Sunset over Winona Lake

January 8 is my aunt's birthday. She is not just any aunt, we are rather close in age, and over the years we have become good friends. We both love Winona Lake.

As a family historian, I've written about and photographed most of my relatives, so I know lots about them. One of the things Nancy loves is her aprons.  When at the cottage, she'll have her apron on, and you know she is ready for anything. She raised 4 children and has quite a few grandchildren, so she has experienced a lot in her life!

Nancy Harvey at the cottage

When at the cottage, life is very informal. During the summer,  people are dressed in anything from bathing suits dripping wet to their Sunday best. Most likely Nancy is wearing her apron.

Over the last several days I've designed and sewn a new apron for Nancy. This one is called Sunset over Winona. There will only be one of these.  I pieced together fabrics from my stash that look like the sunset.

Sunset over Winona Lake, the apron.

I love it when I can go into my stash and just pull all kinds of stuff out, and make a complete project without having to go to the store.  When I was in 7th grade and took my first Home Economics class we made an apron using just one yard of fabric. I've always kept the diagram we used to cut the pieces.  The only difference is that the body of the apron uses 5 strips of color sewn to a wide band of blue at the bottom.  I couldn't stop here, I had to add a water lily to it.

Here is the hem detail

Since an apron is used and washed frequently, I chose to fuse the the lily and pad, then machine applique it in place.  I zigzagged the seam allowances and top stitched them. It should hold up for a long time.

Pocket detail

The yellow needed to be repeated somewhere, so I added a water lily bud to the pocket. I used variegated threads for the applique, both a yellow variegated and my favorite green variegated rainbow #809.

This is kind of a wild splashy apron, I'm certain that all the spots and spatters from cooking won't ever be noticed.  I know she'll like it.

Happy Birthday Nancy!

Ann Fahl