Tonight, my husband and I are heading to an open house to celebrate the one year anniversary of our favorite pizza place, Pizzeria Lola. Lola is one of those places that’s always warm and bustling, though never so busy that the people who work there don’t have time to chat with you. Marry that with some fantastic pizza and it has quickly become a neighborhood favorite. Matt and I eat there probably more that we should and have gotten to know a lot of the staff especially owner/chef, Ann. I wanted to bring her a little something to say thank you. Originally, I was hoping to find a dog vase to replace the one that was stolen from the restaurant, but couldn’t find a similar one anywhere. That dog vase reminded Ann of her dog Lola, who the restaurant is named after. Matt and I put our heads together and decided I would embroider an apron with Lola on it. First, you have to see just how cute Lola is.
And here’s the apron I whipped up yesterday.
It’s so easy to make these custom embroidery patterns using dressmakers tracing paper. I start with the picture I want to turn into the pattern. Matt grab this still from the video for me.
I cropped it and resized it to the size I wanted it on my apron. You can also change it to black and white and up the contrast if that helps you see the details.
Then I taped it to a blank piece of paper to hold it still and slid a piece of tracing paper between them (look for a tracing paper that isn’t too powdery or chalky, that just gets on everything). With a pen or pencil, draw along the lines you want in your design. Check to make sure you are pressing hard enough that the lines transfer through.
It may take a few tries to get the pattern to look exactly like you want. I went through three versions of this one before getting exactly the amount of detail I wanted, not too much and not too little. You can also see I penned in a few changed after I was done tracing too.
Once I have my final design, I pin in in place on my fabric. Once again I use dressmakers tracing paper to copy the design onto the fabric. It works well on dark fabrics too as the paper comes in yellow, white and pink.
Now it’s just a matter of putting the fabric in a hoop and stitching away. I kept this one simple just using split stitch, back stitch and a few french knots for the eyes.
I hope Ann likes it!
© 2005 – 2011 Kathy Lewinski & Susan Cornish
What a great gift. How can someone not love this? So thoughtful of you and you and Matt.
First of all, you guys are so cool, getting invited to an exclusive event like that!. Rock-it.
The apron is cute as it can be!!! I hope she loves it, and WEARS IT!!!.
Can’t wait to hear how the party is!
I’m not sure how exclusive an event an open house is, but it should be fun.
Thanks for all the comments folks.
I love it. And so will Ann. Like you said the only thing better would have been finding another vase. Have fun tonight. Now I want pizza for dinner.
You know, I think I’d frame it rather than wear it….
Very cute. And it looks like the same technique could be used to make an applique if you had wanted to have a chocolate color in the midst of all the white of the apron.
Seanna – Yeah, I’ve done a lot of applique too. I just like the look of the outline here.