This project was actually a lot of fun; although, it was a bit tedious. The first thing I did was take some measurements in order to create my pattern. I measured my waistline as well as the distance from my chest to my knees (basically what I wanted the length of my apron to be). I also estimated what the width of the top of my apron should be and cut a piece of paper to that size to visually check how it’d look like in the mirror. Once I had the measurements, I used the same tape measurement and a long straight edge and drew the exact dimensions on the paper that was provided to us. From there I free handed the curves in the pattern and added a 1 inch seam allowance to the entire perimeter of the apron. I then cut the paper and once again double checked in front of a mirror to ensure the dimensions were appropriate. Here is a picture of the pattern and the dimensions:
Before cutting my fabric, I actually cut my pattern in half lengthwise. I then placed it on top of my fabric which was also folded. This allowed me to have a symmetrical pattern since the curves might not have been symmetrical in the original full pattern. I made sure the layout of the fabric was correct to ensure I only ended with one piece of fabric and not two. Once I had the fabric cut to shape, I drew my original pattern on the fabric by measuring 1 inch from each side. Although this step might seem a bit unnecessary, I found it very helpful in ensuring my edges and seams were as symmetrical as possible. I then folded the seam twice to have clean edges, and I pinned them down to avoid movement. I was now ready for the machine.
Setting up the sewing machine was a bit challenging, but with some help from some friends I was able to get it up and running. Because I wasn’t able to find a small enough black thread roll that would fit the Industrial Sewing Machine, I decided to use two different thread colors. This wouldn’t be an issue as the black thread in the bovine would actually be in the front of the apron as I decided to sew it front side down in the sewing machine. The actual sewing part was not too challenging (minus a couple of threads getting caught with one another), but the actual challenging portion was sewing the straps.
For the side straps, I decided to attempt a box stitch which ended up being very challenging as it was hard to keep all the dimensions of the box and the diagonal lined up with each other. This caused some incongruities with the geometry, but ultimately it is not very visible in the front of the apron. For the neck strap, I decided that two parallel lines of thread would be better than the box stitch as it would look neater and still be strong enough to hold the weight of the apron.
Lastly, I decided to add a pocket. I estimated the pocket dimensions with a ruler (7 inx 8 in), and cut a quick pattern out of some extra paper. I added a 0.5 in flare to the top of the pocket to allow for more room, and followed the same steps to sew it onto the apron. Here is the final product!
In total, I spent about 5 hours working on this project. Three of those hours were in front of the sewing machine, while the other 2 hours were for planning, cutting the fabric, and preparing the fabric before sewing. The overall labor cost is about $75 ($15/hr). In terms of materials, I used about 0.8 yd2 of the patterned fabric for the apron, less than 0.01yd2 of black leftover fabric for the pocket (found in the scraps fabric drawer at the OEDK) and about 85 in of strap material. Assuming a cost of about $7yd for the fabrics and the strap material to be $3/yd and one thread roll is $3(as estimated from Joann’s website), the overall material cost of the apron is $14.67. Other materials used are either reusable or negligible to the overall cost of the project. Since I used the sewing machine that was already available to me at the OEDK, I did not factor its price into my overall cost calculation. The overall cost of the apron is $89.67.
