Tale of a two-sided apron

Before I had George, I spent a lot of time reading blogs and clicking through flickr, oohing and ahhing over all the cute things people made for their kids.  When I found out I was having a boy, I sighed in crafty disappointment, would I ever get to make those tiered skirts and pillowcase sundresses?
Lately George has taken an interest in cooking with me, and one night it occurred to me, he needs an apron..

We went up to the sewing room together to choose fabric.  He picked the dino print for the front, I chose the shamrocks for the back.  I measured across his chest and the lenght I wanted it to be, then handed him the tape measure so I could go about writing up a pattern.  I drafted one half of the apron pattern on freezer paper, positioned it on the dino fabric to get the best dinos centered, then folded it in half and cut it out.  I used the dino fabric as a guide to cut out the shamrocks. 

At that point, I told George we should go back downstairs and I'd finish it after he went to bed.  No, he wanted it NOW.  Ok, ok, we'll sew it now. 

I hastily made ties from the selvage edge and a neck strap out of the green, whipped up a pocket for the shamrock side only (I knew he didn't have patience for me to fussy cut and place a dino pocket on), and he sat on my lap as we stitched it together.  BTW, the Janome has way more buttons than my old Kenmore, so trying to sew with George on my lap has become increasingly difficult.  Thankfully he's easily distracted by asking that he remove straight pins from what we've just sewn..

"Wow, that was fast and easy!" I thought as I finished up the top stitching and shook it out to admire my work.  I went to slip it over his head and.. it didn't fit.  When I took the neck measurement I measured from where I wanted the top to hang, and around the back of his neck.  I didn't add any in for how big his head was.  I wanted to cry.  And he wanted to wear the apron.  I don't remember how I distracted him and got him back downstairs, but I needed time to think about how to fix it without ripping out a bunch of stitching.

Clearly, he was done with the photo shoot..

I ended up slicing the neck strap in the middle and adding a piece of fabric covered elastic, scrunchie style (tell me you made scrunchies when you were a kid..), and it worked out just fine.  He loves it and wears it whenever I'm cooking, or when he's "cooking" in the play kitchen.  I'm so happy I could make something he would use, and there's the added bonus that he chose the dino fabric that I bought for this quilt, in 1994...