Aprons from hand printed fabric and the story of the gunky pants

I have a lot of dreams. One of them is of me enjoying a big studio in the house, where I spend lovely hours designing fabrics, meters and meters of them, then printing them and sorting them out to send to my extremely (of course) happy and satisfied customers. In my dream I am very good at it and the room is abundant in colorful graphic fabrics and big working tables.

Now back to reality, in which I have never done any such thing, short of doing hand prints with the kids on a t-shirt for Mr.Blab for fathers day.  The kids have been asking for aprons, ever since I said I had thought of giving them some as Christmas presents.  Cause they would not get that idea from just watching me. I seem to have no problem with the  wiping of food and gunk on my clothes while cooking. And I wipe a lot. Kind of in a daze. Maybe that is why they asked for aprons…to save themselves from ending up like me! With gunky pants.

Then I found this calico fabric, which seemed perfect for some printing play. And we went for it. We started doing the fabric making.

The kids chose their designs. Ms.Fab wanted to do cherries, so she cut off two circles on one stencil and the stems on another. Then she chose the colors and off she went.

Little B wanted an elephant. I was all prepared to draw this lovely specimen we have on a growth chart, but she insisted on doing it herself. So she did. And she drew the best elephant I have ever seen. I shall call him Elvis Elephant, as he looks like he has some wild stylish hair, dude.  I cut up the stencil and off she went.

Then the fabric dries for entirely too long according to a child’s time perceptions.

And here comes my part, just in case you thought I am just a lowly photographer in this story, not an actual contributor to beauty and aesthetics. I whipped out the sawing machine and turned the fabric the girls created into aprons. With frills!

I am no great sawing goddess. I dont use patterns and/or plans. It all happens in some sort of a creative mind blur. I have a general idea of what I am trying to do and then hope it works in practice as it perfectly does in my head. It rarely does, but I get close.

And there you have it.

It was so much fun, I want to do it again. But this time I want to be making the printing and designing.

I wonder what can I make out of the fabric…new pants probably?