The Lobster and The Spoon….

The Lobster & The Spoon & The Maria Apron…

I found this bit of old Linen that I had screen printed years ago buried deep, deep in my stash. It was just an odd length of cloth, only about a metres worth, that was printed at the time to experiment with different techniques and inks and made with free abandonment. No plan, just print.

And every so often it would surface to the top, and then get left to one side again because, though I wanted to use it, really what are you going to make out of such a delightfully random print and not end up with it hanging in the back of the wardrobe? Well, the answer was staring me in the face… our Maria Apron of course! So upon the top of the stash The Lobster and Spoon fabric rested until a quiet free Sunday eventually came along…

There was a fair bit of creative cutting and moving of pattern pieces around to get the print happily placed and the facings were cut out in a leftover bit of red chambray.

There was not quite enough cloth to cut both straps, so the solution was to add a seam to one of the straps, but with the addition of a little hand topstitching, it becomes an interesting feature. I like this kind of challenge where a design is dictated by the cloth. Pattern cutting is really just problem solving until you get a pleasing solution.

I cut a few of the leftover spoons out and appliqued them on by hand, just to fill in a few bare patches. I do like the detail of the spoon travelling over from the pocket to the body of the garment. I’m planning on revisiting this little apron with needle and embroidery thread over the coming months, to add a bit more detail as and when I feel like it. I like the idea of the design growing organically, it seems quite fitting for this particular cloth that has waited so patiently for life.