Colonial Apron Jumper

Last week (the week before maybe?) I picked up a piece of home decor fabric from a thrift store. It had autumn colors - brown, gold, red - and had odd, little colonial scenes on it - weather vanes, clocks with gun racks, covered wagons, lanterns, Paul Revere-type guys on horses, etc. Just kooky enough to be right up our alley here. After a quick wash and hang on the line to dry (and a rain shower or 2 and a few more days on the line to dry) Rowan and I decided it should be reincarnated into a dress. I say reincarnated because it was obviously used as something before. It was serged up either side, and had small holes poked through the top. Maybe a curtain of some sort? Which is somewhat ironic, since the fabric I chose to line and make straps with was actually curtains in our last home. Huh.

Regardless, we used the Everyday Chaos Apron Dress tutorial and gave this fabric new life. The tutorial was wonderful - I love when people who take the time to grace us with their sewing wisdom have children the same age/size as mine! Hooray! I was able to make it using the exact dimensions (to make a size 6/7) for Rowan. I ended up having to cut a bit more off the hem than I had planned- forgot to take those odd holes into account when I cut the back of the skirt. I had to hem them off. So now it is really more of a tunic than a dress... but we are "dress with jeans underneath" kind of people here anyway! Here is what I'm calling our Colonial Apron Jumper...


And here is the back.


Seriously - there are clocks on this fabric...and lumberjacks and cannons. Strange but somewhat wonderful at the same time.

Instead of knotting the straps, Rowan wanted to have buttons. She spent the entire hour (or so) while I was sewing choosing buttons from my stash. She wanted the shiny, diamond-like clear plastic ones so badly - but I had to stick with what went well with the fabric and nix them. I felt bad- but promised they could be part of her Gypsy ensemble for Halloween.

While posing for pictures, Rowan kept closing her eyes. That is the reason for the possessed, stepford-esque gleam in her eyes here. Still cute, though, if you ask her biased mama...