In the last two weeks Julius has been experiencing a lot more screen time than he ever has before… In the past we’d let him watch one movie a week, now he has a daily conference call at 10:30am with daycare, and he watches 2 movies a day in the afternoon. (Yes you read that right, Julius has been conference calling with his daycare – it’s adorable.) Poor Will is taking the brunt of childcare activities during this quarantine because until a couple days ago I was working crazy hours and weekends. (Now I’m working mostly normal hours and just every other Saturday.) I can’t complain because unlike a lot of people I am able to continue working full time from home.
One of the activities during Julius’ daycare conference call this week was “a bear hunt”. (If you haven’t heard about this, you should put a teddy bear in your window even if you don’t have a kid.) I was not surprised to learn that his daycare was excited to share news of the international “bear hunt” since Julius made me aware that his class had read “Going on a bear hunt” a couple weeks ago. This morning we went on a walk in our tiny neighborhood and found 3 bears! But Julius assured me “I not scared”.
Julius and I are also baking and cooking to beat the quarantine blues! We have made several batches of muffins in assorted types, peanut butter coconut flour cookies (when we couldn’t find regular flour), peanut butter ice cream and gnocchi to name a few. The peanut butter ice cream was amazing, I used the Ben & Jerry’s recipe from their book (yes I have their book) and it was to die for. The gnocchi I used in a vegetarian-ized version of Olive Garden’s Chicken and Gnocchi soup. It was amazing. Overall we’re eating pretty well during this quarantine.
My little chef has been wearing the apron I made him for Christmas during our cooking forays. So far so good – it’s covered in stains so it must be doing it’s job. This one was really quick to make.
Toddler Apron
What You’ll Need:
- 1 yard of woven material of your choice (I used linen)
- template here
- Cut out apron using template provided – be sure to cut on fold.
- Cut a 16″x2.5″ strip for the neck and two 22.5″x2.5″ strips for the ties.
- Fold ties in half, press. Fold under 1/2″ all around (with the exception of one side on the length. Press and stitch.
- Fold neck loop in half, press. Fold under 1/2″ on the long edge. Press and stitch.
- Form a rolled hem on all sides of the apron except the top. Press and pin.
- Feed the unfinished end of one raw strap underneath the rolled hem you just pinned on one side of the apron where the apron makes a point. Then fold strap so the end faces out from the apron. Pin. Repeat with second strap on opposite side.
- Stitch all around the rolled hem you created, making sure to securely attach the straps you pinned.
- Fold the neckline down 1/2″ and then another 1″ to form a thick rolled hem. Pin.
- Insert one end of the neck strap under the rolled hem on one edge, then fold up so the strap protrudes from the top of the apron. Pin.
- Repeat for the second side of the neck strap, taking care to avoid twisting the neck strap.
- Stitch close to all edges of the 1″ rolled hem.
- Decorate as desired! (I of course decided Muffin Man was apropos!)
