It's finished!

I finally got over my annoyance and unpicked the stitching on the waistband. It wasn't so bad as I'd originally thought and I only had to re-stitch half. The pattern said to slipstitch the back side of the waistband, but I ended up top stitching the right side of the waistband so that it sat nicely instead.

The topstitched waistband

The completed bodice

The final thing to do was to sew the button holes & buttons. I realised at this point that despite having checked more than once, I'd sewn the bodice onto the skirt backwards. You can only tell if you look at the lace closely.. isn't it annoying when you do something silly like that?? 

 Meanwhile it's been quite some time since I've sewn a buttonhole, so I grabbed my sewing machine manual and referred to the instructions.. there's a time for flying by the seat of your pants, and a time for making sure you don't stuff things up! I used some of my selvage offcuts to practice some buttonholes first, which was a good idea seeing as I needed to adjust my stitch length & width to suit. I'm so glad I didn't take a lazy shortcut, especially as the first "real" buttonhole still looked a bit funny (because of the added bulk of the lace that hindered the fabric feeding properly) although the buttons went on like a dream. Thank goodness!

All buttoned up!

 One of the added bonuses to this pattern appears to be that if you're in the mood you can just let the bodice hang down (you can see the ends peeking out, but when it's done up it doesn't) and just wear it as a half-apron. Which would be handy if I were someone else... my main problem is usually that something splashes onto my top, which is why I need the bodice in the first place!

And so here she is! All finished and complete! And as Bean pointed out, I only have two more to make now (one for him.. in a different design of course! and one for Blossom). I finished the apron just in time to pack it to take on holidays.. Blossom, Bean, my mom and I are heading off on a road trip in the morning to visit my grandparents for a few days. There could be no better opportunity to test out/break in my new apron than with some holiday cooking/baking!