Need a quick hostess gift for an out-of-town weekend stay with a friend? What about an easy gift for a favorite aunt or teacher? A colorful apron is always a great choice and sews up so quickly, you may even have time to make one for yourself while you are at it!
The festive fabric featured here is the perfect cover-up for serving drinks at a holiday cocktail party or for decorating Christmas cookies with the kids. Of course, Bolt & Spool has an array of other apron-worthy fabrics from the simple (linen) to the classy (damask print, perhaps?), depending on your desired aesthetic.
For this apron, I chose a half-apron from A is for Apron by Nathalie Mornu, which Nan carries in the shop. Nathalie’s book has 25 aprons that have just about every style covered–retro to modern, frilly to simple.
In all, I spent about 4 hours on the final product–about an hour of which I think was spent at my home printer trying to enlarge the pattern pieces to the specified 400%. This involved enlarging each pattern piece by 200% twice and in segments (since the finished pattern pieces are larger than 8″x11″), then taping the pieces together jigsaw puzzle style. In retrospect, I probably should have taken the time to go to Fed Ex Office or a similar retail print shop to see if they could enlarge the pattern pieces in a single step. Next time!
Once the pieces were enlarged, the apron came together very smoothly. What I especially liked about this apron was the technique to sew on the waistband and ties, resulting in a nice, crisp look. Here’s an overview of the steps to add the two ties to the waistband:
I even had a few minutes to incorporate some of the fabric scraps into the gift packaging (using this tutorial). Quite fun!
Time to get sewing for the holidays, everyone!
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Guest blogger and fellow fabric enthusiast, Erin Wagner, can also be found sewing and blogging at <a href=”http://www.clevercharlotte.com/blog/” target=”_blank”>CleverCharlotte.com</a>.