How to sew a childrens apron…

I love crafting with my kids and to this end have aprons for messy play, cooking and various other creative talents around the house for them. Here is a pattern I put together to make the apron. I like decorating them as well. They take me about 2 hours to finish from patterning to completing so really quite easy to sew. The longest part is the embroidery for me!  Here is a picture  of my finished apron.

Here goes.. if you need more info please leave a comment or email me at  www.mail@seamsoeasy.com

A few things to gather before you start:

fabric, main about 3/4 yard, can be adjusted to suit your childs height.

scraps of fabric and buttons to decorate  with.

2 yards of bias binding in cotton to contrast or match your fabric.

pinking shears

Right now for the important bits…

Draw the pattern with the following measurments

• The neck width is 7.1/2”.
• The arm hole cut out is 10”
• Across the waist (under the arm) is 17”
• Length from the High shoulder point to the hem is 19 ½”
• the pocket is aprox 5 1/2 “ x 4” and is placed 2/12” from the side seam and 3” from the bottom hem.

I find it easiest to work with a ½” seam allowance so those values are included in the above measurments.

Cut this pattern above out of paper, anything you have to hand is fine! I used the kids craft paper to cut this but newspaper or any other fairly solid paper is good.

Fold the pattern in half lengthwise once you hve cut it out so that you can make sure that both sides are equal.

Get out your main fabric and iron all over first. Then fold in half and place the folded paper pattern on the fabric and pin in place.

Cut one pattern piece and now for the fun bit , decorate as you please!

I did a tree out of some left over cushion fabric and did the leaves,  butterflies and other bits out of left over sewing scraps and some interesting buttons. This can be anything you want to do.

Right now to hem the apron. Start by using your pinking shears to snip along the side seams from under arm  on the left down to the bottom hem and back up to the underarm on the right.  Turn over the hem and pin.  Do the same for the straight bit on the neck. Pin only do not sew this down now.

Take the bias tape and start by opening it up and measurming 18″ (left side tie) upto the armhole and then pin down on the wrong side of the fabric right upto the neck.

continue to use the bias binding to shape the neck , I used 14″ from one side of the neck to the other and then back down the other (right) side armhole. Keep pinning and leave another 18″ for the tie on the other side. Now start sewing down the side. Begin with the side that is under the arm and sew up the armhole to the neck edge. (we sort the ties out when we are finishing!)

 

Sew the other side down as well.  Now refolding the bias tape (to the way it was) except this time it will sandwich your main body fabric within the fold, and because we sewed on the inside edge there will only be one seam showing. Turn down and starting with one side of the tie, sew the bias tape down.

You would have pinned the rest of the hem, sheared side down and carefully sew from underarm  down the side bottom hem and upto the other arm hole. Now finish the straight bit by the neck

Press and stand back and admire your hardwork!

I want the world on a string…

I finally managed the time to do some free motion embroidery work. What a rush. The first attempts were not pretty but there is something very soothing about the sound of the machine and achieving a certain ‘look’ I have not managaed to sort out the pattern as is obvious by the corners of the tissue box showing but the work was fun. I like the pretty flowers but have set my sights to much higher ambitions… two elephants, a monkey and a mixed media picture.

hmmm….