the goose loves swirly skirts

First of all, I'm very behind in blogging - it's been a busy week! So I'm catching up a little, and by next week I hope to have a good long post about our St. Paddy's Fiesta! Or maybe I should say St Paddys Feis....

Anyway, today I want to show you an apron I made for my dear friend! It is from the same packet of patterns that helped me create Monika's apron (see old posts). This one just goes around the waist, and is much more flirty!

So I started by cutting out my patterns, trying to use my cute black and cream fabric as economically as possible.

Snip Snip!

The pattern consists of three half-circle shapes of material, ranging in size. The biggest half-circle forms the bottom, and the second two get smaller and layer on top. Rather than sewing seams on the bottom of each of the layers, the instructions suggest enclosing the raw ends with bias tape. So rather than use boring black or white, I chose this awesome blue.

Here I am sewing the bias tape to the edge - I used the extra-wide double fold stuff, which makes sewing super easy. Time consuming? Yes. But easy!

Then you lay out all three layers on top of each other, and pin in the right place so that the middles and edges align in perfection. Not only does it look pretty,

but it makes a pretty cool picture.

And here's the whole apron - lined up on my messy sewing/diningroom table.

And of course you need a close up of my nice pinning job aroudn the middle...

Then, with a few easy magic stitches on your machine, voila!

I guess I should have taken some pictures of the part where you attach the waistband to the skirt piece, and then attach tie straps to the waistband, but those are more boring.

Here's the side view, with poor lighting, on my rolling-desk-chair-model.

And with better lighting! The best part about this apron is that when you put it on, it makes you want to dance! It's definately more for fun than for usefulness... oh well.

One last close up, again poor lighting, but maybe you can see that along the waistband and tie straps, I used the same bright blue thread as I used along the blue bias tape - in person, it kinda pops out and brings some extra color to the classy fabric.

So my suggestion to future flirty apron wearers (including my friend who got this one) is this:

If you are making a dinner for friends, family, boyfriends, fiances, husbands, or in-laws, wear a useful/sturdy/full front apron for most of the cooking. Then, right before the guest show up, change into this pretty little number and you'll look like you didn't sweat/drip a drop!