A quick sewing project

I needed a new apron for when I get to play with the Bake Oven , when I volunteer at the heritage village.  I've been borrowing one from the costume department but they are all a bit too large and a bit too frilly for me.  I'm short and some of the ruffly things are just too overwhelming to work in.  As well, they're all white, which is more of a fancy apron that a work apron for the time of 1865 - 70.   I decided to make one that actually fit me.

  Most work aprons that I've seen from that time period are pinner aprons, which use pins to hold up the bib, rather than a band or tie.  As well, work aprons really did tend to be colouful and patterned to hide the dirt.  I can say that when I work the oven, I get soot on my apron almost immediately, which shows up on the white most dramatically.  

The only fabric store left in town has a huge quilting department which does stock a few period reproduction prints.   While I wasn't in love with this pattern at first, the price was definitely right and the bolt markings designated it as 1863, which was pretty close to the time period I was after.  Pretty much everything else was later and a few were earlier.

It was pretty easy to sew up.  I marked and cut the pattern yesterday and sewed it together this afternoon.    I combined two different "patterns" for this project.  The first instructions were from The Sewing Academy,  from the section of free patterns.  The second was from World Turned Upside Down.  I do wish I'd gathered the bib a bit, but otherwise it's turned out quite nicely.  

The apron has buttons at the back, rather than ties.   I couldn't find my little piece of wood that I normally keep in my sewing box,  when I needed to cut the waistband button holes, so I took the apron out to the chopping block.  I found this little buttonhole chisel a while back and it cuts the cleanest buttonholes ever, way nicer than using snips or scissors.  It's one of those right tools for the job and makes a professional, very clean slice.


I put two patch pockets on the apron.  I've only seen a couple of that era aprons with large patch pockets, but there are a few.  It's the one thing that I find myself missing, so I added them.  I did match the patterns though, so they are more than  a bit discrete.  Here is the finished apron, pinned to the barn.  By the time I'd finished the apron, I loved the fabric and could have seen a dress made of this.  However I can't have a dress and an apron made of the same fabric, so I'll have to keep looking.

I purchased 3 yards of fabric but have 3/4 of a yard leftover, so I guess that means I've started collection reproduction fabrics for  a quilt! 

Rudbekia Goldsturm is one of my favourite flowers.  Despite it being yellow, it blooms for a very long time and at the end of the summer, when  a lot of the perennials have already had their 15 minutes of fame.  Sometimes I harvest it for dye plants, but it makes a rather soft, greenish colour and I do think it's value really is in the garden rather than the dye pot.

A Fun and Fabulous Weekend - Icelandic Althing

Spit with clay, copper, rivet pots and fry pan.

This weekend we were reenactment camping.   The weather was on the cool side, which meant lots of blankets and a good reason to wear the wool tunics we make.   It was an early Norse themed event and the second reenactment group I play with, camped together to do some awesome period playing.   

We had two cooking fires going.  One spit held pots with peppered apples, hot cider, veggies, water, stew and sausages.  The other started off with a dye pot and a pan for flat breads but ended up with a huge roast beef, which was our dinner.

Cooking flatbreads, while watching the beef.

The owners of the property had hoped to get a permanent outdoor cob oven built (which we were going to get to play with), but real life intervened and they weren't able to get it built.    What they did do, was cobble together some wonderful supplies for us to make a temporary oven to try out.  We piled up cinder blocks, put on two kiln shelves and made a little enclosure of soft fire brick.   We were pretty certain that it would hold enough heat to bake bread, despite a couple of people who were sure it wouldn't work.   My small pottery kiln uses fire brick to insulate the kiln, keeping the heat fairly well contained and allows it to cool down slowly. 

Experimental temporary bread oven

We built a fire in it and kept it going for a little over 4 hours, until the fire brick was quite warm to the touch.   We scraped out the fire, did a quick clean out of the ash and promptly popped in a loaf of bread dough, totally forgetting that we needed to let the oven soak, or sit closed for a few minutes to allow the temperature to even out.   Our first loaf, was burnt on the outside, but cooked on the inside.   It was pretty amazing how quickly people decided to check it out and ripping off the burnt edges, devoured the yummy insides.    We were able to cook 3 more loaves of bread after that, with each loaf taking a few minutes longer than the previous loaf simply because of heat loss due to opening the door and of course because there wasn't enough extra insulation to hold in the heat for a long time.

Bread from the oven and the charred remains of the first loaf

We were thrilled with the results and thankful that the event organizers had gone to the extra effort of getting us the materials to play with. We were over the top with excitement after getting the first useable loaf from the oven.  That we got 3 delicious loaves was beyond expectations.  How cool was it that the event organizers facilitated such a fantastic experience for us on a great day?  Our group was collectively overwhelmed and over the top with excitement.