Welcome to my first Brand Ambassador project for Michael Miller Fabrics, a fun and funky Retro Apron featuring Kitschy Cocktails and Mad About Plaid in blue (available starting February 2020). For all of 2020 this will be a FREE pattern available using this link and in a link on my Resources page titled Retro Apron. The plaid fabric just grabbed my attention and demanded I use it, on the bias…total fun! In this and a subsequent blogpost or two I will share the entire pattern and the included images. But you can download and print the illustrated pattern at home.

I’ve tried to teach fine finishing details throughout. I love nice clean, finished edges, so there isn’t a raw edge in this apron…everything is tucked behind trim or finished to hide the raw edges. These techniques can be applied to all your sewing, so read on and learn! Using good fabric and my brilliant Janome M7 Continental machine made it easy to produce such a well-made garment.

Today, I’ll start with the fabric and supplies needed, cutting instructions and the first steps in the construction process. Subsequent steps will be posted over the next week, but the ENTIRE pattern is available in the Rockin’ Retro Apron PDF. Apologies for any formatting inconsistencies in the blog…it’s not wanting to play nicely with me today.

FABRIC AND MATERIALS--Preshrink all fabrics!

FITTING NOTE:  Please read through ALL the instructions for FITTING NOTES before cutting, since you  may wish to adjust the cut sizes to better suit your build.  If you are larger or smaller than my average height and Medium-Large frame, you may wish to add a bit more  yardage.

• Focus Fabric 1: Kitschy Cocktails, blue            1 1/4 yard 
• Focus Fabric 2:  Mad About Plaid, blue           1 yard 
• Accent: Cotton Couture Jet Black                      1 yard 
• Matching thread (I used off-white and black)
• Glue stick—washable!  A school/craft glue stick is fine.
• Spray starch

FABRIC LAYOUT & Cutting

TIP: Use sticky notes, removable file folder labels or painter’s tape to label pieces.  Check each box (on printed pattern only) as you have cut the pieces.

Focus Fabric 1 / Kitschy Cocktails: Be sure to cut pieces with the design facing the correct direction.  

• Apron skirt front: Cut ONE on fold, 15” by 40-44” (width of fabric)
• Apron skirt sides: Cut TWO 9” wide by 15” tall
• Apron bib:          Cut TWO 9” wide by 12 tall”, see FITTING NOTES and instructions  for shaping
• Apron pockets:     Cut TWO 7” wide by 8” tall

Focus Fabric 2 / Plaid:

Cut on the bias:

• Hem ruffle:         Cut THREE —  4 ½” across the full width of fabric, about 45”
• Bib ruffle:           Cut ONE —     2 ½” by 24” long
• Pocket trim:        Cut TWO —     1 5/8” by 9” (will be trimmed later)
• Waistband:         Cut ONE —     1 5/8” by 30” (see FITTING NOTES above and below)
• Long ties:            Cut TWO —     1 5/8” across the full width of fabric, about 45”
• Neck band:         Cut ONE —     1 5/8” by  24” long (will be trimmed later)

Accent / Michael Miller Jet Black:

Cut on the straight grain before cutting bias strips:

• Long ties:          Cut TWO —     3” by 40-45” (can be pieced if necessary;  make shorter/longer ties as desired)

Next, cut on the bias: 

• 1 1/8”  strips for edging the skirt/ruffle edge, bib and outside pocket edges.  You will need a total of about 180.”  Sew strips together as you would for a quilt  binding.  I used the 1 1/8” width strips to make turning the ¼” under easier and still have enough left to cover the bulk of the gathers and finish at about 3/8 – ½” on the apron-to-ruffle seam and the front of the bib.  

Finally, cut on the straight grain:  

• End of long ties:  Cut TWO —    1”  x 5” 
• Waistband:        Cut ONE —   2 ½” by 30” (adjust length to match desired size, see  FITTING NOTES)
•                         Cut ONE —   1” by 30” (ditto) for top edge of waistband
•                         Cut ONE —    1 ¼” by 30” (ditto) for bottom edge of waistband
• Pockets:              Cut ONE —   1 5/8” by 9” for top edge of pocket trim
•                         Cut ONE —    ¾” by 9” for lower edge of pocket trim 

NOTE:  If you are using a print instead of a plaid or stripe, you can cut these on the cross-wise grain.  You will need a bit less yardage overall. 

NOTE:  I had enough black in my stash to cut on the lengthwise grain which is more stable.  You can just as easily cut the straight-grain pieces on the cross grain so you don’t need to buy as much fabric.

NOTE:  Seam allowances are either ¼” or 3/8.”  Please follow instructions for each section. 

NOTE:  Ties were designed to be long enough to wrap around to the front.  Depending on your measurements you may need to shorten/lengthen these ties, or you can cut them shorter and tie the bow in back.  Figure out your waist, how much you need to wrap the ties to the front and, if needed, cut additional strips of black and of plaid. 

CONSTRUCTION:

I’ll admit it…there are a lot of steps to this apron. Lay in a supply of nibbles and remember to take breaks to re-focus your eyes and move your body!  

Due to the blog formatting, numbers for each step are omitted on the blog. In the PDF Rockin’ Retro Apron pattern, use the numbers and check off each step/number as you work along so you can find your place after a break.

Make the Apron Skirt

FITTING NOTE:  This apron was designed to be about 28-30 inches along the waistband/top edge, which wraps most of the way around my body. Decide how long you want the top gathered edge to be and adjust accordingly (this comes into play when attaching the waistband in a later step).  For those smaller than I am, just gather your skirt more or make the center panel narrower.  For those who are larger, gather less; or you may (or may not) wish to make your side panels wider.

Length:  With a ruffle that finishes at 3”, this apron skirt is about 17” long.  You may wish to adjust for your height and preferred length.  

• Sew apron skirt side panels to center panel.  I created a mock flat-felled seam:  sew wrong sides together with a ¼” seam. 

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• Press as stitched, then press open.  

• Trim seam allowance on side panels to 1/8” (first photo above).

• Fold other seam allowance in half so the raw edge nearly touches the seam.  Apply glue stick to the 1/8” side.  Press down; heat from iron will set and dry the glue—way easier than pins! Second photo above.

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• From the right side, stitch seam allowances in place, above left.  I prefer to use an edge stitch or quarter-inch-piecing foot with the blade in the ditch/lower side.  Move your needle to the left so that it is towards the left side of the seam allowance.  Stitch.  See first photo above.

• Hem lower edge of skirt ruffle.
• Fold a piece of copy paper in half lengthwise, or use a file folder or piece of poster board.  Mark a line ¼” from the long edge.  Use this as a press guide to get a perfect ¼” turn. Second photo above.
• Repeat so that raw edge is inside the hem.  I call this a “turn-turn” hem.  

• Stitch, again using an edge stitch foot and moving the needle to keep the sewing line a perfect distance from the edge.      

• For the ends, I retained the 45-degree angle and hemmed it the same way.  You could also choose to round off the corner.  Make sure the angles will curve / bend up to the gathered edge of the ruffle.

1. Gather hem ruffle: 
   1. Mark center of ruffle on the with a pin!!!!  Do not sew over the pin!  You can put the pin on the hemmed side.

• Run two lines of basting stitches ¼” and ½” from raw edge of ruffle with bobbin thread on the wrong side of the ruffle.  If desired, loosen tension a bit to make the bobbin thread easier to pull.  
  • Holding both ends of the bobbin threads, pull to gather.  The gathers will be fairly dense, so you’ll need to stop and move the gathers towards the center periodically.  I worked the gathers from both ends.  
  • Place the ruffle along the lower edge of the apron skirt and adjust gathering so that it fits.  
  • Place a pin at either end and wind the bobbin thread tails around the pin in a figure 8 to secure them while you work.

• Sew ruffle to skirt WRONG sides together with a 3/8” seam, photo at right. Photos below.

• Black bias trim:  Sew cut strips together as you would for a quilt binding, using a ¼” seam allowance.  Press seams as stitched, then press seams open. 

• Cut a length of black trim the length of the lower apron edge plus a couple inches just in case.  Press under ¼” on one edge.

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1. Sew the black trim to the seam that joined the ruffle to the skirt with a 3/8” seam allowance.  Photo at near right.  The folded edge is on the left; when you turn the bias strip toward the skirt in the next step, the fold will be on the inside of the seam. See first photo above.

• Press the seam as stitched.  With the right side up, press the seam allowance and black bias strip toward the apron skirt. 

• Use your glue stick and iron to “pin” the black strip in place, covering the raw edges of the skirt/ruffle. Press The ¼” seam allowance turns to the inside. See second photo above.

• Sew the black strip.  I began using a narrow buttonhole stitch for my applique, but switched to a straight stitch which I think looks better.  Again, the edge-stitch foot or quarter-inch foot is perfect for getting precise seams and stitching lines.  Remove any visible basting/gathering thread.  Refer to second photo.

YEEEHAW! You’re made it about halfway! In the next post we will work on the ties and bib, then finish things up in a third post. Once they are all live, I’ll add the links following this paragraph.

And once again, here’s the PDF for Sarah’s Rockin’ Retro Apron, free to download in 2020. Thank you to Michael Miller Fabrics for selecting me as a Brand Ambassador for 2020 and to Janome America for having me as a Janome Artisan since 2003! Good fabric and brilliant machines make it so much easier to do a brilliant sewing project!

Over the past week to two weeks, I have been working on ….sit down and prepare yourselves for this… a **pieced** quilt. Yes, me. A very simple pieced quilt, but nonetheless.

I’ve also been experimenting with the AccuQuiltGO! that was given to this year’s crop of Michael Miller Fabrics Brand Ambassadors. To my distress my block was not perfect–too small! I KNEW it had to be something on my end (it was), so I triple checked my seams (perfect to scant). I checked the size of the fabric cut on the dies: perfect. I checked that I used the correct dies: I did. Then I noticed something. After ironing, the block seemed off. Look at what I discovered:

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First I placed my half square triangles on the dies, and look how much smaller the pieces are after sewing and ironing! So then I checked the start of the square-in-a-square center of the block. Same thing: after steam ironing/pressing, a unit that finishes at 2″ and one that finishes at 3 1/4″ are each 1/16-1/8″ smaller!

I decided to get a bit more scientific about it: Cut, measure, dry iron, measure, steam iron, measure. Here is what happened with the Cotton Couture, a delightful solid with a glorious feel in the hand:

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Batiks are made using hand-dyeing processes that include a resist being applied (usually wax of some sort), then the wax is washed out, more dye applied, and so on. This means some of the shrinkage should already have happened.

So my lesson is, when I am not fusing things up, I really need to either pre-steam-iron everything, or prewash and mostly-dry it and then iron dry and smooth. I can now use the perfection of the AccuquiltGO and actually achieve as close to perfect as I will ever get! Now, off to order backing fabric for my BIG quilt.

The first thing I made on the splendid new M7 Continental from Janome was something I haven’t made in decades: a button down tailored shirt! Anyone who knows Joshua knows that he is all about good food, perhaps starting with donuts. In fact, Joshua and Ashley’s wedding cake was a tower Joshua made of donut holes from Willow Bakery in Rockport! He also loves shirts with a sense of humor: sushi rolls, watermelon, lobsters. So I decided I wanted to make him a shirt for Christmas. And I succeeded beyond my wildest expectations in part due to the excellent sewing of the M7. There’s even a video below of making a buttonhole!

I used the Men’s All Day Shirt Pattern from Liesl + Co patterns. It was my first time using a downloadable pattern where you print and then tape together the pieces. If you download the free Adobe Acrobat software (not just your built in PDF reader) you can turn off the “all sizes” so it prints ONLY the size or sizes you want so you don’t have to navigate all those lines that end up nearly on top of each other. By measuring Joshua’s existing shirt, I was able to figure out which size would be best (Medium) but with the Large collar/neck stand. My only issue was when I combined the sizes. I should have printed the neck line of both patterns SEPARATELY (instead of on the same sheet), then traced the size large and lined it up properly. It took a while, with astounding and much appreciated personal replies from both Liesl and her husband Todd with troubleshooting suggestions, before I figured out what I was doing wrong. Kudos for the service as well as the pattern!

Using the included edge stitch foot, I was able to get absopositively perfect stitching. The first of the four photos above shows the underneath side of the shirt opening, using the edge stitch foot to sew down the turn-under. The second image shows the Janome M7 Continental screen (other Janome machines work similarly) with the needle set to the left. Because of the tiny increments in needle placement, I could get the stitches to form the exact distance I wanted from the edge. Third photo (top right) is a detail of that stitching. And the large image is the button band, stitched. I can’t believe it looks so good! There’s a video just below these still photos.

(Alert: even geekier pattern and garment sewing paragraph!) From the pattern, I also learned a new process for sequence of sewing and attaching the collar and collar stand. Instead of sewing the stand to the neckline, inserting the collar, and closing it up where the collar meets the neck band, the pattern has you sew collar and stand together, then sew the inside of the stand to the inside of the shirt and topstitch the collar to the shirt body. Ended up with absolute precision and perfection!!!!!!

So, with 50 years of sewing experience (albeit minimal garment making in the past three decades), an excellent pattern that taught this greying sew-ist a couple new things, and the incredible precision of the Janome M7 Continental machine, I am a seriously happy camper. Even better, Joshua loves his shirt!

Part of every new year should be learning new things…and I’m starting with the Accuquilt GO!

As part of the Michael Miller 2020 Brand Ambassador program, we received the Ready. Set. GO! Ultimate Fabric Cutting System from Accuquilt. It includes an AccuquiltGO! plus the 8″ Qube (a set of dies to cut shapes often used in piecing 8″ blocks) and a ginormous die to cut my own 2 1/2″ strips. I’ve never seen one of these used in person, let alone done it myself. They are supposed to be lots faster than traditional rotary cutting and more accurate to boot. That makes two things where I need improvement–grin!

A while back, I was deliriously delighted to learn I had WON all 214 colors (above and below) of Michel Miller’s Cotton Couture (this was before I even applied for the Brand Ambassador program). I’ve been wanting to make a quilt I shall call “214.” As I’ve been waiting to upload this post, I realized that I can use the AccuquiltGO! to do the majority of the cutting, even the sashing! If I use the die for 2 1/2″ strips, I can then manually cut those in half vertically to get the 3/4″ finished strips I want to use for sashing. And then (!!!) I can use the die to cut 4 1/2″ squares (4″ finished) — if I am careful — to subcut the strips into 4 1/2″ lengths to match the size of squares I’m going to use in the quilt! Stay tuned…guess what I’m going to do today!

So, with that I am going to sign off and go play with my new fabric and toys!

I mentioned earlier that I am DELIGHTED to have been selected as a Michael Miller Brand Ambassador for 2020. As part of that we received, just before Christmas (Squee!), a box of goodies to use. I cannot WAIT to get into the studio to play. As a reward for getting all the gift wrapping and prep actually done before the 24th, I treated myself to opening the box on December 23rd, but waited until today to post and share the joy.

There are so many goodies in this package I hardly know where to start, but since I am prepping for a new 3-day workshop, Exploring Paint on Cloth (details here) August 5-7 at ProChemical and Dye in Massachusetts, I think I’ll start with the Krystal and some of my thermofax screens and paint!

Thanks to Michael Miller Fabrics @michaelmillerfabrics for selecting me. Can’t wait to get started on my projects!