Happy St. Patrick's Day! While I am waiting on my corned beef to reach tender perfection, I thought I would write about my latest apron style for my shop. It is a super-cute cross back apron. When I saw this pattern, I knew that I would have to get it, and I am so glad that I did.
This pattern is McCalls 3063 published in 1971. As you can see, it is styled as an apron or a bathing suit cover-up, which would be really cute if you made this in a lightweight fabric. I decided that this style lends itself nicely to a linen/linen blend fabric. This is how it turned out:
I love this style - it is so functional and I think very flattering. One thing I did find was that it was rather straight, and I tend to like my dresses to be more of an A-line. So, I did a first try at modifying the original pattern slightly to make a slightly fuller skirt. The apron is cut as a single piece (i.e., there are no side seams), and I wanted to keep that for this pattern. So I tried enlarging the original pattern piece where the side seam would be:
I only added about 5 inches to the bottom of the skirt (10 inches total). After constructing another apron with this new pattern, I ended up with this:
Can you tell the difference? Neither can I! At least in the photos. I can definitely tell a difference in the way it feels when I wear it (I prefer the adjusted design). And my husband could tell the difference between the two when I was wearing them. I am going to attempt another pattern modification to get the A-line look that I was going for in the first place. In any case, I love this new apron style and I think that I already know the fabric that I am going to use for mine. :)
