After I finished the last couple of feet of sewing on the coat, I decided the next item to make is an apron dress. I normally wouldn’t build a wardrobe from the outside in, but nothing is as it should be this year.
I “interviewed” three fabric candidates. Two were too small and one was *just* about big enough (if I reduced the length of the dress by 3″), but it’s got a very subtle stripe to it and has a right and wrong side…but only noticeable if you’re looking very closely.
I laid out and marked the fabric using the “no waste” apron dress pattern. Mistress Disa i Birkalundi has a YouTube class on how to measure and mark your fabric for this pattern.
I ended up assembling mine a little differently because I was being difficult and dumb, but also because the fabric has a right side and a wrong side; if you sew the two half side panels together, one will be reversed.
Anyway, it looks fine from the front, and that’s what’s important.
I plan on adding the Oseberg tablet weaving to it (the purpley-red in the weave matches the purpley-red in the fabric almost perfectly).
Because I had to make it a bit shorter, I will be adding some dark grey wool at the bottom and trimming the top with it as well. I also need to make shoulder straps, so those will be in grey as well–here’s hoping I have enough! (PS – I do!)
Meanwhile, the garden is expanding, we moved the compost bins, and hubby has invested in a rain barrel. I’m looking into the possibility of growing potatoes in buckets, but it looks like 5 gallon buckets have rather small yields–maybe 2 lbs. per bucket. A 20 gallon bucket yields about 8 lbs…so about the same yield per gallon.