A Stitching Odyssey: Parisian Princess

I'm so excited to finally share this with you! It's a little commissioned piece I made a few weeks back, but wasn't allowed to post it in case I ruined the birthday surprise.

My Parisian Princess is rather too pink and girly for my personal taste, but I love the style and I'll definitely be making more...in fact I may have another custom-order lined up for April!

I think the thing I'm most proud of with this apron is how I adapted it from the McCall 1367 pattern from the 1940s. If you remember, I blogged about it briefly once at the end of this post, but I gave up on that apron/pattern as the construction instructions where so ridiculously fiddly. This time round though, I adapted the pattern and devised my own way of sewing it up.

The original pattern called for a single-sided body (heart shaped pieces) to be sewn into double-sided ruffles, which was incredibly hard when trying to also incorporate ric rac. Even when I pinned the fabric and ric rac together, it would all move around and come out wonky after being sewn. So frustrating! This time though I:

• made the body pieces double-sided and kept the ruffle pieces single-sided; 
• sewed the lace and ruffle to the right side of the body front;
• pinned the ruffle to the middle of the back body piece so it was out of the way and placed the front body piece on top, with right sides facing; and
• sewed the body pieces together and turned right side out.

Viola!

And look how neat the wrong side is!

I know that for experienced seamstresses this won't seem like a big deal, but for little old me it's a bit of an achievement!

Anyway, hope you like her!