A couple of days ago, at the recycling warehouse, they had a number of large (2.5m x 1.45m) !KEA pure linen curtains in a mustardy brown colour; I paid 50p each for five of them. Four were pretty much pristine & went straight off the next morning with a re-enactor friend (“A perfect medieval colour! This stuff is about £27 a metre new!”) But the fifth has some biro marks in the centre, which haven’t washed out. So I’m making myself a Japanese-style cross-over apron from it, with BIG pockets, decorated with some shibori I did on a course last year that’s been waiting for the right project.

Needless to say, there’s a reason why I’ve never done anything much with linen before; it’s tricksy stuff. Quite open-woven, with tendency to fray like mad, and it creases in seconds unless starched, which would be a bit OTT for a working apron. (But I know that with use, it softens & drapes like almost no other fabric woven from natural fibres does. And under the right circumstances, it can outlast entire dynasties – see the pleated linen dress/smock in the Petrie Museum.) I was also not sure that I’d really got my head around how the aprons actually work, so I drew up a pattern on brown wrapping paper & made up a rough toile from an old curtain lining that was just hanging around in the sewing room (actually the spare bedroom) waiting for something useful to do. The various “patterns” & instructions garnered from other makers’ blogs & Y0utube do actually work & make sense, it’s just I can’t always “see” things in 3D straight off.

Anyhoo, after idiotically forgetting to cut the “pattern” on the fold, deciding to overlock the edges & accidental centre seam for saftey’s sake and sticking pins into myself several times trying to place the pockets to best effect, I did have a wearable apron. But I wasn’t completely happy with the way that it hangs… partly down to my own shape, but partly because there’s not quite enough “body” to the fabric.

So I thought, should I have lined it? Which would be a considerable faff, making up a lining… hang on, where’s that toile? Needless to say, even adding in a pre-made lining isn’t going to be that easy… put that on hold for now.

Luckily there was plenty of curtain left to cut out another one. I removed the shibori pocket from the first effort & adjusted the “pattern” a bit; made it a little longer & a bit narrower over the shoulders. Then fetched my 505 spray – this is a light spray-on glue, much loved by quilters for stabilising layers while you work – and smoothed the rest of the old curtain lining onto the linen, then cut it out, remembering to cut on the fold this time. I decided to leave the pockets on the first iteration and cut out some more from the left-over layered bits. Hemming the bits just seemed far too much like hard work, so I edged them with some herringbone tape left over from another project. I also stitched a few lines around the neck & straps, to keep the layers reasonably well together, knowing the pockets would sort out the lower half. Some beads & stitches found their way onto the shibori pocket, too.

So, here’s my new work apron:

Which looks better on than hanging, but my assistant is off working on her knitting machine… So now, of course, I need to get that toile stitched into the first iteration, and I’ll have a fine work apron for my second allotment…

Second allotment? Yes, a half-plot has come free on the site just up the road from our home. It’s small but enchanting; it was a flat-dweller’s garden previously. There are some beautiful things there & I’ll try to keep as many of those as I can, although some are too big & hungry to continue grow alongside food plants and others will need to be moved into little areas set aside for pollinators. I’ll struggle to fit everything I want to grow in, BUT it has a wonderful half-greenhouse/half-shed that will allow me to grow far more of the tomatoes & chillis that we love, and it’s only a moment’s walk from our house. The other plot is a good mile away, which means driving if I have things to carry, and a twenty-minute walk each way when I don’t. Not to mention the constant onslaught of very determined agricultural weeds (brambles, blackthorn suckers, nettles, creeping buttercup) and pests (rats & rabbits, mostly) from the field boundary & ditch along the long edge. Also not mentioning my raspberries, which have gone feral & spread like a (very tasty) plague… So although I will miss that space, and have some crops in the ground (garlic, onions, beans) & perennial plants over there that I will miss, I will gradually wind that one down & eventually hand it over to someone with more grit!

Although I have yet to sign the lease & pay the rent, some of that rosemary will be flavouring our dinner tonight…