The joy of hello...

the boyf and I will occasionally get on the back of his bike and roar around the countryside enjoying the sun and fresh air.  I love the freedom of being sat on a bike, the thrill of the ride, the camaraderie of being part of the "clan".  I love that bikers say hello as they pass each other, that little tilt of your head to the right, the simple pleasure of a shared acknowledgement.

And so it is, with the purchase of my Smart car, I've joined another clan.  Its taken me a little while, first to notice (!) and second to join in.  But, tonight, there it was, the little lift of your fingers from the steering wheel, the mirrored response, the happiness to be had in a tiny bond forged with a stranger.

We humans are needy folk!  At its worst, it can cause great problems; at its best, it is a series of tiny steps that make us all a little happier and bring us all closer to a shared humanity.

Wasting time...

It was the last Bank Holiday till August this weekend, and thanks to a bout of tonsillitis, I spent most of it asleep or in too much pain to care about anything creative!  So very annoying on two fronts:

a) I had great plans for this weekend! I love a three day weekend, it gives you enough time to get your jobs done and start on a project, safe in the knowledge that you don't have to rush and can bargain for exclusive use of the dining room - we can relax the rules, it is a holiday after all!

and b) life is too short to be wasted on sleep and sickness!  For as long as I can remember I have been very conscious that we have only one chance at our time on this earth.  I appreciate the need to sleep and recuperate (not enough, most people I know would argue) but I hate to waste time doing either when I could be doing anything else at all :)  My own worst enemy in many respects, but I would be very sad to get to the end of my life and think I could have done more; on my gravestone I would be very happy for them to write "She tried to do it all" ...except maybe the ironing!

So, once up and half human again I finished the Halloween invitations, so very pleased!  Just photos to take and once they're in the post I will do a write up.  And with the 9yr old at her father's this week, I will try and work my two days into a few evenings instead...

Making the Apron... part two

To decorate the apron, I wanted to make it a girly as possible - my antidote to the yards of dark green!  I used my gorgeous floral ribbon to trim the bottom of the waistband, which I handstitched it on.

I then rifled my embroidery ribbons and chose a mid green,

which I used to sew on three large pink buttons.  

Normally I would dismiss them as pink, plain and ugly but they have a 50s feel to them that I liked for this project and they are a nice foil to the fancier ribbon (shame that the colour doesn't photograph well).  I alternated the stitches to look like waffle stitch, one of my favourite embroidery stitches.

Finally, the hem. 

The main idea for this apron was that you would not wear it at full length, but rather pin/button/tie it to the waistband to to create a large pocket in which you could keep or put things; such as the washing line pegs which started this idea in the first place.

 As I mentioned in my last post; I kept thinking about buttonloops but I was adamant that I wanted to use a buttonhole.  I started first on my sewing machine; the programme has gone awry and five failed attempts and a hole in my apron hem later, I did my first rehem... I then decided to handstitch the buttonholes using tailors buttonhole, another of my favourite embroidery stitches... one dogs dinner later (there really is no other description for the utter mess that I had created) and I was on my second rehem!  As well as this, using a buttonhole had one downside that I couldn't quite get past, as I buttoned the hem up, you would see the underside of the apron.  As I was having so much trouble with it, I decided to sleep on it and in doing so figured out that the buttonloops that my intuition kept bringing up would a) work and b) solve my problem.

Buttonloops:

A few years ago I made a blind.  It was purely decorative and so it didn't need to be drawn up or let down.  I sewed buttons across the top of the blind and then buttonloops out of embroidery thread to hang the blind in place.

Using a purple embroidery thread that matched the thread that I'd used for the hem.  I sewed two long stitches, the width of the button.

I then sewed a blanket stitch along the length of the threads.

  

Continuing to the end, finishing with a single knot and then running the thread back through the hem to hide it before trimming it.  I twisted the blanket stitch slightly so that it's "spine" spirals for a decorative effect.

As it is looped over the button, the hem folds with the right side visible, a finish I prefer to the wrong side being seen.

And there it is... my quick little project has taken far too long and been far more involved than I had originally anticipated; but I am pleased with the results.  The three buttons allow for lots of permutations in playing with the hem; the pocket it creates is good and deep and open enough that its quick and easy to put things in/get things out of; and it has that slightly fanciful feel that I love about a good 50s apron!

The colour reminds me so much of my Nan, and I hope that Grandma Edith would have appreciated the effort!  Its practical and pretty and best of all thrifty, it could become a favourite.

Materials:

1 1/2 yds 44" wide material

 Buttons

Ribbon

Embroidery Threads

Any other decoration that you like

And, in my case, patience!

Intuition is a frustrating mistress!

I am a great believer in intuition but it has been testing me of late.  I cannot see, for example, why it sent me off on the alternative route to work last Monday, which could have so nearly ended up with one wreaked Smart car and me in an ambulance on my way to hospital... except that I got some unplanned practice in sudden avoidance manoeuvres; always the best kind I think!

And so it has been with my apron.  Over and over again I have said to myself, "make the loops for the buttons" (more later), and each time I have stubbornly insisted that "no, only buttonholes will do".  Well, three days and three re-hems later, I have learnt my lesson and, in the process, have figured out that the loops will actually work better and solve the one big issue that I had with the buttonholes... now, intuition, why couldn't you have mentioned that first?!

One long, green apron

...and a rogue leaf!  It can't stay looking like this for long, and I doubt very much that I'd ever wear it full length but it's necessary for what I have planned.