MOSES LAKE — Bonnie Byington’s apron project was something fun in a tough year.

Byington, 82, had some struggles with her health in 2019, the kind that required multiple surgeries and hospital stays.

She has been sewing since she was a teenager, and sewing became a refuge. “I can go in my sewing room and lose myself,” she said.

The apron project was her focus. The goal was to make an apron for every daughter and daughter-in-law, granddaughter and granddaughter-in-law, every great-granddaughter and a few for friends and relatives. For Byington that added up to 53 aprons.

She set up a display of 49 of them at her home near Moses Lake recently.

It’s a project she had been considering, off and on, for about five years, she said. “I’ve collected ideas and patterns.” Some are her own designs, and “all of them I’ve put my own take on.”

She had most of the fabric, she said, including some that had belonged to her mom, dating back to the 1940s. She inherited boxes of trim from a friend, and a lot of the lace, ribbon and braid went into the aprons.

“They’re not just aprons.” Each was designed for a specific person, taking into account each woman’s tastes and interests.

As she looked through her stash, it became clear which fabric was right for each recipient, she said.

“I just knew who this (pattern and fabric) was for, and who this one was for and this one was for,” she said, pointing to various aprons on display in the living room. “I just kept pulling fabric out of my stash and putting it together.”

The panel featuring the dairy cow went with dairy-themed fabric for the granddaughter-in-law who once showed cattle. The fabric with hearts and flowers went into a mother-and-daughter set. She used fabric from her mom’s stash and remnants from other projects.

The apron for the daughter-in-law born on Christmas Day did require some new fabric to match the Santa Claus panel, she said.

“Some I had to piece in a place or two,” she said, referring to the technique of supplementing fabric pieces that are too small. Byington practiced old fabric manipulation techniques and tried some new ones, experimented with stitches on her machine to produce decorative effects.

Some were fun, like the Spanish smocking. Some weren’t so fun, like the V-shaped armhole binding. “Those were a bear to do.”

She started making aprons in May, she said, and has been working on them ever since, with the exception of October. That month was dedicated to a different project, a special dress for a 5-year-old great-granddaughter, constructed from velvet, with smocking decorated with glass pearls. “It’s a labor of love, smocking,” Byington said. Her great-granddaughter sewed on the final pearl .

She has been sewing since childhood, she said. “In high school I wanted to be a home ec teacher.” She married a dairy farmer instead, she said, and helped run the farm for the next 50 years. Bonnie and her husband, Carl, have seven children, 34 grandchildren and 38 great-grandchildren.