Baking as Social Action - Step 1

As an altruistic gesture in support of poetry, I volunteered to cater a poetry symposium at Auckland Universty this Friday called 'Poetry as Social Action'. YIKES! 

Oddly, instead of spending my day off today planning the goodies that I'll be producing in my baking marathon on Thursday evening, and making a useful shopping list, I decided to sew a new apron. My tatty old 1960s apron, formerly belonging to my Grandma, isn't suitable to be worn in public, and the cake-stall kind of vibe that I have in mind for the event definitely requires me to be sporting a vintage apron of some sort. There are some lovely examples in Rosemary McLeod's book (above and below) but a simpler half-apron is what I'm after.

Those of you from my generation will remember the sort of aprons we were taught to make in manual class, using gingham embellished with cross-stitch and rows of ric rac. I have a pretty example among my shelf of vintage textiles:

A version of that old gingham classic is what I opted to make today using a gorgeous length of cotton bought earlier this year from an amazing antique shop in Mayfield (near Timaru) and trimmed with this striped bias binding that my mother-in-law June donated to my sewing stash a while ago.

I cut a pattern from Grandma's apron and set to work, tacking the bias binding onto the fabric as Mum taught me to do.

I trimmed the top and bottom of the flower-pot shaped pocket with bias binding. so that it stands out from the body of the apron and cut the pocket with the stripes going in the opposite direction for added contrast. 

I added four pin-tucks before sewing on the waistband and ties to give the apron a little more shape.

Just the thing for a 60s inspired cake stall. Now I really do need to get busy planning what I'm going to bake!