Tying My Own Apron Strings

I have never until recently worn an apron while working in the kitchen. My 83-year-old mother never has, despite having done more cooking, baking, and preserving than anyone else I can think of. However, while my mother never seems to get any food on her clothes when preparing food, I nearly always do, and I decided I was tired of putting on a fresh outfit on Saturday mornings (when I batch cook for the week and do laundry) only to have it acquire food splotches within the next few hours.

So, aprons. Which of course I was going to make. I decided I would sew three, as a supply of three would mean I could be reasonably confident that I'd always have at least one clean apron on hand. I found an apron tutorial online, and then I bought fabrics. I planned the apron colours with reference to both my clothes and my planned kitchen décor, which is to be cream, wood tone, and red, with touches of green and to have a poppy theme, and determined I would make a red apron, a green apron, and a brown and cream apron. For maximum versatility the aprons would all be fully reversible with a print on one side and a plain fabric on the other.       

The red apron. I love the Jacobean-style print I used for this one. Fabricland actually carried poppy print fabrics, but I found I didn't like the look of them. This one's close enough to being a poppy print for my liking. 

The apron tutorial I used called for the apron straps to be made out of one of the two fabrics, but I made one change to the style of the aprons by making the straps out of both fabrics so that they'd be reversible too, like the body of the apron. 

I do wish I'd cut the aprons to fit me better. I am very well-endowed, and in order to have the waist tie at my waist, I have to adjust the bib ties to wear the bib lower on my chest than I like. Cutting a longer bib would have prevented that, which I should have realized from the outset -- after all the dresses I've made for myself, it's not like I don't know my chest takes up extra length. But I didn't think of it, and by the time I clued in I was far enough along in the process that I didn't feel like going to the trouble of backtracking and fixing it. It's no big deal, though. I can wear the bib a few inches lower, and if/when I ever make another set of aprons, I will remember to tailor them better. 

  

I scored another lovely print fabric for the green apron. It's a William Morris-style Arts and Crafts print. It actually had the William Morris name on the edge of the fabric, which means it's probably licensed. It's a print that will go well with my Art Nouveau-inspired décor touches.

The third apron, with a solid brown fabric on one side and a cream stripe fabric on the other. By the time I was done making this one, I wished I'd made the entire apron in plain brown. I used brown thread on the brown side and ivory on the cream, and those stitches showed through on the opposite side when I was top stitching, to the detriment of the final appearance of the straps. But there will probably be times when I am glad I have a cream apron to wear instead of a brown one, so it'll do.

And now I can bake and boil and brew in style.