Loose threads

Part 3 of ? of the Tjenestepige project was an apron (part 1 being a dress and part 2 the "fichu thing"), essential not only because of aprons being practical but also to cover the non-matching front panel of the dress.

 

I bought the fabric way back in March of 2021, when the intended event was aaaaaages away and I had all the time in the world. Of course I finished it mere days before the event; such is the first law of crafting.

 

The various prints and uploads vary, but almost always the apron seems to be checked, and a rather big pattern at that. Most of the time it looks like pink or red checks on white, but for a small project like this I really wanted to hunt in the charity shops first. I hoped for a table cloth of something, but what I found was small tablemats that were the only checked fabric in the store. And blue and off white/linen coloured (I suspect the fabric might be half linen, actually) rather than pink and white, but I could live with that.

 

I went home, washed the tablemats and ripped a surprising amount of seams and ironed them while still wet to get the big creases out. Months later I did my best at pattern matching - the fact that I struggled a bit with a large checked pattern tells you something about my pattern matching skills, ahem - joining two and a half out of four tablemats into the actual apron, and using the second half of the third for a waistband/ties. I chose to piece them horisontally, to not have to handle the flat felled seam bulk when pleating it to the waistband. 

 

The picture suggested a fairly smooth, flat front, but the overall width and drape suggested at least a bit of pleating towards the front and sides, so I went for that approximate look.