Fabric: from the Aviary Collection by Joel Dewberry, Sparrows in almond and Woodgrain in chocolate
Pattern: from Bend-the-Rules Sewing by Amy Karol

I think that the pockets are probably the cutest part:

Here’s a close-up of the binding on the pocket (I made the bias tape myself!):

I put little orange flower buttons on the pockets as decorative detail, but unfortunately I forgot to take pictures of the completely finished item before I gave it to Heather.

Here she is:

I’m pretty damn proud of this thing. I made it in a week, which is unheard of for me, and I put a lot of effort into it. Bend-the-Rules Sewing is a great book, by the way. This is the first item that I’ve made without the use of paper pattern pieces, and I feel like, though it maybe wasn’t the most complex item I’ve made, I learned the most from it. I think that the open-endedness of this pattern, at least, speaks to the author’s creative make-it-your-own approach to sewing. Here are all of the things I learned while making the apron:

• How to cut the appropriate amount of fabric for a project by using measurements instead of paper pattern pieces
• How to make my own binding using a bias tape maker
• How to properly attach a binding by slip stitching it down so that the stitches don’t show on the front of the fabric

But I feel like these are sort of the “actions” that I learned how to do. What I really learned was a better understanding of how fabric works, of grain and the importance of proper measuring, of what “bias” really means and why you have to cut bias tape on the, duh, bias, in order for it to curve nicely around corners and curves.

I finished my friend Heather’s apron* in exactly 7 days.

I started cutting the fabric last Sunday and I snipped the last loose threads tonight. I honestly don’t even know how that’s possible.

Let’s consider the things I did in the past seven days: four days of work, ceramics class, information architecture class, went out all day yesterday and last night (it was a busy weekend in Toronto: The Clothing Show, Nuit Blanche, and Word On The Street were all going on). And the apron was kind of time consuming, too. There was a lot of measuring (twice) and cutting (once), lots of ironing and pinning. I made pockets. I added a nice trim at the bottom. I made my own bias tape for the binding of the apron pockets and then hand-sewed the binding. I pinned and repinned and stitched and ripped out stitches and…how in the hell did I finish this thing?

I guess this can either be chalked up to the power of procrastination to light a fire under one’s ass (I will be seeing Heather on Friday in San Francisco, and I have approximately zero free hours until then), or it can serve to remind me that having 24 hours in one day is actually quite a bit of time if it’s used wisely.

(* — More pictures to come, including close-ups of the pockets and trim and stuff, but even though Heather knows all about the apron, I don’t want to give away too much before she sees it in person, hence the one ambiguous pic.)