Posted on 7 Comments

Welcome, summer

Welcoming summer

I know the calendar says to wait until June, but summer officially arrived at my house today. I put away the everyday kitchen linens and replaced them with the Summer linens. How fun to be able to do that! This means it’s been almost a year of cloth napkins around here – I can’t imagine ever going back to paper.

Time for supper

Cherries, lemons, tall glasses of lemonade… how I love this fabric collection, and oh! would you look at that? I made this apron upside down! I never noticed that until just this minute. I think I can be forgiven, though – this is the first real pattern I ever tried to make heads or tails of, and I did it last June with only two weeks of sewing experience under my belt. There are quite a few other construction flaws to be found, but I still like it, and if I regularly used full aprons, this would get a lot of action. What I need is a half-apron to go with my Summer napkins. I have a nice piece of the yellow fabric with cherries on it that would be perfect. I also think I’m ready to leave my comfort zone and try something a little different apron-wise.

Late afternoon on the patio

One of the joys of summer is the late afternoon leisure time on the patio. We seemed to pick up today right where we left off last fall, with the boys playing in the grass, and me relaxing with a book. For me, relaxing with a book just doesn’t happen all that much any other time of year. In the summertime, I have very little choice but to slow down, leave my computer and all of my crafty pursuits in the house and follow the little people out into the back yard. I’m not comfortable sending them out alone. So, it’s a forced kind of leisure, but I know that it’s good for me. To breathe in the fresh air, to feel the warm sun on my skin, to unplug from the constant stimuli of the Internet… it’s all good.

And today, since I was thinking about my yellow cherry fabric and my need for a cafe apron, I took my new A is for Apron book outside. Would you like to see a few of my favorite designs? Pull up a chair…

Late afternoon on the patio

Here’s the one that jumped out and grabbed me right away. And let me say, here and now, that if there was ever any doubt in my mind that I have been slowly turning into some kind of girl over the past year or so, this should pretty much put that to bed. Rickrack? Pompoms? I can’t believe I like this… I think the trick to wearing something so foofy is to not do anything too girly with the rest of your clothes. Clearly the only thing I could possibly wear this with is a pair of jeans and a black t-shirt. Clearly 😀

Late afternoon on the patio

I like this one a lot, too. I’m not sure I’m up for making my own bias tape, though. I’m not even sure I know how to use the store-bought stuff… And I’m a bit intimidated by the gathers at the waistline.

Late afternoon on the patio

Ooh, this one is nice, too. If I were looking for a full apron project, I would definitely make this. It’s got a farmgirl charm. I could never survive as a farmgirl, but I could wear one of her aprons and pretend, right?

Late afternoon on the patio

I really like this one, too, although it looks like a lot of work. I think we’ve all seen how straight my patchwork is. Ahem. And so maybe this isn’t the right choice for me. Still, I really like it. How could I not? The designer of this apron and I share a birthday – same year and everything! 🙂

I’ll probably figure out which one to make sometime this week. In the meantime, there’s summer to welcome.

Summer in a pie crust

There’s Jello Pie to make. Lime Jello Pie, to be exact.

He picked me a flower

There are flowers for little boys to pick and give to their moms.

There’s music to listen to.

I’ll leave you now with a song that was playing one summer night 15 years ago. I was sitting by an open window, feeling a soft breeze on my cheek, and playing on the computer. I was probably dialed in to some BBS or other. Maybe Neil’s. Maybe we were chatting. I don’t really remember. I just know that that Miss Chatelaine (and much of the rest of the Ingenue album) is now forever an “open window on a Summer night” kind of song to me. Open your window and enjoy!

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Posted on 7 Comments

7 thoughts on “Welcome, summer

  1. I love the orange crush apron. So cute!

    1. Me, too. I’d make it if I thought I had any hope of it being precise enough! I think I’m too impatient a crafter.

  2. Hello. Just wanted to say what a great blog you have! I am so excited for summer! The aprons are very cute! Have a Good One!

    1. Thank you so much! I’m looking forward to summer, too 🙂

  3. Speaking of aprons..just stumbled upon a blog article on craftchi.com…it’s in her Jan.14,08 one…features a cafe apron from vintage pillowcase & sheet (in fact, I think I recognized that pillowcase,ha)..
    Anyhoo…thought you might get a kick out of it…
    (listed under “Household Crafts”)

    1. Ah, found it! That is pretty neat. If I ever find any pillowcases that look sufficiently “kitcheney” I’ll know just what to do with them 🙂

  4. What a lovely post–I just thought today, “I need me a new apron.” Thanks for the inspiration–maybe I’ll make it myself!

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