Lisa's Spot: Twirl, girl! from A is for Apron

Down below is a photo of the apron I made for my sister-in-law for Christmas. It wasn't the one I wanted to make her but I ran out time. I will eventually make the one originally intended for her because I do like it. This apron, Twirl, girl!, is a pattern from a book, A is for Apron. I absolutely love the aprons is this book. If you even remotely like aprons, you should check out this book by Nathalie Mornu. There are vintage aprons, as well as updated aprons. All gorgeous, in my opinion.

On to the construction of Twirl, girl!... All the patterns in this book need to be blown up and that may be a bit of an inconvenience for some. I just photocopied the patterns on my home copier. I tried to fit as many pattern pieces onto one 8.5x11 sheet. My thinking was that I might be able to save a little on the copy/enlargement cost at the copy store, if I had more pattern pieces on one sheet. I'm not sure if that helped on the cost or not but I headed over to Staples and had them enlarge the pattern for me. For every 8.5x11 sheet, they printed me a jumbo size sheet. I think I paid about $2 for every jumbo sheet. Here are some of the issues I had when following the directions for this apron. Step 1 - Cutting out the pattern pieces. Be careful NOT to fold your fabric in half to cut out the front or hem pieces to save time. Because these pattern pieces are angled, they all must go in the same direction and if you fold your fabric to cut out 2 pieces at the same time, you will get 2 pieces going in opposite directions. Not what you want! Cut out one piece at a time or you can cut squares which are larger than your pattern pieces and stack them so that each layer is facing the same way up (meaning... all right sides up) and then you can cut mulitple pieces at once. To sew my front and hem pieces, I serged them. I think it looks more finished since the back (and stitching) is exposed in this apron. The apron does go together quite quickly and that's good if you are in a hurry (like I was!). The next issue I had was with the waistband instructions. From the diagram (Figure 3, page 103), it looks like the waistband is sitting on top of the apron front. This would leave the top of the apron exposed to the back side. Seems like the apron top edge should of been sandwiched in between the waistband to hide the seam. After I finished the apron (and got some much needed sleep!), I went back and reread the instructions. They still do not seem clear but I think I know understand Figure 3. It looks like you are just using the width of the apron to determine the width of your waistband and where you should sew on your ties. You're not actually sewing anything to the apron front on Step 10. However, Step 11 (attaching the waistband to the apron) still is not crystal clear to me. I ended up sewing the ties and the waistband to the apron in a different manner. If you understand the directions, PLEASE enlighten me! If you've already made this apron, I loved to hear how you attached the waistband/ties to the apron front. I completely forgot to take a photo of it before I wrapped it and my SIL was kind enough to photograph it for me.