Aprons: The Red Headed Chicken Apron

I sewed my chicken apron up using a basic
butchers/chefs apron style.

It's not all sunshine and light when it comes to the wearing and production of aprons in my family.

This month the Enchanted by Sewing Podcast will be about sewing aprons, and my mother's attitudes towards them. 

I sewed my now well-worn chicken apron, in celebration of my neighbors flock. One of the chickens, who her young son named "Laurel Chicken" because we both had red hair (!),

used to make it through the fence between our houses and come to mine to spend the day and lay eggs. I once found a nest under a redwood tree in the back with ten eggs, eight of which were still in good shape and made a very nice pear soufflé.

Laurel Chicken has been gathered to her fore-mothers now, but the apron lives on. Every time I tie on my chicken apron, I think I can see a little flick of red tail feathers beneath the farthest back redwood tree. I wonder how a soufflé would go over on the Thanksgiving table :-)

Sewing garments that reflect on my life and my friends is the kind of thing that keeps me....

Enchanted by Sewing!

~ ~ ~

Check out the Enchanted by Sewing Podcast 

The apron episode will be published on November 26'th. You can signup for a reminder email when new monthly episodes are released, by visiting the show notes at http://enchantedbysewingpodcast.blogspot.com

Good Night My Someone: Red Plaid Nightgown

The chicken illustrations are something I created for my
art journal a few years back.
This chicken lives with my neighbor Jen, and is named for me.
I'm proud to say that she (Laurel Chicken) and I appeared in Sunset Magazine's
The West's 100 Best Pets Contest:-)

Sunday morning, I finished the last of the night wear projects I talked about in my December Enchanted by Sewing podcast. 

I've been continuing to look for the missing pattern for this many-times used, Tried and True nightgown, while doing major cleaning and reorganizing holiday-time domestic projects -so far no luck.

Wonder how long this latest flannel addition will last..... I'd guess at least two years but would be surprised if it holds up for four. This was budget, on-sale flannel. I made my husband's nightshirt out of what could be higher quality, but maybe I was simply swayed by the description and the feel of the material. I wonder if better quality flannel fabric has a higher life expectancy, or merely feels better? Perhaps when I get to the textiles class in the fashion program at Cañada, I'll find out more about that.

I noticed while sewing this gown how very loose the weave can be in flannel. The plaid lines moved around no matter how many pins I put in. To give the bodice more oomph, I interlined/underlined the bodice with some blue flowered cotton, a remainder from another long-ago sewn spring nightgown. You can see it peaking out from the back bodice. The interlining was in addition to the interfacing I used down the front to support the buttons and buttonholes. I also used black decorative stitching to further support the button area. 

I did the machine embroidery on this bodice last winter. I think if I were embroidering similarly shaped bodice I'd probably do twice as much. My embroidery machine is older and I think this is the largest size motif I can create.

Working with flannel on this nightie is making me think about what I'll be doing with the flannel vest I'll be sewing soon. I'm wondering if interfacing the entire thing would be overdoing it?