AN APRON FOR MY AUNT...AND A QUILT BOOK SCORE!!!

On the first weekend in April my Mom, Dear Aunt and I went to our local 4H club quilt show.  All three of us were totally enamored with the beautiful quilts and handmade items on display.  My Dear Aunt fell particularly in love with a few bibbed aprons for sale in the consignment section.  She asked if I would be able to make her an apron.  Of course I said, "Of course!!!"

That weekend I began searching online for a free apron pattern that just shouted my Dear Aunt's name.  After a bit of rooting around websites I finally decided on the Kitchen Confections in Moda's Vintage Modern:  Pleated Apron, found at:

http://www.sew4home.com/projects/kitchen-linens/kitchen-confections-modas-vintage-modern-pleated-apron

If you have not yet discovered the sew4home website, grab a BIG mug of your favorite beverage and plan to spend "hours" just searching through all of the beautiful items.  Drool, Drool, DROOL!


I decided to hold off on buying fabric until I visited my favorite quilt store at our vacation destination.  I don't know if it is the geographic difference, or simply that their buyer has my tastes down to a "T", but I ALWAYS find exactly what I want in her store.  This time was no different.

My Dear Aunt's only request was that it be "bright".  She LOVES color as much as I do now (don't know how I was a "basic beige" person for so long).  I knew I wanted a material that was somehow "food" related, but when I saw this bright, cheery COFFEE themed fabric my search was over.  My Dear Aunt loves coffee almost as much as I do!!!

 

So, over the course of an entire day yesterday (broken down into about 20 short sewing sessions) I completed the bib and pockets.  Don't you just LOVE the cute little coffee beans and appropriate beverage phrases?  

I decided that after dinner, if my body was cooperating, I would attempt to move forward with the skirt portion of the apron.  However, that section of the pattern began with sewing on the jumbo rick-rack that would become the finished edge of the skirt.  I pulled the last of the red rick-rack off of the card only to discover I was short!  What?  Short?  Somehow I had miscalculated the amount of rick-rack needed to complete the project.  Obviously, any further work would have to wait until I ran to JoAnn's for more rick-rack.  Grrrrr........

I hopped in the car and drove to our nearest JoAnn's.  Naturally I came away with not only the necessary rick-rack, but two more quilting books (value $24.95 and $24.99)...my cost $2.97 and $3.97, a half yard of heat proof padding to make matching pot holders, and the "Pocket Hose" retractable hose to replace our old "heavy" hose.  I just don't have the strength to schlep that hose the 45 feet to the far edge of the porch to water my hanging baskets (if I even GET hanging baskets this year...the weather is still kinda stinky here!). 

I'm hoping that today I can garner up enough "umph" to finish the apron.  If not, there is always tomorrow (after my court hearing)!  

Oh, and about the 8 books you see above?  The original price of all 8 books would have been $209.80 (total of the suggested manufacturers price printed on the book).  I, however, got all 8 books for.....drumroll, please....$22.76!!!  I would say that was a SCORE!!  Now I just have to keep myself out of that store until the remainder of the books have sold (there were probably a good 20 to 30 books still on the sale shelf when I left the store.  Time to dream and drool over the next 20 quilts in my head!