The Dish(towel) on Aprons

By Betsy Iler, Assistant Editor for Sew Beautiful magazine.

Asked to design aprons for the staff of a renewal weekend in my church, I had to come up with something colorful and unique, as well as very cost effective. I bought 14 white dishtowels at a discount market and then raided my stash for embellishment supplies.

In addition to several yards of cotton solids, I found rickrack in assorted bright colors, a soutache braid I bought at the Martha Pullen Company indoor yard sale last year, and lots of buttons. I also found an old pair of blue jeans that my son had long ago outgrown. I just sort of threw all of the pieces out on my sewing table and let the thread and scissors fly!

No two of the 14 aprons will be alike, but all of them will feature pieces of old blue jeans and the soutache braid, which lends continuity to the collection. The cross embroidery is from the Crosses machine embroidery CD, and the pocket embroidery is from MPC’s 2011 Internet Embroidery Club. I used true-type fonts in my Viking software to create the rest of the lettering.

I’ve spent less than $20 and cleaned out my stash, and the program staff will have these fun aprons as souvenirs of their service!