It’s a set of Aprons for that special Mother/daughter/son, or Father/daughter/son combo. And of course there are numerous other combos … the Aunt or Uncle/niece/nephew, Grandparent ……. etc …
The original challenge by the 3 other sisters and our mother was to make matching aprons for an adult and child from shirts. If it weren’t an upcycle challenge, I could have just gone out and bought a child’s shirt and adult man’s shirt as a matching set. But, I also don’t like accepting easy challenges.. what’s the challenge in that? lol
I found a man’s light pink shirt, a boy’s purple plaid shirt and hoped that some hand dyeing would do the trick to pull them together enough that I could mix and match parts … take from the plaid and put on the solid and vice-a-versa. But once I set dye to each piece, ugh … I was further away from my goal than when I started.
No, I’m not going to show what that combo looked like. Just trust me, ugh ugh ugh … not quite gag me with a stick ugh, but it definitely was not going to fly …. so back to the drawing board.
I WILL show you the man’s shirt on the dye boards though.
After all the parts of the shirt were dry and I had set the dye, I found myself tossing all the parts of this shirt from one hand to the other… How was I going to make this work, because I might end up searching the rest of my life for a child’s shirt that would mesh with the pink/dyed purple man’s shirt.
So, it was inventory time… I needed to look at this project differently. Just what did I have available in my hand that I wasn’t seeing the bigger picture of uses for? I knew I would need most every bit of the back for the ties and I would use one sleeve for the larger deep pockets I like to put on my aprons and then it hit me— every shirt has TWO sleeves, silly — The BIG question though was, can I squeeze a child sized apron out of a man’s shirt sleeve?
And here’s the answer to that question – YES! You can squeeze a child sized apron from a man’s shirt sleeve.
Here’s the set together along with the adult apron by its self.
Even the lining is hand-dyed- and yeah, I do like lining my aprons.
Here’s all that’s left of the original “Joseph & Feiss” man’s dress shirt size 16 36/37.
Now, as a side note, I can hear some people saying ‘yeah, I can see a woman, mother, daughter, aunt, grandmother wearing a purple apron, but no man I know is going to wear a purple apron… ‘
To that I say this – ANY GUY will look AWESOME in a purple shirt as well as a hand-dyed purple apron, so give it a go… (I’d go so far as saying a guy looks “HOT” in purple but I’ve been told, at my age I shouldn’t be saying things like that in public… so – I won’t …… just play like you didn’t read that. (Unread, Unread – Unsee, Unsee, as Shari likes to say.)
Beyond that, as I write this post, the apron set is over on Etsy. If it’s gone by time you read this article and you’d like a set, then send us an email here on the blog at 4TxSisters (at) gmail.com. Address it to Jennifer – or not—lol – guess it really doesn’t matter who you address it to, so far, I’m the apron maker of the group, so most likely it will be passed on to me.
So, in the mean time….
Live Every Moment, Love Beyond Words, Laugh Everyday,
~Jennifer
4TxSisters at Etsy