Shop Update: New Work Aprons

Tomorrow I'm heading out on a week-long road trip through Essex County, Detroit and Ann Arbour for my husband's birthday. But before I left, I wanted to make sure that you were all up to date on Dear Edna happenings, specifically that there are four new work aprons for sale in the shop! Woo!

For the fellas, there's a spiffy dark indigo denim with contrast stitching, a nautical navy striped denim and a classy maroon plaid. I know that men aren't the only ones that appreciate a good, sturdy apron, so I've also made a limited edition women's apron in a classic red, blue, green and yellow plaid.

More details and pictures are all in my Etsy shop. Please take a moment to check them out here. 

All orders placed while I'm away will ship October 20th.

Shop Update: New Aprons

Like it or not, the crisp Fall air has arrived, which means it's time to pack away the barbecue and spend some quality time with your kitchen again. And it just so happens that my two newest aprons are perfect for the pumpkin-picking season!

I had such a great response to the red Christmas apron with the peter pan collar that I designed last year, so I decided to make a couple more that can be used year round. Plus, check out those unique prints. So pretty!

Both are available for purchase in my Etsy shop today.

I've also started photographing and listing some reversible aprons. I hesitate to call them "new", as they've been made for quite some time and I've brought them along to various craft shows, but they have never made it online... until now. Also, in case you haven't noticed, all reversible aprons in the shop are $10 off regular price. Happy shopping!

Week in Review

Remember how I said I've been working really hard lately trying to get back into worker bee mode for Fall and how I pretty much spent my entire long weekend sewing? Well, since seeing is believing and it takes a crazy amount of time for a finished project to actually make it online (and I'm impatient), I thought I would give you a sneak peak at some of the things I have been working on. 

I completed only one single Farmer's Wife Quilt Block for August, #51 Hovering Birds. Lucky for me, this was the Needlework quilt-along block of the month and I won a $10 gift certificate for it! Woo!

I finished up some new women's aprons and photographed them this past weekend. As you can see, they have some pretty sweet details and I can't wait to make them available in the shop (hopefully next week)!

I know you all have been hurting for men's aprons ever since I sold out of the herringbone denim a few months ago, so you'll be happy to know that I'm finally making some new ones! You may have seen on Instagram and Facebook last week that I made a striped one as a special request for a customer (fingers crossed there is more of that fabric where it came from). I'm also making some in a dark indigo denim with contrast stitching. Ooh la la!

I thought the ladies might be feeling a little left out, so I whipped up a couple grometted aprons in this lovely soft plaid as well. I'm really liking the way these turned out... kind of country farm-girl chic. That's a thing, right? Well, it is now.

Fed up with my overflowing drawer of patterns, I did a little organizing and put them all in binders. The clothing patterns binder is already bursting at the seams! What do you do to organize your sewing patterns?

As a reward for sewing all those aprons, I made myself a maxi dress! Please tell me I'm not the only one who rewards sewing with more sewing. Haha!

The pattern is Mission Maxi by Jamie Christina and I've been holding onto it for over a year. I've never sewed with knits before and I was terrified to begin. I read the Colette Guide to Sewing Knits cover-to-cover twice for a boost of confidence and then dove in. My first attempt was a great learning experience -- not good enough to wear out, but good enough to wear to bed: I chopped off the bottom and made it into a nightgown. Luckily I bought double the amount of fabric I needed, so I made a second right away and it turned out great! I can't wait to wear it!

Who gets excited over new needles? This girl.

Something else new to get very excited about... my Cricut Explore! It arrived last Friday and Mike and I have been playing with it whenever we get a spare chance. It's an electronic design-and-cut machine that cuts just about anything you can think of: paper, fabric, vinyl, leather and even metal! It can also write and score too... at the same time. So far, we're impressed with the machine but not so impressed with the software. It looks like we're going to have to design in Photoshop and then import. But we're still tinkering away. I had high hopes for this machine and it's potential for Dear Edna for stencils, applique, embroidery transfer and labelling. It will be heartbreaking to have to send it back because of lackluster software. We shall see.

Do tell... what have you been up to?

Holiday Collection Preview

It's been a busy few weeks, but I'm proud to announce that the 2013 Holiday Collection is ready! Can I hear a Woohoo!? There are some new design features, like pretty peter pan collars, and fun new prints, like gold deer and bicycle-riding snowmen! I hope you like them as much as I do. In order to keep things fresh every year, I buy very limited quantities of these holiday fabrics — so in some cases there are only one or two items available. Let this be a warning: if you like something, please please please don't think on it too long, or you might miss out. I'll be listing everything in my shop in batches over the next few days, but here is a preview to get your in the holiday spirit!

Shop Update

A set of three new aprons have been added to the shop!

Inspired by the feminine, lightweight cotton aprons of the fifties and sixties, these beauties will help channel your inner June Cleaver. Whether you're looking to churn butter at the crack of dawn or finally learn how to poach an egg, I'm hoping these aprons will help you get there... and look super cute while doing it.

Don't Forget Dad

I was flipping through my calendar last night and realized Father's Day is only two weeks away! Ah! Did it slip your mind too? Lucky for you, I feel your pain and have decided to make things a little easier on the forgetful sons and daughters of the world by offering a last minute Father's Day deal — free shipping on all men's and reversible aprons! Shipping usually takes two weeks, so this deal is happening for this weekend only. Get ye to the shop and have a look around. You know your dad would look spiffy behind the grill or puttering around his workshop in these duds. I know mine sure does! :)

Customize It

Things may have seemed a little quiet over here, but I've actually been pretty busy behind the scenes. Even after three years of doing this, it still surprises me how much work and time it takes for a product to make it from design through to sale. Sewing is actually the easiest part, I think. Anyway, you should see lots of new listings in the coming weeks... starting today!

Today, I'm here to announce the launch of two new services: Dear Edna will now be offering custom hand-embroidery and DYOA (Design Your Own Apron)!

You may recall that last year I had a special promotion for the month of October offering free embroidery on all my products.  It was intended as a testing ground to get some practice with the entire process and I'm so glad that many of you took me up on it, because I learned so much, most importantly how much I enjoy hand-embroidery! I can take it with me on trips, shows, or craft nights; I can stitch and talk at the same time; it gives me (and my back) time away from the sewing machine; and it's intensely personal and creative, which is probably the thing I love most about it. You have to admit that there is something special, traditional, and almost romantic about the process, knowing that someone drew the letters, stretched the hoop, and made every delicate stitch with a simple needle and thread. That is a kind of handmade that cannot be imitated by a machine. So even though I've actually acquired an embroidery machine recently, I'm sticking to what feels right to me, my business and my values.

I currently have two listings up, one for monograms and initials and one for names and phrases. If you want something stitched that is longer than 10 characters, like my good man Lou here, simply send me a message and we'll work it out.

While we're reminiscing, you may also recall how I ventured into the world of wholesale fabric last year and came out with a lot (some would say too much) fabric. So much, in fact, that I haven't had time yet to photograph all of the aprons I made with it! I've also had a few customers in the past request different pairings of fabrics than what I offer. So, hoping to solve both problems, I came up with the Design Your Own Apron concept. I'm basically giving you virtual access to my entire fabric stash of 20 designer fabrics to mix and match and create the reversible apron of your dreams. Haha!

These ideas have been kicked around, experimented with, discussed at length and put on and off to-do lists more times than I can count, so I'm pretty proud to see them finally for sale and I'm eager to see them action. To sweeten the deal, I've decided to offer these two services at 20% off until the end of the month with the discount code CUSTOM20. I sincerely hope you'll take advantage!

Shop Update

Mikey J was very kindly designing some promotional materials for me this past weekend and discovered a bunch of photos we had taken last year that never made it into the shop. They are two of my favourite aprons too. They must have got lost in the holiday shuffle. Anyways, the good news is there are now two beautiful new reversible aprons available for purchase! Woo!

This will probably be it for new listings until after the One of a Kind Show. Also, a word of warning, I'll be closing my Etsy shop for the duration of the show, March 27th-31st, and there are no guarantees as to what will be available afterwards, so if you have your eye on something (ahem... Mother's Day... ahem), I'd advise you to snatch it up in the next three weeks.

On that note, I'm heading back to the sewing table for the remainder of the afternoon. Tea cosies are next on the agenda... the requisite tower of batting should find its way to Instagram shortly. Haha!

Shop Update

Three new aprons were added to the shop this week. Instead of just new prints, these were actually built from a completely new design. They've been in the works for about a year, so I'm pretty excited that they're finally for sale! A lot of thought went behind each feature, so I thought I'd share a few stories of how they came to be.

Technically these aprons were designed with a man in mind, but I think they look good on women too, particularly the red check. Both the gingham cotton and the denim are durable, heavy-weight fabric, so I wanted the apron to work not only in the kitchen, but in the garage as a work apron too. Besides the fabric, the only feature I could find distinguishing a kitchen apron from a work apron was the tiny breast pocket. So I added one. And I like it.

The one thing about an apron that most affects the fit is the neck strap, so I was determined to make it adjustable on this design. Adding grommets allows you to easily tie all the straps wherever is most comfortable. It doesn't hurt that they look cool too. By the way, setting grommets is not  as easy as it looks. After a couple trips to Tundra Leather and whacking every surface of my workshop, an Ikea cutting board on the bathroom floor seemed to be the only process that worked. Try not to picture that every time you put on your apron, ok?

Another word on straps. Without launching into a sewing tutorial, all you need to know about sewing straps here is that the difficulty level increases as the strap decreases. With this desinn, the straps had to be pretty skinny to fit through the grommets and tie, so I decided to use twill tape instead, which is like a cotton fabric ribbon. However, once we tried on the apron, we realized right away that the twill tape was too uncomfortable on the neck. Back to the drawing board. After several tries, I ended up with a sewn strap that is one-inch thick at the neck and tapers towards the ends to tie around the grommet. Your neck can thank me later.

Finally, completely by accident I discovered that because you can remove the neck strap, this apron can easily be converted to a half apron! Huzzah!

I still get requests all the time for the navy plaid denim apron I sold out of in June, so hopefully these will be an adequate replacement. If you ask me, they're better! Please visit my shop for more pics and details.

Tie One On Day Giveaway

Remember in the summer when I shared with you The Apron Book I was reading? Well, the author of that book, EllynAnn Geisel, initiated an event back in 1999 that combines aprons, American Thanksgiving, and charity into one beautiful tradition where you wrap a homemade treat in an apron with a sweet note and deliver it to someone in need of a little physical or emotional sustenance.

To support and celebrate the event, the ladies from the Farm Chick Chit Chat blog are giving away four aprons, one of which is my Farmer's Fresh chambray apron. Jump over to this post and leave a comment to win. The contest is open to all addresses (including Canada) and ends this Sunday, November 25th.

Good luck!

Shop Update

Our internet was on the fritz last week, hence the silence on this end. But y'know what? Turns out I can get a lot of sewing done when the internet isn't around. Novel concept, huh? Haha! It's been lovely to work with the new fabrics I've been looking at since the summer and refreshing to see my Etsy shop finally fill up with new product. What do you think of what's been added so far? There are a few more still to come, some of my favourites actually, so be sure to stay connected over the next week.

Wedding Belles: Part 2

When searching for apron fabrics, I always try to avoid lighter colours and steer entirely clear from whites. Who would want a white apron? As I found out, there is one person that would... a bride. Sheri contacted me following her tasting with some serious anxiety about spilling on her beautiful gown. Totally understandable and a pretty wedding-worthy apron is such a great solution!

 

 

It's also great to work with a customer that knows what she wants, especially when it comes to custom designs. It makes my job so much easier. Ivory cotton, pleating, v-neck halter, eyelet lace. I think I met all of her criteria, plus have it serve it's protective purpose. Just please spare me the details if you spill a plate of pasta in your lap, ok, Sheri?

I'm thrilled with how this turned out and will most definitely offer it for purchase in the shop in the future. If you're interested before I get a chance to do that, feel free to contact me.

 

Good luck this weekend, Sheri, and thanks again!