Sewing for Dad

I know I'm biased, but my dad is a truly lovely man.  He'll always go out of his way to do anything for anybody, and I haven't a scooby as to how many DIY related favours he's done for me over the years, so when he recently asked me to do a favour for him of course I said 'yes'!

He can turn his hand to most things, but sewing's not his forte.

After enjoying 40+ years of my mum's excellent culinary skills, Dad has recently had to learn to cook for himself.  It's not easy learning any new skill later in life, and I'm really proud of him.  

He has just started a 'Cooking for One' evening class and realised that his apron had seen better days and wasn't really fit to be seen in public!

This apron was a gift to Dad from his grandmother, sometime before he met Mum (in 1965) and had become completely threadbare.  I bought him a new one a couple of Christmasses ago, but he's very attached to this one!

The only option was to patch it.

I looked through my fabric stash and concluded that everything I had was far too girly to be used on a man apron, and I'd have to somehow design my own patch.

Then I had a light bulb moment!  I knew I had an old photo of Dad wearing the apron, so I scanned it into the computer and printed it onto a piece of cotton.  This photo was taken in 1973!

I ironed it on to the apron using Bondaweb...

.. and then stitched it securely.

It wasn't quite big enough to cover the entire threadbare area so I had to add a wee piece of not-too-girly patterned fabric at the bottom.

Ta da... here he is tucking into the fishcakes he made at his evening class last week!