Let me preface this by saying that I have never sewn anything more than a pin cushion before, so this project was a challenge to say the least. It was most definitely fun and I learned a lot don’t get me wrong, but it was also a feat getting the cloth to cooperate with me at times. With that out of the way, here’s how I made my apron!

I started by tracing my idea out on paper. Somehow I forgot to take a photo of it prior to cutting, but I traced the pattern out onto the apron in chalk. This gave me an idea of what the final product would roughly look like and enabled me to make any edits before fully committing. Once I was happy with my design, I cut out the fabric and began sewing the seams.

Initially, I decided to add pouches to the design. While this was a great idea in theory, the seaming process proved more difficult than I had hoped so I scratched the pouches for another time. The seams started with folding the fabric onto itself to hide the uneven side of the fabric. This involved lots of pins and took me a couple of hours to do the full apron. I was constantly readjusting pins to get it just right and trying to get the seam even.

Only after I had finished sewing the seams did I realize that I could iron the fabric to get it to lay flat, at least I know for next time. Sewing the seams was fairly straight forward. I would carefully press the pedal on the sewing machine while also removing pins as I went. In the end, the seams turned out better than I had originally expected (again I have never done something like this before).

After seaming all the edges, I then sewed on the straps. I decided to mimic a common korean style of apron where the straps wrap around in an “X” pattern to encompass the chef without needing to be tied. I made the straps by sewing together two pieces of ribbon together making one, thick but all black piece of material. Afterward I sewed the straps on in the desired shape.

In the end, I feel quite proud of  my apron. While it might not have many features, it allowed my to learn sewing in a way that I had never done before. This is a valuable skill I can see myself using many years into the future. This apron (although rough) is most certainly the first step I needed to unlock the world of sewing and begin exploring it in the near future!

I look forward to my next sewing adventure. Maybe one day soon I can learn how to tailor my own suit, make a blanket, or even perhaps… sew an apron for another person.