The Brownie Bakin' Apron

When I posted about Ali's apron a few days ago, I asked if anyone would be interested in a tute, in fact I was all "ANYONE? ANYONE? Was that a YES? Oh. You were just coughing? Well that's good enough for me!". (Thanks heaps Kuka! x)
So here it is.
The Brownie Bakin' Apron.
So called because I got brownie batter on it before I could get a picture of it clean. 'Cause I'm classy like that.


It's a bit... silly. But it was super simple and gratifying to make. Especially as I used a bodged version of Creative Little Daisy's bias maker to make the waistband.
Which is... dun dun duhhhhhn...

Step ONE - making the waistband.
First take your measurements at the spot where you like to wear your apron. If you're going for a double-wrap, tie-at-the-front waistband then double your measurement and add at least 2 and a half feet for a BIG bow. If you're tieing your apron in back then just add your bow allowance to your waist measurement.
And that's all the maths you need to do. The rest you can wing.

So my waistband measurement for this apron was about 2 and a half yards. (Anybody found to be extrapolating my waist measurement from this will be issued a sound beating and sent home.)
The next step is to decide how thick you want your waistband to be. Anything over about two and a half inches gets bunched in the back if you're doing a cross-over-tie-in-front waistband. The Brownie Baking Apron has a band of 1.5".

Now, I I happened to have some long strips of white cotton leftover from the stinking rotten blasted duvet project so I didn't have to piece together the length of the waistband. I just cut out the width I needed which was roughly 5" (3" for the band 2-ish" for the seam allowances)
Then I made an oversized, NON bias, binding. With a cocktail stirrer. And the iron.
See...

I pinned the cocktail stirrer to our ironing board. The pins are 'sactly 3 inches apart.

Then I fed one end of my 2 and a half yard x 4 inch strip through the contraption. Right to left.


And ironed...
The I folded in half again and ironed some more...

And BWALA! Acres of waistband in no time at all.Which leads us to ...

Step TWO - the skirt.
This skirt used to be pants. Jammie pants. GIANT jammie pants (they fit 47 lbs ago). If you're using a regular, rectangular width of fabric the you can ignore the next little bit. Perhaps have a nice cup of tea?
But if you happen to have some jammie pants that have expressed an interest in apronhood then this is what I did:
Cut the leggies off,
opened them out,

Sew them together to form an skirt/rectangle shape,


Next thing to do is hem the sides and the bottom. I used some store bought bias binding on the bottom hem. Then I folded over the sides twice, ironed and pinned them.


Then it was time for pleats (you could do gathers if you're feeling ruffly)


I figured my pleats by eye and they're a bit squiffy on account of trying to hide the seam that is dead center of the skirt.
Once you've got your pleats arranged, ironed and pinned you can whip around all three (or four if you've skipped the binding on the bottom hem) edges of you skirt.
It might look a bit like this.


Which leads us to...
Step THREE - jam it all together.
You'll need to find the center of your waist band. Fold it in half and mark it with chalk or a pin or something. Then the center of your skirt, same deal. Then line up the center marks and jam the skirt between the waist band. Like this:


Pin it in place then...
Top stitch the whole way along your waist band. Maybe going back and forth a few times where the skirt meets the waistband for extra small child/monkey swinging from your apron proofiness.
And you're DONE!

I added the leftover pink binding to the waistband 'cause I thought it looked a little plain without. Then made brownies with my bear and got the apron filthy.
x

Game Changers...

I might be that last person in the world to have hear about this but... did you know you can make your own bias binding in a super easy way? Without a thingie? For free?
Dude. Game Changer.

You absolutely MUST check out this tute from Creative Little Daisy. GENIUS. I almost called my ma at 4 AM to tell her about it.
I have already hacked the idea a bit and used it to make a waistband for ANOTHER apron. The tutorial is on it's way, but here's the teaser...



I found the binding tute via the fabulous Snickerdoodle, who has just recently posted on filled cupcakes. As in cupcakes with gooey deliciousness in the middle. Which might also be a game changer in the sense of, "cancel my appointments and call a tent maker, we're gonna need some bigger pants over here". Maybe.

Anyway, what I'm saying is Steph has a really good eye for interesting and awesome stuff. And you should go take a peek.
x

Who doesn't love...

...placemats you can colour in? Surely the answer is NOBODY!
My washable, reusable version of the family restaurant staple is up now over at weebabystuff.

And I'm fairly happy with how they turned out. The next version will totally be on a floppy silicone cookie sheet liner and may feature dinosaurs. Or dog in clothes. Or pin-up girls. Or tattoos. Or ferrets. Or Andy Wharhol's kids book illustrations. Or ferrets.
What I'm saying is there are POSSIBILITIES here people!

Now I'm bona fide*!

Some of my favorite milestones are the COMPLETELY ridiculous ones. The ones that confirm me as a parent in a really silly way. Like the first time I said "You'll take someone's eye out with that!" I think I even meant it. I had to stop and laugh at myself.

Well today I got another one of those. Teddy decided that his finger, (his delicious grabby little toddler paw finger. Man I could put his hands in tiny pies.... but I digress) that his finger was "OWWIE".
Now owwie can also mean "owl" in Teddy speak. So I kind of went "uh?".

Teddy managed to restrain himself from rolling his eyes, and just held his finger up for a "kissie?". I gave his owwie a kissie and he nodded then went back to racing around. I have been grinning like a lunatic ever since.
I am a mama.
A mama with medicinal kissies.
* Random Oh Brother Quotes = fun times.

Aprons Aplenty

Today was my chum Ali's birthday. This is funny, beautiful, zombie walking, deliciously quirky, baker-of-mind-blowing-desserts, Ali. Everyone in this house ADORES her.
I wanted to make her a something. And the something I decided on was an apron, for a few reasons;

• I've just made one for myself and am kind of in love with it.
• Ali bakes, and her baking is to be warmly encouraged. (What? You were expecting an UNSELFISH reason?)

I happened to have a spot of fabric in my stash in her signature colours Black, White and Red.


The fabric started life about 15 years ago as a little dress. That I wore MAYBE three times, and the last time was at least a decade ago.
I have no idea why it has moved with us 3 times (once internationally!) but it has. Maybe it was always hoping to be an apron.
The red is leftover from another version of Vogue V8615 that I made. (It turned out REALLY badly, but that's for another post).
I also used three tiny heart shaped buttons that I might have compulsively bought about a year ago, with no set project in mind.
Here's how it turned out:


And this is what it looks like on (bearing in mind that Ali is MUCH slimmer than me)


I'm being sneaky! Shhhh!
The skirt part is pleated at the top and the straps are long enough to cross in back and tie in front. The little buttons are placed pretty randomly in the center of the flowers, just for because. Here's what they look like:


I wrapped it up in brown paper and red ribbon and left it on her door when I knew she would be out (See, sneaky!). She says she likes. I hope she's not weirded out by it's ancient, refashioned origins.

Wow this is a LONG, picture-heavy post. So, lastly here's the apron I made for myself a few days ago. My mama bought me the fabric as a giftie last week, so while it's not technically stash, I didn't exactly buy it either.

It's literally two rectangles and a few pleats, but if anybody is interested I could throw together a tutorial.
x

The Birthday Bear

Here's what the bear got up to on his birthday...


But NEVER FEAR... dun dun DAHHHH... Monkeys V's Robots is a GO for Saturday 20th. Come hell or high water. I can't wait to show you guys the STUFF. (I have a squillion cupcake flags all ready to go and banners and bunting and yadda yadda yadda!)

Hey, stupid hats aside; the sight of my sweetie's hands on the bear's funny little almost-bald head just makes my heart chirp like a happy bird. I really am a lucky.

It's a little big...

I re-upped for another two months of Wardrobe Refashioning. The last round was SUPER fun and it went so quickly that I barely made a dent in my stash. Now I'm a haggard vetran to the refashioning scene, I'm loving the rush of new blood from the rookie refashioners too. Wait... "rush of new blood" sounds creepy. What I'm saying is noobs = YAY!
Moving swiftly on...

I loves me a sweater dress. Yay for getting dressed in one brainless step. And being snoogly.
So when my mama picked me up this sweater/coat fellow (on sale at Monsoon before Christmas. Le sigh. I love Monsoon. ) I knew what I was going to attempt to turn it into.


It was a little large. My mama had faith that I could fix it. But it's taken me a this long to pluck up the gumption to do it.
I used the same stitch-it-along-the-arms/sides-and-hope-for-the-best technique that I used for this cardi refashion. Then I hand sewed the front opening closed (it's not finished in this picture So I guess that "After" should read "During"):

Here's the back view:

I'm fairly happy with the outcome. It's easy to throw on and it's snoogly. And despite today's awesome weather I suspect we have a bit more winter left in which to wear it. So... yay?

Sympathetic Characters

It was so lovely to have my mama, "GRAMMMMMM-ie" here for a visit. Teddy was thrilled to have an ally so sympathetic to his cause. And she's just plain old fun to be about. She arrived just in time for Teddy's party that wasn't. Held my hand when I took Teddy to the doc's (she was right, it was just a cold and not consumption). Wandered around the ROM with us, agreeing that yes there were BURDS and BEARS. Did some quilt fixings shopping and re-upped my membership to the Fabricland up the road. Babysat Teddy while my sweetie and I saw Avatar (which I loved THIS MUCH) and went to a little hole in the wall restaurant for a sammiches and smooching (best date ever). She also cooked delicious things and made me laugh like a hyena, just like usual.
It was a great visit. Next time I'm going to steal her passport and lock her in the hallway closet. Maybe.

I got the same stinking steaming cold that Teddy had. Which, just yuck. We had to cancel Teddy's party AGAIN. The poor child is going to be in his thirties before he has a second birthday party. We're aiming for next Saturday but I'm not holding my breath as my sweetie is starting to feel a little lousy.

In the mean time I've been making the sodding, blasted, stinking, rotten duvet cover mentioned in the last post. And an apron that I love a ridiculous amount, and hacking another of the pairs of super cheap shoes. and poking through my fabric stash. and producing snot like is was my J.O.B.
Fun times.

Punch Me?

This isn't a real post it's just a quick note to self and a request.
Here's the note to self:
"HEY Erin, how doing? Really? That's awesome. SO uh, I just wanted to mention that some things totally AREN'T WORTH IT"

Blank look

"Like say, making a duvet cover out of a FITTED sheet set. Even if you SUPER love the embroidery on the sheet set and it's filthy filthy DIRT cheap. And it matches everything else in your bedroom. It's STILL not worth it. There will be tears. And swearing. And you're prolly going to shout at your sweetie for no apparent reason. And buttonholes. You HATE buttonholes remember? What I'm saying is IT'S. NOT. WORTH. IT."
There that should do it.
Now the request; if you guys happen to see me eyeballing sheet sets on crazy super cheap sale...
Punch me. Right in the face. Hard as you like. I can take it. And it would still be more fun than sewing this bloody duvet cover.
I'm counting on you.
xxx

P.S. There'll be real posting again soon, promise. xxx

P.P.S. My mama left this afternoon and it has been SO AWESOME having her around. If you happen to have a grammie close by or grandbabies close by will you give her/them a squeeze from me?