two in one

When I sew, I tend to take my time; I am prone to hastiness, which often leads to error, which I then have to fix. But I do think it takes me too long to make a project.

I finished the apron the other day. It's plain, but I didn't have any appealing ideas for decoration, so that's what it will be, but it is reversible.

One side is this soft green all-over print and the other is

this, which if you're a lover of the Old Country Roses china pattern, will be familiar to you.

I was copying the apron Margaret sent me a few years ago  -

a very simple shape which I used for a pattern. Hers is not reversible; she used three fabrics for this: the large floral, the solid light blue and a bold stripe on the inside

as a channel for the ties.

I had three fabrics, the two above and a solid green. But I couldn't decide which of the two prints would look better for the main apron piece. I'm not good at imagining how a finished thing will look and I couldn't "see" if the green floral with a pocket from the larger floral would look better, or the other way around. I was going to use the solid green for the tie and other areas of trim. While my mind was dithering, I saw this on pinterest:

basically the same shape, but reversible! So that decided me. But this one has sewn-on ties, and I wanted to use Margaret's method.

I don't if she made this up or used a pattern, but the way the ties work is a pretty good idea. There is one long (88 inches) tie which runs through a channel of bias binding on the wrong side of the apron; it goes around your neck and when you tie it in the back, it adjusts to your size by scrunching up along the channel. Do you get what I'm saying?

See the scrunching?

Because I was using two layers, I didn't need to make any binding, I just sewed a certain distance away from the curved side edges and made the channel that way, leaving openings at either end. For the tie, I used a length of double fold bias and stitched the edges together. 

It's so plain because I was afraid a pocket on one side would make it bulky and less attractive when wearing the other side. This is a gift for a young woman friend of Debra's who just got married - I barely know her, but I know she has one apron. I knew she needed another. Now she will have three options!