The “Sew an Apron” assignment was a lot more difficult and time-consuming than I originally expected.  The majority of my time was spent troubleshooting, as the stitches from the sewing machines never seemed to come out exactly as how I expected. In the end, after lots of practice, I was able to complete my first sewing project!

I started by using a long roll of paper to measure out the dimensions of the size I was aiming for: 34″ length and 24″ half-waistband. By overlapping two rolls, I was able to achieve these dimensions.

Because there were no instructions in the document on how far down the angled sides should go, I did some trial-and-error testing by cutting away at the paper and holding it up to my body to see if the sizing seemed right. The diagram details that the neck width should be the half-waistband size minus 3″, but I found that a subtraction of 10″ looked and fit better. I also settled on allowing the angled sides to go down the length by 13″. With my paper sized to the way I wanted it, I overlayed and taped it onto my fabric to cut out the apron body.

Afterward began the sewing process of the neck and side strips. I struggled with the sewing machines leaving bundles of loops on the bottom side; ultimately I found that adjusting the tension and holding the tails of the top and bottom threads back helped alleviate the issue.

I first created a neck strip and two side strips by cutting out long strips of fabric, sewing together the two ends inside out, and the inverting the fabric so the seam is hidden. It took a surprising amount of time to invert the fabric, since the strips I made were on the smaller side.

After creating the strips and testing out the sizes, I found that I had created the side strips too small, since I neglected to account for the fact that they should have a good amount of extra length for me to hold onto and tie the strips together. I decided to redo the side strips with new fabric that was much better sized.

Afterward, I folded in the edges of the apron to sew a border along the apron. This was accomplished by lining pins through the folded edge against the direction that I would sew so they could be easily pulled out.

Finally, I attached the neck and side strips to the apron body through some box stitches to complete the whole apron.

Here’s the final fit:

Here’s the workspace that I used last:

Cost estimates:

• Fabric (material): online research seems to show varying prices for fabric, but since the fabric given in this class was on the cheaper size due to the quantity, I will estimate that fabric costs $5.00/yard. Given I used about a yard of fabric, that comes out to be $5.00.
• Thread (material): $2.00 (looking at stores online).
• Labor: According to ZipRecruiter, the average salary for sewing jobs in Houston is $18.00/hr. Given this is my first time using a sewing machine, and not well at that, I will go with ZipRecruiter’s 25th percentile salary at $14.90/hr. I worked for 9 hours, totaling $134.10.
• Total: $141.10