Malphi: Frills, Frocks & Fancies!

Reversible Apron...

This is a new apron I've recently finished.  It's reversible...

And the other side...

And I have some new models...this is Erin.  Beautifully photogenic and wears everything so well...what more could I ask!

This is how her apron started off...

I bought the old table cloth from a charity sale at a hospice.  It's wonderfully inspirational and provides endless possibilities with all the little pieces.  The first cut is always the hardest but since it was already torn in places it was asking for it!  I finished the first side of the apron with a gathered strip of black fabric.

And then just cut out a similar shape from some silk dupion and hand stitched that to the back along with the ties. 

I finished the seam off with lace threaded with some embroidery thread.  Here's Koko posing in the dupion side...

She asked to model the other side too....oh my girls are good workers!

Bessie...Bride to Be Apron

I haven't done an apron in ages!  I've been so busy making dresses and who knows what else I'd forgotten how much I'd enjoyed making aprons!  Just fiddling around with no set plan or idea of how something is going to turn out.  That was the beauty of it...the unknown and just letting it develop by itself and seeing what I end up with at the end.  I've been behind my machine so much lately but sewing like a production line and as a result have lost the original inspiration and spark that drove me at the beginning.  So now I'm going to concentrate on aprons again!!  I love aprons!!! there's something so homely and classic and nostalgic about them...I do absolutely love the Verity Hope Dress and have enough for the time being, but they're almost at the end of their colour runs and think for the next few months will cut down on production and after that just keep them to a very limited quantity (either as kits or ready to wear??) and just in one colour at a time.  That will free me up to be creative again...Aaah...I feel much better already!

I call this apron Bessie...Bride to Be Apron because I think if an apron were a wedding dress (or the other way round?) then it would look something like this...

Well maybe that's stretching the imagination a bit but that was kind of the thinking behind it.  Anyway, It's very frilly and full of ruffles which is always pleasing.  I put a pin behind the corsage so it can be taken off before washing...has to be a little bit practical at least!

Oh and here's the back...

So it's aprons ONWARDS AND UPWARDS!!!

Darcey Mae Apron

I think this is one of my favourite aprons.  It's the same as the Truly Scrumptious I made a few months ago.

Available from www.malphistyle.com.  I decided to keep it all one colour because I think the many different sections already provide enough 'fancies' and I didn't want it to look too broken up.  It's inspired by the traditional 1940s homemaker/hostess aprons.  I've added six darts in the top and bottom to give it a nice shapely look and it ties up around both neck and waist for easy size adjustment.  Here's some detail:

I'm planning to add more colours sometime in the future.
www.malphistyle.com

Preview...

Here's a preview of www.malphistyle.com...

Bluebells...

It's bluebell time in the woods so what better apron to wear than a Flower Pickin' Pinny!

The bluebell season is so short I missed it last year. 

This is one of my favourite aprons.  It's made from a linen/viscose mix fabric which has a nice swingy weight to it and texture.

I tea-stained the lace at the bottom as it was a bit bright in order to make it blend better with the coffee ribbon which I threaded through the lace.

And of course we didn't pick any of the bluebells!

A day out for Raggedy Ann

This apron is made from one of the Linens I bought on my shopping spree.  I had had my eye on it for ages and also have it in blue.  I liked the textured stitching.  The apron is a straight forward rectangle, gathered onto a waistband.  Sometimes I just like making a really simple quick apron body so I can put the time into the embellishment.  (Made Raggedy Ann over Christmas from an old McCall's Pattern and she wanted to come).

For the pocket I used an already embroidered old napkin from the Charity sale I go to at the Hospice.  I liked the design but the colours were a little pale so I enhanced it with my own simply embriodery in much brighter colours.  Finally I added some simple stitches to the top and bottom of the apron to bring it all together...

Here's Raggedy Ann...

Angelica Trudy Apron

New styles for a new season!  These are my newest aprons on Etsy.  The Angelica Trudy Apron.

Chocolate with sky blue satin bias-binding

Rose with olive satin bias-binding...

And Atlantic with dark wine bias-binding...

Check them out at: www.malphistyle.com

Utility Apron

I love rustic looking fabrics, that have weight and look durable so had a bit of a shopping spree a couple of weeks ago.  I bought some heavy woven cotton scrim in a natural neutral colour, some hessian (something I've wanted to work with for ages!),  a few more linens and some embroidered cottons.  All for various projects looming in my head.  This is the apron I made from the scrim, I was inspired by an article from the Women's Institute of Domestic Arts and Sciences published in 1923. 

It's simply a long rectangle with the bottom folded up to make the pouch.  I secured it with a button I bought in India made from coconut. 

I made two long drawstrings and threaded them through and around the button hole.   The apron stuffs inside itself...voila!

So looking forward to the Spring now!

Bargain at Berwick Street...

I have been dying to use this fabric for something.  It's a wool blend I bought in Berwick Street, London years ago.  The shop had acquired a mountain of surplus rolls from dress designer Jean Muir and were selling it off at a bargain price.  I originally started to make a long dressing gown in the style of the Verity Hope Dress but never got around to completing it.  The body part and sleeves are still sitting in my drawer optimistically but now that I've used the rest of the remnant, completion is looking extremely unlikely!

What I did enjoy about this project was that it sort of designed itself.  One of the pieces was already in the shape of a frill so I didn't even have to cut it out.  Then I simply laid the other pieces out one at a time around the frill and cut them freehand and linked them all into an apron shape.  Sounds daunting, but it was actually rather nice to do and the element of the unknown always inspires me .

The fabric was quite flimsy so I lined it on the back with a cotton blend fabric which matched in colour and then embellished it...favourite part of any project!!

Truly Scrumptious

I have drawers and drawers bursting with remnants, linens, cloth scraps I just can't throw away.   Even though most pieces aren't big enough to make anything with , it just seems such a waste to throw them.  There's always a project looming in my head so I'm on a mission now to use them up!

This apron is made up from three different types of linen.  Scraps left over from my white Verity Hope Dress, a plain white linen remnant and a ragged linen piece left over from an early Flower Pickin' Pinny.

I only had a vague idea in mind as to how I wanted it to turn out.  I knew I wanted it to be very frilly but then just let it evolve as I went along.  Next time I'll spread the frill up more at the sides and I also want to add more darts at the front to shape it more.  This current apron has four darts,  two above and two below the waistband.  To decorate the waistband, I simply cut up an old embroidered linen napkin and then appliqued it on.

Oh I do love frills!  I keep thinking about that dress in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang when Truly Scrumptious runs across the beach with her frilly pantaloons underneath (if you've seen the film you'll know what I mean!)

Woods of colour...

The woods are so beautiful near where I live, even at this time of year, so out I plodded in my rubber boots, aprons in arms...

This is rose with olive green trimming.  I wasn't sure at first if a brighter green would have been better with the pale pink, but decided in the end for the olive.  Think it's a less common colour combination and looks slightly antiquey.

Next is my favourite colour!  Atlantic.  It's a sort of pale teal blue.  Again I was going to use a brighter red but then thought the wine was more unusual.   It looks darker in the photo.

Finally ruby red and peacock trimming. 

Time off for a skip...

It has seemed ages since I last made anything. 
This month has been really busy with getting things ready for the launch of the website.  Always seems to take three times longer than planned but getting there!  The little tweaks that have to be made here and there soon eat up the weeks.  However, the temptation to make an apron out of a remnant I've been meaning to use since the summer got the better of me.  It's printed patchwork and I just love the colours.

On the whole I don't like to use too many prints.  I prefer to use embellishments and just let ideas develop as I go along.  Using prints just feels too final before I've even started, but I just couldn't resist this print and it was a fairly quick project that satisfied the urge and wouldn't eat into too much time.

Fun over...now time to get back to the website!!

Lavender and Lace...

I love projects that involve lots of different stages, so if one day I'm more in the mood to hand sew rather than machine, I can just pick it up and work on the relevant area.  This apron was one of those.  Most of the detail is on the back...

I've always loved the colour of lavender and originally wanted to use a green frill trim around the edges.  I think the two colours go beautifully together.  I had a lovely green trim which would have been perfect except I didn't have enough of it and couldn't find anything close to what I wanted anywhere.  Impatience got the better of me and I ended up sewing on some white Broderie Anglaise frill which I had plenty of.  But you know when you do something and afterwards it just doesn't feel right so you kind of go off the project...that's exactly what happened with this one.  The white trimming just looked too glaring and I just didn't like the result.  After a few weeks I brought the apron out again. The bright frill was still putting me off the whole project!  To solve the problem I decided to take the plunge and dip the whole apron in a beige dye.  It meant risking the beautiful lavender colour but I've used beige dyes so many times before to tone colours down and had always been pleased with the results.  It did the trick!  Toned it down subtly, just enough to give it the difference needed.  Enthusiasm was back!!

The shaped bodice reminded me of a Parisienne showgirl of the 1940's  so I used some mauve satin ribbon along the seams to give the apron a touch of pizzazz.  To bring in the much desired green colour which I had missed from the trimming I added little green, red and white embroidered motifs. 

Then bright green buttons with red thread so they would really stand out.  I made the buttons holes by hand, then finished off with vintage lace around each hole to bring the whole look together.

Here's the back in full...

Mary Beth Apron Dress...

This is an apron dress I've just made.  It was inspired by the styles of the forties.

Here's what I did....I had some linen fabric lying around but had never really liked the colour of it, I love pink but there was something about this particular tone that just didn't inspire me so I took the plunge and dyed the whole remnant green!

I absolutely love colour dying it's so rewarding, trouble is once I start I can't stop and end up adding half my wardrobe into the dye bucket each time.  But it is fun and I love to throw lots of different colours into the same bucket of dye and see how each shade transforms.  Some work, some don't, but hey ho that's all part of the fun of the unknown!

For the pockets I used tea.  I love the effect tea staining has, it brings such character to trimmings and embellishments and is so easy to do.  My sister had just returned from a trip to Sri Lanka and had brought mountains of loose tea back.  Perfect!  I couldn't resist, and of course it meant we had lots of cups of tea that week too.  I left the fabric to soak in the jug for only a couple of minutes, it's such an easy and rewarding small pleasure.  Easily pleased me!

The apron dress wraps around the back and does up with a button at the neck.  You can see the button hole on the left and the button on the right is just for decoration to balance it out.

I decided to use satin bias binding for the edges to add a bit of glamour.  The ties thread through slits at the sides and front and are made from a silky lining material. 

For the pockets, I cut up an old embroidered linen napkin purchased from the charity sale I always go to.  The colours of the flowers were the inspiration for the whole colour scheme and I still have the other half of napkin to make something else with. 

The sleeves simply tie up which means the whole apron dress can open out almost flat for hanging.

I wanted to soften the neckline up a bit so decided to do a simple embroidery design embellished with flowers.  It had the effect of widening the neckline.

I really enjoyed making this outfit.  I used a lot of hand sewing as well as machine sewing (using my beloved hand-operated machine of course!) and it was worth the effort.

Floppy pockets...

I really like the whole floppy feel of this apron.  This was a really simple one to make.  I used yet another old linen table cloth so all the edges were already either hemmed or sealed.

All I had to do was cut a bit off the top for the waist band and ties.  Cut to length and then gather the rest of the cloth in to fit inside the waistband.

I spent a little more time on the pockets.  I used an old embroidered linen napkin cut in half.  Then I ran a line of gathering stitch, by hand, along the bottom.  Pinned the pockets into place and then drew up the bottoms to make a curve and then sewed them in place by hand.
I added some ribbon along the top and finished in a floppy bow.

Sisters..!

I go through phases when I just can't stop at making ONE...I get into a production style mode and have to make duplicates.  I suppose on this occasion I was using the rest of the table cloth from before and it seemed a waste not to use up every last piece.  Nice to share wearing them.

Using a high waistband again, I then attached the lacy frill on the front, which was also once a table cloth.

Really pleased with the result, these are amongst my favourite aprons.

"Our roots say we're sisters, our hearts say we're friends"~Author Unknown

Apple Pickin'...

I started making this apron a while back and then got side tracked onto something else so put it away in a cupboard and forgot about it.

I love it when a half completed project is rediscovered!

I was in the mood for curling up in a chair and doing a bit of hand sewing so I finished off the pockets by hand and spent a cosy evening sewing all the flowers on. 

Glad now, that I left the apron for a while in the cupboard.  I often find my best inspirations come when I've gone back to finishing something.

"I still find each day too short for all the thoughts I want to think, all the walks I want to take, all the books I want to read and all the friends I want to see"~John Burroughs

Zither days...

I made this apron from a old linen table cloth and place mat.  I didn't have a plan in my head as to how I wanted it to turn out, it just sort of evolved in the making like most of my projects.! 

First I folded the cloth into four to make a triangle and cut the pointed end off.  This gave me a nice curved edge to fit neatly around the waist, as well as providing a large piece to make the waistbands with.  I then cut along the sides of the triangle to end up with four pieces. The pocket was made from the place mat which I cut in half and embellished with small red floral appliques.

Finally I finished the hem off with some broderie anglaise frill trimming I had lying around in my scraps basket. 

The second apron is very similar to this one except for the finishing touches.  It's waiting patiently in my cupboard for inspiration to strike!

Table cloth magic...

A wonderful charity sale takes place close to where I live every three weeks.  It's in the grounds of a large stately home which now operates as a hospice and the sale is used to raise money for the residents who live there.  I pick up odd bits of haberdashery and mountains of embroidered linen not to mention the array of vintage sewing machines all for fantastic bargain prices.    Truly an Aladdin's cave.  Here are some aprons I made from an old table cloth I bought there.

It was an oval shape so I cut it into quarters then added some red linen that I had to make the waistband, ties and pockets.