I will step outside the Knitting Realm for a few moments and tell you about The Extensive Sewing project that Sarah and I worked on through December.

We love to make Christmas gifts for the extended family — but there is always a bit of a challenge in coming up with something that is reasonable (time-wise, budget-wise…).  We have a goodly number of close relatives!  This year, we were inspired by the funky aprons we have seen at Anthropologie.  Heck, we can make those! we exclaimed.

So the day before Sarah flew back to North Carolina (after Thanksgiving), she and I hit JoAnn Fabrics and picked out 4 vintage-y apron pattern sets and 23 cotton fabrics.  We made "family collections" of fabrics so the members within each nuclear family would coordinate.  We had to estimate the fabric amounts, as we planned to use 3-4 fabrics for each apron (and were sharing fabrics among nuclear family aprons).  Providentially, there was an online sale coupon (which someone in the check-out line told us about). 

Sarah took the fabrics for the largest family back with her and I kept the rest.  We had selected which style apron for each person.  And – most, most, most wisely – we ordered the men's aprons from William Sonoma!

Long story short — we made 12 women's aprons and 5 kids' aprons.  And we got them all done in time! 

Here are a few photos: