{"id":3734,"date":"2009-12-07T23:24:27","date_gmt":"2009-12-08T04:24:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.janicefergusonsews.com\/blog\/?p=3734"},"modified":"2014-10-18T21:06:43","modified_gmt":"2014-10-19T01:06:43","slug":"pgm-gingerbread-aprons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.janicefergusonsews.com\/blog\/2009\/12\/07\/pgm-gingerbread-aprons\/","title":{"rendered":"PGM Gingerbread Aprons"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Gingerbread houses are truly old fashioned projects for old fashioned Nanas.\u00c2\u00a0 It can be one of the most lasting Christmas memories for your children \u00c2\u00a0or grandchildren.<\/p>\n

Since my children were old enough to lick the mixer beaters, we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve made Christmas gingerbread houses.\u00c2\u00a0 And all the PlayGroup Mamas made gingerbread houses with their children (see earlier post, PGM-PlayGroup Mamas <\/em><\/a>ifor explanation of PlayGroup Mamas).<\/p>\n

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PGM Arlene made four every year, one for each child.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 Striving\u00c2\u00a0to make the best house or the best fire station or the best school or whatever,\u00c2\u00a0 they were fiercely competitive.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0Each\u00c2\u00a0child\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0had a big idea and a big time.<\/p>\n

A few Christmases ago, when\u00c2\u00a0a few\u00c2\u00a0of the PlayGroup Moms started backsliding in this time honored tradition, Arlene gifted each of us with an unadorned but\u00c2\u00a0constructed gingerbread house. We gathered together to decorate our cookie houses, each bringing a variety of decorative candies, a box of 10X confectioners sugar and\u00c2\u00a0extra electric mixers.\u00c2\u00a0Like Arlene’s children, we each had a big idea and a very big time.<\/p>\n

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my PlayGroup Kid, Rebecca, born one year after PlayGroup was organized<\/p><\/div>\n

Surely you’ve heard the expression, “Give a man a fish and he eats for a day.\u00c2\u00a0 Teach him to fish and he eats for the rest of his life.”\u00c2\u00a0 Arlene believes that.<\/p>\n

The next year,\u00c2\u00a0she gave each of us a copy of her recipe, a set of templates for the gingerbread pieces\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0and arranged\u00c2\u00a0 site (Gale’s house) for us to\u00c2\u00a0build our houses.\u00c2\u00a0 Hence, the establishment of PlayGroup Construction.<\/p>\n

Several of our grown and nearly grown daughters, as well as\u00c2\u00a0one daughter-in-law, begged their way into the new annual event. In honor of the occasion, I issued work clothes– embroidered, ready-made canvas aprons for the crew of the candied construction company.<\/p>\n

The gingerbread house design is simple and straightforward, from Bernina\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Christmas #105<\/em>. Additionally, this apron has some interesting details. The text alphabet for PGM and PGK (PlayGroup Kid) is made up\u00c2\u00a0from a\u00c2\u00a0free alphabet, entitled Bonaparte<\/em>, which\u00c2\u00a0I downloaded many years ago. I think it is one of the most charming set of letters I have ever seen.<\/p>\n

Near the bottom of the apron is an appliqu\u00c3\u00a9d ultrasuede gingerbread boy, with the owner\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s name above. Instead of covering the edges with satin stitching, I waited until the design was complete and trimmed approximately 1\/8 from the stitching line.<\/p>\n

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Even with all that embroidery,\u00c2\u00a0the apron\u00c2\u00a0didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t look finished to me. So around the edges, I used the stitch often called shadow scallop. In order to get good coverage, I used 12 wt. Cotty thread, which appears to me to be identical to Sulky\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 12 wt. thread. Not only did this thread give good coverage, its thickness allowed me to stretch out the stitch pattern and use fewer stitches, thus saving a lot of time.<\/p>\n

Every time I see that apron hanging on\u00c2\u00a0 my old Hoosier cabinet, I have fond memories of all the good times I have had\u00c2\u00a0decorating \u00c2\u00a0gingerbread houses with my friends and family.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  Gingerbread houses are truly old fashioned projects for old fashioned Nanas.\u00c2\u00a0 It can be one of the most lasting Christmas memories for your children \u00c2\u00a0or grandchildren. Since my children were old enough to lick the mixer beaters, we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve made … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[35,43,19,15,18,17],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.janicefergusonsews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3734"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.janicefergusonsews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.janicefergusonsews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.janicefergusonsews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.janicefergusonsews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3734"}],"version-history":[{"count":47,"href":"http:\/\/www.janicefergusonsews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3734\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31629,"href":"http:\/\/www.janicefergusonsews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3734\/revisions\/31629"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.janicefergusonsews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3734"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.janicefergusonsews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3734"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.janicefergusonsews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3734"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}