Patchwork Aprons

As a first step for this blog, I'm going through photos of old sewing projects that I made as gifts for family and friends. A few years ago, my sister asked for kitchen/cooking stuff for Christmas. My parents got her a nice food processor and sharp knife, and I made my first patchwork apron.

Cooking-themed Christmas presents

Part of the joy of sewing crafts for me is how you can turn scraps of material into something beautiful and functional. My sister and I have both been sewing since we were kids, so there was a ton of leftover fabric for the taking at my parents' house. 

This apron is when I really discovered how great patchwork can be, especially when working with fabric scraps. It doesn't matter if a piece of fabric is small or weirdly shaped - as long as you can get a 5-inch square out of it, you can use it. I had a bigger piece of white fabric with a dark blue floral pattern leftover from a dress project, which I used to make a uniform lining in the back as well as the waist ties.

Full view of the apron with a peek of the reverse side

I finished a couple days before Christmas and showed the apron to my grandmother. She loved it and asked if I would make her one at some point. I thought it would be fun to make her one in time for Christmas, so I scrambled over to the fabric store to get some more materials (I was out of pretty scraps by this point).

Isn't she stylish!

For hers, I worked out a few kinks from the original apron design. The big one was realizing that I could attach the waist ties and neck strap without any visible seams by sewing them in at the same time I sewed the front and back together. This way I only ended up with one small visible seam at the bottom from where I turned the whole thing right-side out. For fun, I made the reverse side vertical stripes instead of a uniform piece of fabric. She also likes pockets for her handkerchiefs and such, so that was another addition.

Striped reverse side