This ruffled apron is separated from the first by about eighteen months of time. The first was such a hit with the ladies of the family that a second was needed to prevent a charge of favouritism on my part. I was able to take more detailed pictures of the second apron before I gave it away to my Mam.
This apron is made of printed cotton poplin and lined with some plain white poly-cotton so that the raw edge of the ruffle is fully enclosed and the apron has a nice amount of heft, or body, or whatever you want to call it.
The curved patch pocket is edge-stitched in place. The side seams are angled slightly toward the top so that the pocket forms an open bag.
This being apron mkII I knew that I wanted to make sure to match the bobbin thread to the white lining fabric rather than to the green pocket. Sewing with two different colours of thread is a dead giveaway for uneven tensions so full marks to the Singer 15K80 I sewed this with!
The ruffle is gathered at a ratio of 2:1. When I first used this pattern I sewed the running stitch for the gathering by hand. This time I was bold, I was brave, I was fearless and used a vintage Singer ruffler attachment. I had to mess about with scraps a bit to get the fullness of the gathers as I wanted them. I wasn't quite brave enough to use the ruffler to gather and sew the ruffle onto the apron in one operation as the old manuals suggest is possible - one step at a time! I probably didn't save much time but using the ruffler was a lot of fun and the results are a pleasing firm even gather.
The instructions on finishing the ties are pretty nifty too. The square ends are folded in on themselves at 45 degrees to produce neat points that are pressed and edge-stitched in place.
And one last close up of the hemmed edge of the ruffle in case any one is any doubt over how tasty the stitches produced by a 56 year old machine really are!
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