Upscale Crafty Apron

Want to make something awesome for your crafty friend, super mommy, or best chef? This handy multi pocket apron is super stylish, slightly upscale and just as useful as your usual kind of apron.

I sew, but I don't use patterns and my seams aren't always perfect....but with this crafty apron that's not a problem, because we want our finished product to be embellished, patchworked and slightly tattered. Best of all this is all made out of scrap fabric and leftover trim!

Materials include various small squares and rectangles of fabric, cotton, rayon, light canvas etc. Ribbon, lace, tassles, rick rack, seam binding will be used to trim the apron. Don't have any? Fabric stores sometimes have really inexpensive "grab bags".

The main body of the apron should be 25-27"long and 12-14" wide.

Strap & top binding approx 3" wide piece 72" long

Not a hard and fast rule, that's just the approx measures of the old regular apron I used for a template. I like this size, it hits me at mid thigh, and the pockets aren't too low.

I happen to have a bunch of light upholstery/canvas fabrics that I got at a fabric barn clearance sale of their 18" sample squares. So to make up the body of the apron I used two pieces. An 8" piece and 18" piece. Sew these together first I off set the contrasting piece for interest. You could also just the whole main body out of one piece as well.

The pockets can be various sizes. The apron I made for my friend had two big pockets, a little 6" x 4" in one corner and a tall pocket (spoon/scissors) on one side... The one I made myself 5 pockets! I imagine this coming in very handy at shows so I made a tall pocket, a large pocket, two phone/gadget pockets and little coin pocket (3" 1/2 x 3" 1/2). I just start cutting varies size rectangles and start placing them on my main body. I was lucky in that many of my fabrics had selvage edges, I just zigzag stitched right over them. You could fold and iron them under.. I'm not that patient! I like to keep ironing at a minimum.

Design the apron. Lay everything out first and pin together pieces that need to be sewn first. If you want to you should turn your mainbody edges under and sew them down (unless like me you plan to cover them with trim) You can iron and sewed the strap onto main body first or last its your call. The strap piece will also cover the edges of the top of the apron and become the apron ties. I did iron this piece, turning the edges down 1/4" and ironing and then folding in half and ironing again. Find the middles of the main body and the strap and line up and pin together. The raw edge of the apron is sandwiched between the strap becomes a nice binding for the top.

Most important is to sew the little pockets on top of the big pockets,before sewing to the background. You can also take a larger piece and sew dividers into it and create smaller narrower pocket. I sewed a small inch of fabric (kind of a gusset) on the edges of large pocket and then tucked the bottom together to make the pocket stick out. Some embellishments need to be sewn on first, if they are on the top of the pocket. If its just trimming around the edges than that can be done after its sewn on. I actually sewed the pocket down...make sure not to sewn it shut! And sewing the trim on reinforces the pocket and beatifies at the same time.

I have a lot of frayed silk ribbons so I went to town sewing these around the edges in an effort to hide some of those ugly edges. I made couple of little appliques that I thought added to the whole piece. One of the aprons has a puffy heart in the corner, I cut the shape sewed it on the background, leaving a space for stuffing bit of polyfil and sewed it shut. I later ribboned around it. the zigzag and satin stitch is your friend. Experiment with textures and patterns, there's no wrong answer, some things I didn't think would work actually came out great.

These aprons can be sleek and modern, or patchwork and eclectic. Whoever gets them will love them!

Cut the pieces.

Pick your trim and pocket patches.

Design the layout. If two pieces, sew the main body together.

Iron the strap and sew to main body

Pin the pieces. Sew little pockets to larger pieces.

Embellish to your heart's content.

Peace Felt

I'm involved in a project that is exchanging felted pieces with other artists and hobbyists all over the world! Today is the International Day of Peace and we are supposed to create them today and then mail off our creations in the next week or so. Yesterday, I went to start my Peace Felt so that I could finish and send it off. I had so many ideas about what I could do or create that I was a little overwhelmed. I wanted to make everything and I wanted it to be perfect! I even was having my husband film a video of me creating it. But I kept getting bogged down. I had to pull off the wool over and over again. I finally got so frustrated with myself I had to have him stop filming. What was wrong? Then it hit me. I had to let go of my ego and my expectations. I thought about what is Peace and the hope of it and what can bring us all together when despite our human natures? Immediately I thought we are all bound together by angels... that we are all reaching across the void of hyperspace, across the oceans, across the continents to connect through our love of this particular art form. That spirit connects to us to each other. Then I thought about the wool itself. The animal that provides it, a sheep. The symbol of gentleness.. I think about end of war.. the lion and the lamb laying down together. Sheep allowed our ancestors to make clothes, shelter and have food. Its strength and warmth keep people going.. the fibers of it are so small yet when a little chemistry happens with some hot water and soap it turns into this enduring thing. Fragile seeming yet all touching each other and bound together by a force that seems almost magical. Peace is like that too. After that thought I just let go of what I wanted my piece to be and I let a higher power guide my creation. So my Peace Felt is called Bound by Angels. And as I finish it today I'm thinking of you Danielle.. my peace felt partner in Canada. Two souls connected by angels.

Adventures in Nuno Felting

So, I think I'm finally getting the hang of Nuno felting. I started Nuno Felting about a month ago. I took a leap of faith and ordered some dye and 11yds of silk fabric from Dharma Trading Co. I had never dyed fabric before but the silk I'm dyeing is brilliant and wonderful. It creates the base of the wrap or scarf. Then I take tuffs of wool and lay them out in various patterns over the silk. I create layer after layer of delicate wool; sometimes incorporating curly mohair locks, or eyelash yarn or strand of unspun silk for interest. Its like trying to stretch a spiderweb. Each time I do a new wrap or scarf the more I learn about the whole process. I don't have a studio, I live in a small house. Where there's a will there's a way. I have lots of space... outside. So I'm using my covered back porch that my husband cleaned up. Its soo hot here in Texas all summer that getting really wet doesn't bother me. There is the wind, however, imagine having this beautiful delicate creation of wool and silk piled up like a fluffy layer cake and an errant gust destroys all that work! Its so frustrating, to say the least. That only happened once. ONCE!

I found that if I wet the wool down as I go then that won't happen. Then I roll up my wetted wool and silk into the bubble wrap and seagrass matt and roll it back and forth for well.. its a while. Makes me long for a nice steppe pony or camel that I ride with my roll dragging behind it.. (felting old school Mongolian style!) Not to digress, but they really do. Except its huge rugs not scarfs they are making.. Hmm, maybe I just need one of the cats....

Okay srsly, now.

I'm very pleased with the results. And I think Nuno felting in the summer heat might be the next new cardio workout program.. its intense.

Okay back to the felting. For more pictures on this process checkout my Facebook Gypsyharte Arts fan page!

Tesla Event and Austin Handmade in the Shade

Whew! What a weekend! I made it through.. it was almost but not quite like a marathon. Trying to get it together for two back to back events was well, interesting. I did it! Yay! Of course I added to my stress by saying to myself, "Hmmm, I really need a table banner.." I've been wanting one that's more portable for indoors. It needed to be something I could pull off w/out a sewing machine since mines in the shop for over abuse. At around 12pm on Thursday I started needle felting "Gypsyharte" onto a piece of recycled sweater and then jury rigged that to a tapestry piece that I think was a valance at one point... It looked amazing! I had this hand dyed green and gold silk fiber (yes, silk) and I just printed out a nice font I liked to eyeball while I did it and lo.. it was done.

Crazy what you can do a 2am in the morning.

So I was running to get ready the next day ... but we made it there no problem. I thought Frugal Media executed a fantastic event. It seemed well advertised and attended. I loved being in the stacks of books and my table looked pretty good. I was right across from Haute Toddies.. I picked up a sweet patchwork journal from Sweet Wolf.. and little hot/cold rice pad w/ pink skulls on it from Deathly Cute. I was surprising swamped all evening long. I did a bit of demonstrating what I do and talking about needle felting. I got a lot of praise and sold some things! Yay! Thanks to all my friends who dropped by to see the event. It was also nice to see old vending friends from the Grapevine Market and of course the Etsy Austin crew.

My husband James/Cedric was there to promote his business Harmony Hypnosis and wow people with amazing hypnosis demos. Of course he was still busy at 10pm when everyone was packing up. Comes with the territory.

So scamper back home for a whole 6 hrs of sleep and schlep out again in the morning to Austin Handmade. The new store on S. 1st looks wonderful inside and there's a lot more space to spread all those cute hand made goodies out. I was afraid of being late and thus was the first one there and got a spot shaded by the huge live oak tree. I actually heard that it was a few degrees cooler than the day before... well, I dunno if a drop from 105 to 101 is "cool" or not. But it couldn't hurt. Out hosts at Austin Handmade are great, Jason helped me unload and get my tent up and everything. Next to me there was the most heavenly scent wafting my way from two soap people, Nepenthe's Bathtime (Samantha, did Tesla event the night before as well, so she's pro) and another soapy person from Dripping Springs (sorry I didn't get the name, I blame heatstroke) Lets see other brave and crazy folks were Irene, from La Beba, and Kelly of GemJunkie. (I love my amethyst wing earrings)

So there was great coffee next door to Austin Handmade... I had a wonderful iced latte,

Later in the day we had our Team meeting for Etsy Austin. I loved talking to all the South Austin folks as the wandered through our little show.. even a few familiar faces from the night before!

Austin Handmade had a gallery opening coinciding with the Market and then was not only great art, but do-it-yourself Mojitos! They rocked. It was mostly too hot to do anything except complain about the heat... but I manged to show a few kids a bit of felting and I made the world's smallest sushi platter out of wool. Oh, yeah Jason is going to be carrying my sushi kit in their DIY room at Austin Handmade, woot! And Amy Hadley was there doing some film interviews.. I shudder to think of myself on camera but hopefully I don't sound like a complete idiot. Its all about the felting, right? Her site will be http://heynowwhoanow.com I'm not completely sure its up yet, but soon.

Then it was sip my mojito and try to stay in the shade... But its all finished now and I can bask in the relative success of my shows and be equally thankful I don't have anymore outdoorsy ones anytime soon.

http://frugalmedia.com/

http://austinhandmademarket.com/

http://etsyaustin.etsy.com/