My Apron Frustrations

The stack of things I want to re-write and/or re-design is growing. I intend to be respectful of copyright, but honestly, I can do some of these patterns so much better.

In an attempt to clear my stash of some projects, I pulled out an apron kit I purchased from the small quilt store in Spokane last year. I tend not to purchase kits, but the owner of that store likes aprons as much as I do and she has a lot of fun patterns and kits for sale. I saw this pattern made up and decided just to buy the kit and not fool with buying the parts separately.

This one is a basic half apron with a half a dishtowel sewn into the waistband. The dishtowel is not in the original design but was added to the kit by the owner of the quilt store. I have mixed feelings about dishtowels sewn into aprons. The dishtowels often need to be laundered more than the apron does. Aprons with loops or some other method of attaching dishtowels—so the towels can be removed and washed as needed—make more sense to me. Also, gathering the top part of the apron with the thicker dishtowel fabric took some doing.

Yes, I could have figured this out on my own. Working through other designers’ patterns, however, is sometimes more instructive than inventing the wheel myself. A couple of items of note on this design/pattern:

The bottom border is cut twice the finished depth and attached “burrito style” to the body of the apron. That encloses the seam between the body and border within the two layers of the border. The instructions for creating the “burrito” were vague at best. Were I not familiar with making pillowcases using that burrito method, spatially-challenged sewing Janet would have been totally lost. The pattern included simple line drawings for other steps in the assembly but not this one.

Nowhere on the pattern was a seam allowance specified. This is akin to writing a knitting pattern without giving a suggested needle size to obtain gauge. I used my best judgment.

“Right side” and “wrong side” (or “public side” vs. “private side,” as you prefer) are excellent landmark descriptions and should be used whenever possible. Likewise, line drawings should not only indicate body fabric vs. accent fabric, but also RS and WS of each of them.

Some things are just pickiness on my part, but the devil is in the details. The waistband was constructed from two 4” x WOF (width of fabric) strips. The instructions specified to sew them end-to-end to make a strip long enough for the waistband and ties. That put the seam right smack in the middle of the front of the waistband. I took the trouble to cut one strip in half and sew one half to each end of the other strip, thus placing the seams in the ties where they would not be as noticeable.

I put this apron on the list to re-design and re-write. I am pretty sure I can refine the construction and I know I can write a better pattern, starting with a specified seam allowance.

I’ve made two “Twirl, Girl” aprons recently from the book A is for Apron by Nathalie Mornu. I made a “Twirl, Girl” apron a few years ago, right after I bought the book, and the apron class I took at the big quilt store in Spokane last year was a similar design. Both have a sawtooth contrast bottom. (That was the class where the pattern had several significant errors, including one that resulted in the waste of some good fabric. The designer has not yet released that pattern, as far as I can tell from her website.) Because I’ve made sturdier versions of the pattern pieces out of Pellon Easy-Pattern, it was easy to compare the two. The differences are minor. I’d be inclined to size up the pattern a bit, though, as I think it’s a bit short.

The first one was from this bird print.

I loved the print but only had a small remnant. Fortunately, the pattern requires only small amounts—less than half a yard of the print and about the same amount for the contrast pieces—unless you happen to choose a directional print, in which case, you’d have to cut the fifth panel from another length of fabric to keep the print oriented in the same direction.

The second one was from a cherry print:

I opened the chest of drawers containing my stash of Kona and found the perfect shade of teal to match the print. Alas, I only had a fat quarter, which wasn’t nearly enough. I pulled out my Kona color card—admittedly, a few years old—and figured out that the name of that color was Ultramarine. A quick check of the Joann Fabrics website indicated that Ultramarine had been discontinued. Jade was a close match. I remembered, though, that I had purchased that fat quarter at the quilting store north of town and lucky for me, they still had half a bolt of it.

[Part of the fun of using remnants is the forced creativity and detective work.]

For both of those aprons, I serged the sections together and topstitched on the sewing machine. I’m not crazy about the width of the waistband. I plan to play around with that a bit.

Speaking of Kona, the Kona Color of the Year for 2020 is this gorgeous green, called Enchanted.

I am tempted to buy an entire bolt. Green is one of my favorite colors and this shade pushes all my buttons.

This time between Christmas and New Year’s is all about clearing the decks and prioritizing projects. I have a quilt top to make on commission and it has to be done by the end of January. I am going to start cutting that one today. I also need to get seven comforters assembled for the comforter-tying party on January 18. Those are also at the top of the to-do list. And I need to move on from aprons for a while and start making some small zipper bags.

I’ve now had a week back at work—with Wednesday off for Christmas—and am very happy with how that is fitting into the schedule. I’ve been starting around 6 a.m. and I’m done by 9 or 10. The hardest part has been getting back up to speed on treatment regimens. There have been some significant advances in cancer treatment in the past year. Stretching those brain cells is a great feeling, though.