Thoughts on Aprons and a Finished Sweater Too (Sort of Yarning-Along)

Since my week in reading and knitting has been fairly uneventful (aside from getting the finishing touches on Phoebe's sweater finished-- she does look pretty darn cute, doesn't she?) I thought I would spare you the details and instead ponder my most recent sewing disaster experience.
So, back in November, I special ordered some fabric... some Titans NFL fabric and a really cute Amy Butler print. Last summer, I had bought an apron pattern (which I never got around to using) but thought that making aprons for my sister and one of my sisters-in-law for Christmas would be a great idea. Well, Christmas came and went and I still hadn't even attempted to start the aprons. I think I was mostly intimidated by the commercial pattern. I had sewn from a commercial pattern once before, but they are scary, hard to decipher, and just sort of a big pain.
Anyways, I decided that since the aprons didn't happen, I would make them birthday gifts. March and May birthdays.. I had plenty of time for that. Well, my sister-in-law's birthday came and went and as my sister;s birthday approached, I had one of those moments of decisiveness. I knew that I was taking charge, and making 2 aprons, with at least 1 of them being on time.
I decided to make my sister-in-law's first, since it was already almost 2 months late. And I painstakingly followed the instructions to the tee.... and it came out looking like an NFL little house on the prairie dress. I mean, it may have partly been that the football pattern just didn't really fit the style, but seriously, the apron I ended up with looks NOTHING like the apron drawn on the pattern envelope. Like, not even close. The one on the envelope was cute and dainty. Not poofy. At all. And the only was I can describe this is POOFY. In a bad way.

I decided that I couldn't give her this apron, unless it was for some sort of weird joke or Halloween costume. Luckily I had enough fabric left over to make another one.. and this time I decided to just wing it (like I have done most of my sewing in the past). I did check out a couple website tutorials, for tips on measurements, etc. but I mostly just sewed what was in my head, which was an apron that was very far from poofy. And, I think it came out pretty good. Good enough that I made the second (well, third actually) almost identically.

I ended up sending my sister-in-law both aprons, as I had no idea what to do with the poofy one. And bless her dear heart she called and said that she loved both. I am pretty sure she was lying about one (or maybe even both) but she is too sweet to ever bad mouth a handmade present.
So, I guess my apron experience has basically just solidified what I already knew-- don't use commercial patterns. They are annoying and can be expensive, and the finished product didn't look a thing like the picture suggested. The other aprons I made looked way better (in my opinion at least), were quicker, less daunting, and more fun since I was designing it as well. Even though I have been sewing since high school, I never sewed with a commercial pattern until last fall, and I can say that I probably never will again. OK, the pattern wasn't totally useless. I did learn some good techniques that I ended up using in the subsequent aprons, but couldn't I have learned that from an online tutorial just as easily?
Every mama-made pattern or blog tutorial I have followed has been easy to understand, written in english (aka non-weird-sewing-terms) and has come out great. Maybe if I bought a nicer brand pattern (instead of the budget simplicity that I used) it would have a better end product? Anyone else have any thoughts, trial and tribulations, or advice on the world of sewing from patterns?