Hey, I thought this was a sewing blog?! It is, but I’m also writing a bit about DIY’ing my wedding. Want to know why? Click here. 

Though this post is about 2 months old, I didn’t want to publish it earlier because a) it would have ruined the surprise for my friends receiving these thank you gifts (the fourth and final gift gets to its recipient on Thursday) and b) it turns out to be a perfect Thanksgiving post because I am so thankful for the love and friendship I felt this year throughout the wedding process. So, eat on, hug a little and I hope you and yours celebrate friendship, family and love this holiday!

What wedding would happen without the help of incredible friends? Well, I suppose if you had a ton of money to hire a wedding planner with 10 hands, that would work too. But most of us rely on our friends, primarily girlfriends, for assistance. So, when I went on my honeymoon, I took my sewing machine with me to make some thank-you gifts for these amazing helpers.

First things first: this is where we honeymooned, Crested Butte, Colorado. Though I easily live in one of the world’s most beautiful states, this town takes the cake. The mountains and sun play together to reflect a little bit of heaven.

For five glorious days, we lived in a rented home by the river, with a rooftop deck and a hot tub. The dogs came with us. We watched Deep Space 9 on the iPad and drank beer. It was perfectly quiet. God’s country.

And as if that wasn’t enough, I had an entire room to myself for sewing:

I think I shocked a lot of people by bringing my sewing machine on my honeymoon. But I wouldn’t have had it any other way – and my husband didn’t mind it so much either. He came and read while I sewed, or went on a walk with the dogs. It was kind of, sort of, well, perfect.

I decided ahead of time that I wanted to make my girlfriends something for the home, and aprons seemed just the thing. I picked a pattern and a book that I had on my shelves for ages and couldn’t wait to try: I Love Patchwork: 21 Irresistible Zakka Projects to Sew by Rashida Coleman-Hale.

I had linen in my stash from a year ago, when I decided to delve into this book but didn’t have the time. I made four aprons from this pattern.

A few notes, in case you’re looking to make one yourself:

~ I used linen for just the apron front and the facing on the waist on two of the four aprons. I picked a matching cotton for the back, ties and facing on the other two. I really liked how the look turned out, and I’d recommend it in the future.

~ This project is a great scrap-buster. I pulled fabrics from my stash before heading on my honeymoon, but past that, I didn’t really think much about fabric choices. And actually, this is a great project for those small scraps that you might otherwise throw away because they’re too small for just about anything. Well, not too small for this! I now save smaller scraps, thanks to learning from this pattern that a scrap is (almost) never too small to be reused!

~ Kristina