Barbara (Oodles) recently introduced me to her neighbor, Patty, who has just started a blog (Petalier).  Patty and I have a lot of the same interests, including quilting, sewing, and vintage fabrics.  Today on her blog, she shared a simple apron pattern as a fun project to teach a young girl how to sew.  I wish I had thought of this when my daughter was little.

Patty’s apron project reminded me of the first real garment I tried to make.  It was in 9th grade Home Economics (one semester of cooking, one semester of sewing).  After spending what seemed like forever stitching holes in notebook paper (first lined, then graduating to unlined), and eventually making a pillow, our teacher decided we should learn to make a flat fell seam.  For my FFS project, I chose to make capris — tight capris — I’m talking the ones like Laura Petrie wore, and mine were so tight, the pattern called for little zippers at the ankle so you could get your feet into them.  The fabric I purchased was a red plaid cotton.  Seriously, my mom couldn’t believe it when I brought home the capri pattern with the plaid fabric and the little zippers, but when I told her I had to make flat fell seams, she started laughing so hard that she kind of freaked me out.

I made those pants (with my mom’s help), but I never wore them.  The leg seams were a mess since I was sewing the second seam inside of this deep tube of fabric where I could barely see;  the plaids didn’t match of course; and I accidentally put the zippers on the inside of the legs instead of the outside.  Why couldn’t I have just made a nice little apron.

Here is a 1926 apron pattern which seems not nearly as simple as Patty’s, but it has such a cute illustration (which I had to trace because my digital image was so poor).