Matching Aprons & Chef Hats

My mom called me shortly before Christmas to ask me to make an apron for my beautiful niece Ari, who likes to help her Nana bake cookies in the kitchen.  (Evidently Ari doesn't like playing with toys as much as she likes doing things with grownups.)  After thinking on it for a few minutes, I realized that Ari totally needed a tiny chef's hat to go with her little apron.  Then I thought that perhaps what would really make my mom's day was if she and Ari had matching aprons and hats.

I spent part of a day of finals week whipping these up in the Costume Shop, while Jim was taking his last two exams.

Mom's hat and apron:

Ari's hat and apron:

Both sets for size comparison:

And finally mom and Ari after opening them on Christmas Eve:

I wish I had more time to work on them, because I really would have loved to add "Ari" and "Nana" to them somewhere.  Perhaps embroidered on the pockets.  But I really wanted to make sure the package got there by Christmas, so I just went ahead and sent them out.  Though she looks a bit sad in this picture, I'm told she was quite excited by her hat.

Just for fun, I also included some felt play food for Ari, even though she's a bit young for it.  I whipped up these all up in a single evening.

Breakfast goodies including pancakes with butter and syrup, sausages, bacon, and eggs over easy:

And since I had a bunch of purple and orange felt too, an eggplant and some carrots.  (Which Ari will probably help mom grow in the garden this year too!)

When I told my brother I knew that Ari might be too young for the felt food he said she actually seemed to understand immedietly that it was NOT supposed to go into her mouth.  Instead she holds it up and says "Nom, nom, nom", then holds it up for Nana, and is not satified until Nana "noms" on it too.  She evidently also likes to put it in her new toy grocery cart and push it around.  I'm clearly going to need to make more of these things...

Oh, and a big thanks goes out to Pinkleo for giving me all that felt last year in Craftster's 12 Days of Christmas Swap!  It was a life saver to have so much of it around when doing this at the last minute!