or rather, let me make my wardrobe refashioning "official".
as you can see from the button in my sidebar, i joined the wardrobe refashion project for a 4-month term. what this means is that i have pledged that i will not buy ANY new, manufactured clothing from now until the end of november. this is so fine with me, i feel like it is almost cheating to have joined--i can barely stand to go into retail clothing stores, much less give them my money.
but i like to play, and this game seemed like one i could stick with for the long term, so here i go!
for my first project i have (as always) a long story, will try to condense:
about 12 years ago, i was trying to make some extra money by selling some of my sewing at a friend's store. she was going to a fair and offered me space in her booth. i told my mother about this, and mama was so concerned that i wouldn't have enough stuff to sell that she made a bunch of aprons--the bib kind, like for cooking at a barbeque. when i took them to my friend's booth, i told her about the aprons and i started crying--i was so overwhelmed by my mother's loving generosity YET AGAIN in my life, and i so desperately needed to sell these aprons but very desperately wished i could just keep them all.
when i came back at the end of the fair to collect my stuff, my friend told me that i had sold some of my vests and ALL of the aprons. it was bittersweet because she gave me a much-needed check but all my mother's aprons were gone.
this was in the fall. at christmas that year, my friend sent me a present--it was the aprons--she had bought all of them to give back to me.
so yet again, i was in tears, because of the kindness yet another person had shown me. and because i got to hold my mother's aprons.
(the above has been a pattern in my life--i have been literally carried along by the kindness of the people god has chosen to surround me with--it is something i will never be worthy of but always will be thankful for).
i wore these aprons from time to time, but i never wore them often because....i don't like bibbed aprons. i don't know why--for some reason they just feel so.....utilitarian. so i cut them down and made regular aprons out of them--i made a waistline casing and put elastic thru it to make them hug my waist better--i put some trim on them--and with the scraps from the bib sections i made pockets and hot pads. here are the first two, i have 5 more to go:
i LOVE these so much! they are simple, but they make me feel pretty and they make me feel loved. and to me, that is the magic of aprons and of a mother's handiwork.
