Last week my daughter's Spanish teacher planned to have all the students in her class help with a cooking project. She asked them all to bring in an apron. Rachel took one of mine in, but she came home and said that nobody else had one. It seems like an apron is something everyone can make. Here's how we made a new one that is way more interesting than the old one I had.

Materials: One apron to use as a pattern, ruler & thread

Fabric: 1 3/4 yards any lightweight cotton fabric

Fabric Used:  Hula 70508

$8.95 yard

I knew Rachel liked the bright and colorful Hula fabric and I figured it wouldn't show spills or stains. I washed the fabric and dried it before we started.

We didn't need to purchase a pattern for this very simple project. The idea was that we would look at the construction of an existing apron and go from there. It looked pretty simple - one piece of fabric cut out in the shape in the photograph below. Then the top, long sides and bottom hem were turned under twice and stitched. The ties for around the neck and apron were two long strips of fabric folded over that encased the raw edges of the curved upper apron. The ties extended off of the top edge and side edge to tie around the neck and the waist.

To start, I laid out the fabric on my cutting table and laid my old apron on top.

 Our new pattern needed to include hem allowances, so I had Rachel trace about one and a half inches bigger all the way around the old one (except for the curved edge), using my quilting ruler.

You could use a hem guide for this part also, or even a normal ruler. The plan was to
have her turn raw edges under about half an inch, press them down and
then turn them under again and press again, to create a double fold.

Measuring out one and a half inches from the existing pattern,
she made one and a half inch marks at various points around the apron and
then connected them with a chalk line.

Lessons Learned: Making and using bias strips

Once we cut out the basic shape of the apron, we needed to cut out the
ties for around the neck and waist. The ties also needed to curve
around the upper part of the apron where it narrows (see the first
photo) so we cut them on the bias using my quilters ruler.

Below, you can see what happens when you cut a bias strip across the
fold of fabric.

I wasn't worried about this because as you can see in
the next picture, I just cut the pieces apart so I would have two
straight edges to join together.

 You could also cut them out just by measuring a 45 degree angle from the selvage
all the way across to the fold, to get the most inches of bias strip in one cut.

To cut off this triangle, I just folded the strip back on itself and cut off the angled part off straight.

  We cut our bias strips two inches wide. To determine the length of the strips we needed, I measured the ties of the apron all along from the tie at the waist, along the curve of the upper apron and up to the part that ties around your neck. The strips needed to be fairly long, so I cut six bias strips that we could sew together to form one long continuous strip.
 

We then seamed the continuous strips together using one quarter inch
seam allowances and pressed them open flat. Now we had two long bias
strips.

Then I helped Rachel press under all along the edge of the strips. We
didn't measure because this step doesn't need to be super accurate. We
probably turned under about one eighth to one quarter of an inch.

We measured the amount needed for the tie around the neck and attached
that mark to the top edge of the apron. Then we pinned the folded and
pressed strip to the curve of the armhole so the raw edge was encased
in the bias strip. Next, Rachel pinned the waist tie and the neck tie
wrong sides together, with the pressed under edges even. At the ends,
she folded the strip crosswise before pinning and pressing so that all
the raw edges were encased within the fold.

Finally, she sewed those long strips close to the edge, checking carefully every few inches to make sure she caught the front and back
in the stitching.

Her new apron is much more stylish than my old one!

Carole