think I'll get nearly as much done for KCW as I'd originally planned, either, but I'd like to get a couple of things made after the costumes are done. 

Butterick 4945 Apron II

Not the cleverest of titles for this post, huh?  At least it's descriptive. 

I made another Butterick 4945 view D this summer for our friends' mom's 60th birthday.  She's pretty awesome and threw herself a big party, because she knew her husband and sons wouldn't think of it.  Ha!  We've spend a lot of time at their house, especially before we had kids, and we adore her, so I was happy for a reason to make her something.  She's a fantastic hostess and great cook, so an apron seemed like a perfect fit.  Through a chain of texts (Ray -->  older son --> his dad, who we suspect just asked her), I found out her favorite colors and picked out this cute paisley print.

Oh, summer and sundresses, how I miss you both!

I made the same minor modifications as last time, mostly just adding a ton of topstitching.  I was quite happy with how this one turned out, especially since I sewed it up the morning of the party, as usual.  The flounce at the bottom is my favorite part.

Two more aprons still on the to-blog list!  I also need to finish up (er, start) Halloween costumes and get ready for the fall Kids Clothes Week next week.  Are you sewing along for this round of KCW?

More Raffle Aprons

As I was finishing up an apron to donate to a raffle basket at E's school, I realized I hadn't blogged yet about the last apron I sewed up for her school.  In February.  And then I remembered that there were three other aprons I made this year that haven't made an appearance on the blog yet either.  So it's going to be aprony around here for a while.

Up first is the one from February (Early Childhood always gets assigned kitchen things for their theme.  The apron from her first year is here).  This was view D of Butterick 4945, which was a gift from my friend Carrie.  I used two coordinates from Hobby Lobby that had been hanging out in the stash for a while and made the largest size, thinking an apron can't really be too big.  Or at least not if you're as messy as I am.

There were some issues with the facings at the arm edge being too long, but that was about it.  I also changed the waist ties to be turned and topstitched instead of hemmed and added additional topstitching in several other areas.

O. took this before school one snowy day in February, so less than ideal lighting conditions.

I really like this apron style, as you'll see when I get around to blogging the second one I sewed up.

E's school added a Fall Festival this year and moved the raffle baskets to October.  This time I chose the Urban Wrap Apron pattern again.  Stash fabric for this one too, including the fabric for the bias tape.  I always read the tutes that say, "You'll never buy bias tape again!" and get suckered into making my own, and then remember that my least favorite parts of sewing are cutting and ironing.  Which is basically the entire bias tape making experience.  Oh well, at least it's cute, and I have quite a bit left over for something else.

This apron is super quick to sew up, or would be if you purchased bias tape.  I also like that it's very adjustable size-wise.

Halloween 2012: The Scientist and Raggedy Ann

I was hoping to come up with another family theme for Halloween this year, but we couldn't agree on anything. It's probably for the best, since I just finished E's wig yesterday!  I don't know how I would have managed another two costumes also.

O prefers non-costumey costumes these days, so he decided a few weeks ago that he would like to be a "genius inventor" or a scientist with a lab coat and tie.  I used the pajama top from Butterick 5586 and extended the length by about 9", added two more patch pockets, lowered the top button and spread out the other two a bit more.  There was an insane amount of sleeve cap ease -- so much that I initially wondered if I'd accidentally cut the puffed sleeve from the nightgown -- which I took out by eyeballing.  There was a lot of reminding myself that it was just a costume! Other than that, it went together easily and fits well.

He also asked for another faux tie, which he chose to be from a skeleton print.

He's wearing my shoes, which are about three sizes too big.  Sometimes it's better not to ask.

We decided on Raggedy Ann for E, and just realized tonight that this is the first Halloween she hasn't been an animal!  She was a ladybug, a monkey, a bee, and then an owl.  There were a several pieces to Raggedy Ann, but most of them were quick to sew up.

I started with the Miss Madeline peasant dress with long sleeves with shirring at the wrists, no elastic at the waist, and an added neck ruffle like in this tutorial.

Her apron is a larger version of the one in this tutorial.  I used the same dimensions for the arm straps and waist ties, but made the waist band 3x21" and the body of the apron 17" x 43" (the width of the fabric).  The only other modification I made was to attach the straps behind the apron, rather than sandwiching them between the waist band and the main fabric. I also added some jumbo rickrack when I realized that my original overly ambitious plan to embroider "Raggedy Ann" onto it was soooo not going to happen.

For our first Halloween event last week, she wore the pantalets from this summer, but they didn't really show below the dress, so I made another full-length pair.  (I'm planning on having her wear them  for Christmas also, or I wouldn't have bothered -- I don't think... I do get kind of obsessive about costumes.  Ha.)  I was out of elastic thread, so made a casing on the inside with single-fold bias tape and ran elastic through it.  Finished with a rolled hem for the sake of speed, but then the thread kept breaking, making me wish I'd just done a quick regular hem!

The last piece, the yarn wig, took by far the longest, but was so worth the extra time.  It cracks me up every time I look at it.  She seemed to enjoy wearing it too.  I'm quite sure she knows when she's being funny.

I used the Scarecrow Wig pattern, but my first attempt at the hat turned out too big.  Casting on 78 stitches for the second try worked out much better. 

Happy Halloween!

Another Apron

It's the year of the apron! I'd only made two ever prior to 2012 and now this is my fifth -- or sixth if you count the RTW one I appliqued -- of the year.

This one as a request from my sister-in-law for her husband. She said he was looking for something with  more coverage and pockets. We picked dark gray twill for durability and stain-hiding.

I used the J. Caroline Creative tutorial, which I'd made before and still had the pattern piece.  To make it larger, I lined it up 1.5" from the fold.

I think the "wrinkle-ease" fabric means it wrinkles easily!  It was a pain.

Then I extended the side by 4", following the curve already established.

The pockets were made from an 8x21" piece, hemmed along the top, sides and bottom turned under and then sewn on, with two additional lines of stitching to divide it into thirds.

I made self-fabric ties from 2" strips of fabric folded to the middle and then folded in half (there's probably a term for this, but you know what I mean, right?), sewn on and then bar-tacked to reinforce them.

O agreed to model as long as I didn't include his head in the shot. The cat volunteered herself.

She can't resist long strings of any kind.

His & Hers Aprons

We've been so busy this summer than I'm way behind on the blogging front. I made this pair of aprons for a bridal shower over a month ago. Yikes.

I've had the Emmeline Apron pattern for years, but finally had a good reason to sew it up. It only took about four hours including cutting, so I think there's one in my near future as well. I probably agonized over the fabric choices for longer than that...

I don't remember much about the construction -- another drawback of putting off posting for so long! -- so I assume it went together pretty easily.

This is my nonchalant fashion blogger pose. Ha ha ha. I think I'll stick with the sewing blog.

I did not do the hand sewing as recommended in the pattern, and if I make it as a gift again, I would. You can see the wonky machine stitching in the above photo where the waistband meets the side binding.

I love that it's reversible -- I'm a messy cook!

 

I wanted to make something for the groom also, since the bride usually gets most of the goodies at showers. He's a big Badger fan, so I used a blank apron from Hobby Lobby and appliqued on the Wisconsin W.

 

Ray poses with a bit more enthusiasm than I do.

Teacher Gifts Part 1: Aprons & Coffee Cozies

School ended last Tuesday, so as one would expect, I spent most of Monday desperately sewing.  I had decided a while ago to make E's teacher and para each an apron after they raved about the raffle apron, but I was waffling about her therapists and O's teacher (whose gift will comprise of Part 2).  I don't think I came to a final decision until Sunday afternoon, and then I had a fabric crisis when one of the pieces I bought had a big flaw that I couldn't work around, so I had to make a mad dash back to Joann's before they closed Sunday night.  Clearly, I'm never going to learn to do things ahead of time.

E's teacher and para both commented about how they liked that the neckline of the earlier apron I'd made wasn't straight across like so many are.  That was from a pre-printed panel, though, so I looked around for quite a bit trying to find one with a similar neckline.  I ended up buying the Urban Wrap pattern, which has the added bonus of being very adjustable size-wise.

They sewed up quickly, probably took me just a bit longer than an hour for each one. The instructions were thorough, and she also included a handy one-page quick reference.  I think there was only one step that I needed to refer to the more in-depth instructions. 

This is the first one I made, for E's para.

I  made her teacher's red, since she wears a lot of red.  I'm hoping it's because she really likes it and not just because it's the school color.  Ha.

I'm starting to look a little crazed in this one, as I still had loads of sewing to do and it was getting late!  Plus, I feel like a dork posing, but I always like to see things on a person.

I also made them matching coffee cozies and one for each of the therapists as well.

They were quick too, and fun to sew up. I used Insul-Bright instead of batting.

When I was buying gift cards, I asked the woman for empty cups to put them in, but I didn't notice until I got home that they were smaller than the Tall, so the cozies are a bit large on them. 

Raffle Apron

E's school recently held a fundraising Winter Carnival.  Her class's raffle basket theme was cooking, so I sewed up an apron from a pre-printed panel I'd picked up a while back at Hobby Lobby.  The only thing I added was to top stitch both the neck and waist ties.  That's pretty essential, in my opinion.

This is my "I feel like a big dork taking a self-portrait" face.

It's my favorite color combo, so I kinda wanted to keep it.  I hope it went to a good home!