I wanted the apron to look like a pleated private school skirt, but I couldn't decide on the color. So I made a new "plaid" from the plaid fabrics in my stash. Of course I forgot to take a picture of all the fabrics before I started so the little scrap of green is all I had at the end. That the comforter in the background is also plaid is not lost on me either :)
First I took some old muslin and created the shape I wanted the skirt to be, including figuring out the size of the pleats. I didn't hem the muslin since I wanted to use it as the back of the "quilt" I would make out of the plaids so I would match the lengths up later. (hehe you can see my trusty steamer in this pic which is VERY helpful when creating pleats)
Then I basically treated the new plaid like a quilt top and pieced it together using the darker green as the main background color. I debated using the orange as the main color, but I thought the green looked more traditional. I used the orange as accent later though hehe.
Once the fabric was put together I was ready to match it up to the muslin. I had taken in to account the size of the pleats and the size of the new plaid stripes so they would line up in a neat sort of pattern.
When I finally pinned the fabric up to the muslin I was happy with how it all came together. It didn't look EXACTLY like a traditional plaid, but was a fun combo of colors and patterns so it was alright with me!
In the meantime I had the movie Hairspray on in the background (the Travolta/Pfeiffer version not the Ricki Lake/Sonny Bono) to give me some plaid inspiration. I decided that instead of having to tie the apron at the neck I would make a necktie sort of thing which would hold everything up. This shirt that Tracy Turnblad wears in the movie is what I was inspired by, but this picture shows a better back view even though it's a different Tracy. I added some accents around the neck, some buttons down the front, and a stripe of the orange plaid through the belt/tie strings and the apron was complete.
