Happy Birthday Hannah! - Sewing apron (secret project)

This post I have been writing gradually over the last few weeks. I have therefor decided to write this as a little bit of a diary post.

13 April 2015

One of the things that I like the most out of the book (Half Yard Heaven) that Adam (my hubby) gave me for my Birthday is also something that I think could be really useful. By the time I post this blog it will have been about a month since I have started to plan what I am going to do (& started to write this post) but I want to keep a record of my thoughts, trials and tribulations as I go along so that I know what has happened and how to improve myself for the next time I make anything.

The pattern that I have chosen to make is for this Pocket apron.

I like the idea of wearing this while I am sewing to carry around all of the useful things that I keep needing while I am working. I don't know about everyone else but I am always putting down my scissors or needles in all sorts of places and never remembering where I have put them.

One of the first things that I notice about this garment is that it uses bias binding around the edges to finish the seams. This is something that I have never attempted to use before (or even seen I don't think) until I went shopping last weekend to buy some for this.

I have already chosen my fabrics - hopefully the colours in all of these will go together well and compliment each other and I have also bought some of the grey binding to go with these - again, I hope it matches well once the garment is finished!

Now for the big decisions! Deciding on what fabric to use where...

As if using binding for the first time isn't enough to cope with, I have also decided to "quilt" (not sure if I can really call it that!) the front panel of the apron, so that the part that forms the pockets will be made from different fabrics patch-worked together. We'll all have to wait to see how that goes I think.

My first instinct was to make diamond shapes for the front panel and was fairly convinced on doing this until I saw the pattern that my friend (the lovely Hannah, from the QuirkyHannah blog) had made using triangles. I am now thinking that some equilateral triangles might be the way to go with that front panel.

Ooh - I have forgot to mention until now, I am planning on making two of these aprons. You will all see that I like to make things for myself however I have been inspired by my Birthday gift to also have a go at making something for someone else. This may seem like a lovely idea but I am confident that I could not make something that I like for someone else and then ever manage to give it away. Hence my idea for this so far is to make two aprons, one for Hannah and also to make one to keep for myself. Win, win I think, everyone is happy!

This has indeed made my fabric choice even more difficult really - I love to over-complicate things, don't I?

So fabrics...I think that the orange and the blue-y coloured sewing machine fabrics would make a great backing to the apron. I'm thinking of making both with a blue and orange back panel but for one having the Orange side facing forward and for the other having the blue forwards. Whichever colour is on the reverse will be the colour closest to you when this is tied around the waist. One panel sorted...

Now for the lining of the pocket. I think that this has been almost one of the hardest decisions to do with the whole garment. I wanted this to be a light coloured garment but I wanted this to fit with the rest of the fabrics. I just don't think that some plain white would cut it.

I like both of these fabrics (the cotton reels as well as the buttons). I think if anything, my least favourite is perhaps the cotton reels so I didn't think I would mind hiding this inside her pocket, however, on closer inspection I am not sure that the greens work to be placed directly next to each other.

I think that the best option will be to use the cotton reels for the apron in which I have the orange fabric showing on the front (& therefore next to this lining) and the buttons as the lining for the apron with the green sewing machines showing on the front.

I have mentioned before that I also plan on making the front in a patchwork of fabrics so whatever I don't use as a main fabric for one apron will definitely make an appearance within the patchwork. All in all, the patchwork section seems to be turning out to be the easiest of the lot so far! Although I guess I haven't started on that at all yet.

As I've said, unfortunately, sorry I couldn't post this little section when it comes as written but I want to keep the project secret until Hannah's birthday but please see below for additions to this and how it has come together

15 & 16 April 2015

I have started to cut out the triangles for the front panel of the apron. I had a few issues with the size of them to start with but hopefully I have now worked this out. A lovely evening was had by all and I am quite please with myself for almost having all of the pieces of the apron cut out and ready to go for sewing together. Hopefully tomorrow night I can finalise all of the cutting and start some of the putting together. I did post a sneaky peak at this project on 16 April so to see the full details of how this went then please see this post.

20 April 2015

Yesterday I really felt like I had to make the most of being at home and enjoy myself. We had a lovely day with my brother-in-law and his family. They all came round for lunch which was really nice but also gave me some time in the afternoon to continue working on my triangles. I decided that using my little template cut from a sheet of paper was just getting a little bit daft so we popped to Hobbycraft and I treated myself to a template cutter with my birthday money. This sounds fantastic however the way that I had measured my triangles was obviously slightly different to the recommended way of doing these using a template. Improvisation has always been something that I haven't been too bad at so I stuck the old paper template to the underside of the plastic and used this to line up and cut my triangles.

It worked! And this way my template didn't keep shrinking everything that I used it.

That got all of my triangles cut out and then for the fun part - trying to arrange them! I have to say I think that this must have taken a good couple of hours in itself and with this I realised that I didn't have as many of the orange triangles, and a limited number of blue triangles too (and couldn't cut about any more of these as I had used the material for the back panels of the aprons already)

Too much orange and blue!

One long design and still not enough triangles

A few more triangles were cut out from the fabrics that I had left.

And a final arrangement

This was the final design that I came up with after my many attempts. I went with doing two identical designs - mostly so that I didn't have to create any other design for mine and for Hannah's!

26 April 2015

We have a plan so let's start sewing!

I didn't really know where to start with this as I have never seen triangles together before so I had to have s little look online before getting started. People seemed to suggest sewing the triangles in pairs to start with, forming these into rows and then finally stitching the rows together.

I basically said started off making bunting from my triangles making sure all of the time that I am definitely sewing the correct ones together in the right order.

And then to turn these pairs into rows. Again I was really paranoid that I would mess the order up so I had to keep returning to my plan and check these before every row would be stitched.

Seemed to be going ok...

The tricky bit came with then trying to match the rows together. I realised once I had got this far that, I would need to match the seams up which required for the seams in each of these rows. I realised that the way that Hannah had shown me to do this for squares was I'm sure that way that this process should work for all patchworked shapes.

I ironed each of the strips with the seams facing opposite directions - I only needed to unpick a tiny bit at the ends of one of the rows to get it lying flat the right way. This meant that I could match the seams up to sew the rows together.

All carefully pinned and ready to sew

I followed the same process for both front panels for mine and for Hannah's apron. One was lined up slightly better than the other, some slight imperfections in one with the way that the triangles lined up, the other was better in the way that the triangles matched in general but there was just one triangle that looks like it might have been slightly the wrong size.

Overall I am pretty pleased with how these have turned out, especially considering that this was my first attempt at patch working triangles.

3 May 2015

Both front panels are completed and all of my pieces ready to assemble.

I have read up on how bias binding should work and started to attach the first piece to the first front panel.

The front

The back

And my stitching along the edge

I thought, without trying to be too big headed about it on this one, my sewing was near on perfect -such a shame I had to unpick it all...

So annoying. Everyone hates unpicking and it is always made worse when you feel you have done something really well. But I had forgotten that I would need to add interfacing in between the layers. Grr!

Take 2 perhaps wasn't quite as good but not too bad.

And then it would be just the attaching of all of the pieces together. All are interfaced and ready to go.

I have now decided as well to just get on and finish Hannah's apron and leave mine for a while. I am a little bit worried that I won't get both of these finished in time fpto post off to her for her birthday if I am to work both aprons alongside each other. As I am having to learn a lot of the processed as I go along.

The last thing to do today was to sew seams down the pocket to split this into 4 even pockets on the front of the apron and then to shape the corners of all layers of the apron in order to be able to use the bias binding around the long edge.

At this point today I would have to give up and walk away from the first apron. Bias binding scared me slightly and this was just a little bit too much.

4 May 2015

Ok ok, I can't put it off any longer I will have to add the bias binding to the apron.

The corners were the hardest part to attach. You have to make sure that they were all even without any creases around the corners otherwise these will show on the front of the apron.

It's around the crease showing on this picture that I will be (trying to!) sew around.

Ready to go with the sewing machine.

One side of the binding is attached and then to fold this over and sew this other side down. The hardest part of this will be that I will be sewing from the back (wrong side) of the apron to attach the binding but with the stitches showing through onto the front side.

Woohoo! Not so bad. I'm quite pleased with the way that this is going. Almost done with this one. There is a little bit of an alignment error on this when I attached the binding around the bottom corners. Only the ribbon to attach to be able to tie on the apron and then this one will be complete.

I measured my length of ribbon out and found the middle of this to match the middle of the apron. I have deliberately made the ribbon longer on this than the book suggested. As this is not for me and I can't try this on my friend I thought it would be better to make this too long for now knowing that Hannah can then cut this down the the correct length for her.

The ribbon was an inch thick so in half over the top edge this leaves 1/2" showing on both the front and back meaning that when I sew along this there should be an even seam on each side.

Ta dah! One completed apron. Happy Birthday Hannah!

I have added a few little treats into the pockets of this and will post it off to her in time for her birthday. I have included a mini cross stitch kit which shows a picture of a seal. I know that seals are one of her favourite animals so I hope she enjoys sewing this. I have also added a little packet of tissues as u saw them and they were in a cool packet so I couldn't resist and a small pair of sewing scissors.

I hope you have a really good day Hannah and you receive my gift on time.

Here it is all ready to send off.

Since posting Hannah's present off to her

I have also been able to complete my apron.

I used a slightly different lining fabric for the inside of my pockets and also had decided that, although the instructions that I had read had said to sew the front side of the garment with the bias binding first, I think that I will be better off whenever I sew binding on to sew this from the back first so that the front can be seen when I sew this on.

I added the binding across the top of the pocket and then sewed from top to bottom to form separate pockets on the front of the apron. When I did this on Hannah's apron I wasn't too sure how to mark out the lines so I just used pins in the correct places to show where I would need to sew. When it came to sewing mine this time I realised that, although it is a fair bit more effort to do so, it would be well worth sewing some tacked lines down in the relevant places before sewing thee lines on the machine.

The rest of the apron was fairly quick this time - now I knew roughly what I was doing. I added biased binding around the back edge of my apron.

The corners I still really struggled with but this time, as I used the binding the other way around, I was able to see where I was sewingon the front side so I didn't miss the edge of the binding on this second time around sewing these.

I tidied up the corners of the apron this time to make the top flat ready for the ribbon. I sewed the ribbon on as before but this time I cut this to length before sewing. I think in hindsight I have actually made this slightly too short but it does just about fit. The only slight improvement that I have included on this part of my apron is that I have sewed the ribboned slightly more securely. I sewed across the edge of the ribbon as I did before but this time I also secured the ends of where the ribbon meets the apron as well.

And both aprons are complete.

It is Hannah's birthday today so Happy Birthday! I have messaged her today to send my best wishes and also to check if she received her parcel. I am very upset to learn that she has not received this and the address that I have for her is actually an old address. I have contacted Royal Mail to let them know and I will also try to see if there is anything else that I can to to ensure that this is forwarded on to her at the correct place. I am really sorry that I haven't managed to get this to you but I hope that it will find you safe and well and that you are able to use the apron.

If anyone has any advise about how I can try to get this back or sent on to the correct place or can help in any way then please let me know.

5 minute make

You will see from tomorrow's post how this all began but yesterday I was spurred to tidy up my crafty room. One of the things that this meant was that all of my books and things that tend to get left out for ease actually had a home found for them and were even put away.

One of the main things that we use almost everyday is what we call "the book". It's what we use to record our money and to work out what we have to spend each month. As it was tidied away and therefore closed up instead of left out on the desk I decided this afternoon that it needed not only a bookmark to show where we are in it and to stop from having to find the page every time we want to use it but also it could do with a little brightening up.

I had a look through the leftover bits of yarn that I had tidied all into one bag and found some red, gold and green 4ply yarn. These were the only yarns that I had three colours of all in the same thickness but also the 4py I thought would be the best for this bookmark.

I couldn't really remember from when I was a kid, how you would work out how much yarn you would need for this kind of thing, I decided at for a plat it was about 3 times the length that you wanted the finished play to be. This meant that the way that I wanted to do it I would need 6 times the length of the book as I wanted to double e yarn over and loop it through one of the rings of the notebook to secure this in place.

I looped this through the top ring and tied this onto the book, I had also found this little charm so I decided to add this as well. I threaded this onto the yarn and tied it into place at the top of the book.

And then to begin braiding/platting the yarn. It has been year since I have done this kind of thing but I think I can still remember how a basic platt goes

I kept going until this was the right length to reach the bottom of the book with a little tail at the bottom. Just enough to stick out the bottom of the notebook so that you can find you page.

I am not sure that my 3 to 1 logic quite worked out right for this plat but this was quite a good job really. I didn't get the ends even when I had threaded it through the book at the beginning and tied this on.

This has worked out quite nicely and works will as a bookmark to find the correct page of my book.

I know it wasn't hugely planned as the little charm was just found from an old label by pure chance but this has also worked out quite well on the outside of the spine.

A practical and pretty make brightens things up nicely and hopefully means that I can continue to keep the room tidy and put the book aw apt as I won't have e faff of keep finding my page every time I do remember to put it away.

Not bad for a 5 minute make. So simple but really effective.

Finding old photos

On Saturday my husband started to look through some old photos on our computer. Some things were really interesting to see how different everything was not too long ago. I was sat next ton him working on my sewing when he came across a couple of photos of my crafty room when we had first moved in and it was really tidy!

This did mean that I got every so slightly distracted. I think I was at a stage that I wasn't hugely looking forward to - ironing or something similar - and so at that point in time I decided that the room MUST be tidied.

This is what the room looked like when we first moved in and I claimed this room as my own

We still had the old chair and space in the shelves for some of our ornaments/things we have collected from our travels!

We only had one desk with the little set of drawers next to it too.

I haven't quite managed to get rid of furniture in here but this is how it turned out after the tidying

Rosie is back wearing the apron that I made a while ago instead of the mans army uniform that she has been in for a few months now, the sewing box that I have had since I was little is back out on display instead of hidden in one of the "boxes" over the other side of the room. There's now also space for my iron so that I can get to it really easily and best of all, the top drawer of this set now has space to house my sewing work in progresses! Yey! Hopefully this will mean that the dress that I started last summer might now not be quite as dusty and creased when I come to finish it now. This will hopefully also be the case for the seat cover that I am still working on. All of the pieces will now be kept flat as well.

Everything fits back in the box shelves nicely.

The bears are concealing my woolcraft work in progress basket. This has got all - well almost all - of my current WIPs in that I am knitting or crocheting. And there isn't any fabric or college books or anything also dumped on here.

And I think almost my favourite part. My skis and snowboard now fit in here! This is my other love - snow sports and I have been wanting these in here since we very first moved in but señor there just never seems to have been space before. Even my chocolate mug has its place on the desk as of course it should do!

I do really love this room when it is neat and tidy. I know that there needs to be a little "mess" around while I'm working but it can be so pretty in here. I love it.

Ooh and the other photos that Adam found - tiny Henlow!

My baby's getting so big - he really is. It's hard to beliveve now that he was ever that small. Yes, that is the same food bowl!

I still love him just as much though if not more each day.

Yuk! Ok, sorry enough of the soppy-ness. See you next time and I hope everyone had a lovely long weekend.