A Poncho and an Apron for a Little Friend

When I was a little girl, my Grandmother made me lots of beautiful clothing. She made the dresses that I wore every day, and she also made cute pinafores and sunbonnets. My mother kept some of the dresses that I didn’t wear out and the pinafores and bonnets. My girls play dress-up with these items constantly, and I am so glad that my Mom saved them. I am also putting some of the items back into my cedar chest so that if my girls ever have daughters, my granddaughters might be able to appreciate them also.

I have sewn and knitted for my girls and hope to do more in the future for them, but in the past few months, I have really enjoyed making some tinier items for an infant neighbor, who is my girls’ best friend these days. We get to spend time with her occasionally, and she is a joy and a delight to our hearts.

When I was recovering from my episodes of paralysis and muscle weakness back in December, I sat on the reclining sofa and knitted…it was so good to be able to do something with my hands while my legs were still giving me problems. I decided to make our little friend a poncho because my girls wear the ponchos that I made for them almost every day. The ponchos are so practical because the girls can put them on all by themselves without having to deal with buttons or zippers. I used the same pattern that I used for Emma, but instead of using size 10 needles, I used size 8 needles. I made some additional adjustments to the pattern (a rib stitch at the neckline, a shorter bottom ruffle with a crocheted scalloped edge, etc.) Fortunately, it fit her perfectly! I also made a little headband, making up the pattern, using knitting and crocheting to get the final result.

A couple of weeks ago, I made a prototype of a simple apron to see if I had the correct measurements for the nearly 8-month old little girl.

And then last week, I made one that is slightly larger (because she is growing so quickly) with the eyelet part of the same fabric that I used for the first one.

I love when I see pictures of the little girl cooking with her mom, and I hope that when she is older, she will join my girls in baking and setting up for tea parties and enjoying them together.

I nearly forgot to add in my label so that if the apron gets passed to someone else in the future, that others will know the origin of the apron and know that it was handmade with love.

I plan to make some more aprons for my daughters. Once I get the pattern for the style that I plan to make for them perfected, I will share a tutorial with you. The second apron in this post was a bit too complicated to share in a blog post, and so I plan to make something a bit less complicated to share with you. Seriously, words fail me when attempting to describe what I did here. :-)

Additionally, I want to make some kitchen and garden aprons for myself…again, I create all of my own designs and patterns, which takes some time but I look forward to sharing these with you at some point in the future!

Also, I have gotten permission from the publisher of the knitting pattern that I shared about in my last post to share the Feather and Fan Knitted Blanket pattern with you for a limited period of time. Stay tuned for that! I will be writing another post for that as soon as I get the details worked out with the publisher.