1950's housewife?....

Very sweetly - and unprompted by me - for the last year or so whenever we are having anything with a tomato-based sauce at teatime, Zebra-Girl has got into the habit of whipping her clothes off and coming to the table in just her underwear, knowing how much I dislike spending hours trying to remove tomato from clothes. No amount of offering her plastic tabards could persuade her to keep them on as she is apparently 'too grown-up' for tabards now (said in a particularly teenagerish way, while glancing at Dinosaur-Boy who sits happily in his Maisy Mouse tabard unaware of the put-down).

But last week I read that you can make a very 'mature' style of apron for a child from a tea-towel, and by chance I happened to have two lovely tea towels that I'd bought recently in the Laura Ashley sale sitting in my fabric stash just waiting to be transformed. So last night I ran one up - and had lots of fun choosing the colours and fabrics for the applique fairy cake, pocket and ties. It is a good fit and she happily ate her tea in it tonight with full school uniform on beneath it and not a knicker or bare tummy in sight! Horay!

Zebra-Girl did her doll's ironing while wearing it and I think there's definitely a disturbing air of '1950s housewife' about her.

I intend to make one for Dinosaur-Boy later this week too, just in case he is silently brooding over Zebra-Girl's comment that implied he is perhaps looking rather babyish in his Maisy outfit. In terms of size, his will need quite a bit of adjustment as I popped Zebra-Girl's one on to him and it comes down to his ankles - so I will be shortening both the length and the neck. But for an average 5/6 year old - Zebra-Girl is 45 inches tall (Sorry, I haven't weaned myself onto metric yet) - a standard size tea towel seems to do the job - 19.5 inches x 25 inches.

Below is the pattern that I did for it...as you can see, I am going 'pro' with my pattern designing and have used my best felt tips for the purpose! Awful, I know, but you get a vague idea of size.