Autumn Apron

After finishing the pumpkin print pullover dress last week, I thought it would be fun to make an apron to layer over it.  I had some autumn harvest themed print fabric—it had been in Mom's stash, and not a print I might have chosen on my own, since it's heavy on browns and oranges.  It does have a lot of sagey blue green, which happens to match well with one of the things I'd gotten recently from Deb's Lace, and which I'd almost (when calling the color "verdigris") used on the copper print pumpkin dress, but figured it would be too fussy.

Well, what's better than a fussy apron, eh? 

 

I mean, yeah, it could be fussier.  It could also be less prone to showing stains, but, honestly, if I ever wear this while cooking, I'd...probably wear my usual apron over it...

I started with Fake Burda 6401—the same pattern used for the dress—and cut the front rise short and the back shorter, scooping out the arm openings so there would be plenty of clearance for the sleeves.

The strap length was determined by not remembering I needed to cut the straps until after the skirt pieces had been cut, and then going back and ripping the straps from the sides of the skirt front.  How long is that?  Dunno.  It worked!

And then I used those improvised front, back, and strap pieces to cut lining pieces.

 

This allowed me to get the trim sandwiched neatly between the layers before being turned right-side-out.  I didn't trust the iridescent plastic 'yarns' to hold up to the iron, so I used a press cloth everywhere there was trim.  And then had so much fun (really!) edge stitching and then top stitching around everything.

I also interfaced both sides of the straps, but only used interfacing on the outer layer of the bodice.

The trim got stitched on 5/8" from the hem edge of the skirt, then I pressed the raw edge up and under.  I initially thought I could just fold it as I stitched, but lost confidence in my ability to do that and went directly to pressing.  It's uneven, but not noticeably so.

I gathered the skirt and sewed it  to the lining side.  I'd already pressed under the shell edge by 5/8", so that was ready to edge down stitch once the skirt was attached, then top stitch because I can.

The pocket was the most completely improvised part of this project.  I even went back and re-cut the top piece, because the original I'd made ended up being not wide enough once the trim was applied to the pocket edges.  Then, more edge stitching and top stitching.

As usual for my projects, I waited until it was time to sew the buttonholes to even start looking for buttons, and I found some shank buttons in the perfect shade of pearlized green! (They match the trim better in real life than they do in these photos.)  But only three of them, when I needed four.  I looked at other sets of buttons, but nothing was as right as these.  Then I looked in my single buttons and found one in the same style that was a slightly darker shade of green.  Y'know what?  Good enough.

 

This is, admittedly, a silly project that I honestly may not find much opportunity to wear, which is something I try not to sew these days, but it was quick and fun and I'm ready for fall (just...in general, not specifically because of this...)