The Garden is Inching Along

I got the peas planted yesterday and a row of collard greens put in. I briefly considered putting the corn out—my corn is already over a foot tall in pots in the greenhouse—but with the forecast for snow tomorrow morning, I think I will wait until next week.

Susan, Elysian, and I are getting everything in place for the plant sale this weekend. I’m kind of a jaded gardener at this point, so it’s fun to be around Elysian and be infected by her enthusiasm for growing stuff. We’re going to have a good time on Saturday visiting with hopeful gardeners. I’m planning to buy a few new varieties of plants at the sale, too, to add to my garden this year. And once this plant sale is behind us, I can concentrate on getting everything put in and prettied up for the garden tour in July.

In the meantime, I am making aprons:

I am as particular about my aprons as I am about the rest of my clothing. I like full-length aprons with pockets. I settled on this design for myself after I realized I was reaching for the same apron over and over again. This is based on an apron my MIL gave me many years ago—so long ago that whatever was printed on the front of it has washed off. That apron is made of a beefy twill fabric. I like the fact that the ties come down from the neckband. My waist is in a weird place, so anything that ties horizontally around my waist usually doesn’t sit where it is supposed to and requires me to be tugging at it constantly. I don’t have to do that with this style of apron.

I’m still refining the design. On the next one, I think I may make a pocket that spans the whole width of the front. I made double-fold binding from black Kona, although I cut it on the crossgrain of the fabric thinking it would be stretchy enough. Eh. I should probably make bias binding for the next one. That’s easy enough to do on my Accuquilt cutter. This apron still needs the ties, and those will be made from 1” wide double-fold binding, also out of black Kona. I bought a special 50mm wide bias tape maker from Sailrite to make that. Some 2” wide twill tape folded over would work, too, but that is hard to find in colors other than black and white.

This apron is also reversible. The front is a home dec canvas and the backs will be whatever coordinating remnant I can find in the stash that is large enough. I’ve got another one of these that I made using some coated cotton for the front. I like that it’s water resistant.

I have half a dozen of these cut out, and once they are all put together, I should have plenty of aprons to keep me covered this summer.

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I talked to the class coordinator at the quilt store south of town yesterday. This was the store that hosted the Bernina Mystery Make, and several of the students who were in that class want to make the Jalie Renee pants pattern:

Sandra, the Mystery Make instructor, wore a pair of these to class She had made them from some sparkly Robert Kaufman ponte knit. When I was at the store last week, the owner was meeting with the fabric rep and she put a bolt of that same fabric on the order. I have the pattern and some ponte and will need to make up a pair of these soon so that we know whether the class needs to be three hours, six hours, or two sessions. (I may change mine to a boot-cut style, but we’ll see.)

I see a lot of rain in the forecast for the next week—which is great, because we need it—so I should have plenty of sewing time when I am not out in the garden. My Wonderfil teacher thread order came the other day. I am itching to make up samples with those threads to see how they look.