For the first project of the semester in ENGI 210, I sewed my own workshop apron to use while working on later projects for the course, which can be seen in Figures 1 & 2 below. It consists of a long hemmed fabric that makes up the body of the apron, with an attached neck strap and two attached straps along the sides that are intended to be tied around the user’s back. In this blog post, I will cover my process for creating the apron, areas for improvement, and cost analysis.
Figures 1 & 2: Final Apron Front and Back, respectively.
My Process
The steps that I took to create the apron were largely influenced by those of the “Beginner” level assignment in the ENGI 210 textbook due to my limited experience with sewing and familiarity with sewing machines.
The first step that I took to create the apron was to gather my materials. I began by cutting out a square yard of cloth and around 2.5 feet of our provided roll of masking paper. After that, I took to pen and paper and figure out what dimensions I would like my apron to be. Using measurements of my own body as well as guidance from the table provided in the ENGI 210 textbook, I settled on dimensions of 34 inches tall, 22 inches wide at the bottom, and 19 inches wide at the top (3 inch wide, 10 inch long triangles cut out of each upper corner to create a top edge 3 inches shorter than the bottom edge). Note that these dimensions were the dimensions that I wanted after folding over 1/2 inch in every direction to create a hem, so the fabric that I planned to cut out was actually 35 inches wide, 23 inches wide at the bottom, and 20 inches wide at the top. After I had a plan for what I wanted my apron to look like, I carefully drew the outline on the masking paper, pinned this outline to the fabric, and then cut the fabric into my desired shape. These steps are illustrated in Figures 3, 4, and 5 below.
Figures 3, 4, & 5: Paper pinned to the fabric before and after cutting the fabric and the final cut fabric, respectively.
Now that my fabric was cut and ready to be worked on, I began preparing to hem the edges. Since I had accounted for 1/2 inch of fabric in every direction to be folded over, I did just that and used pins to hold them in place. This can be seen in Figure 6 below.
Figure 6: Apron with the hemmed edges pinned for sewing.
At this point I began to use the sewing machine to create the hem. For this project, I exclusively used a Singer Tradition model. I have included pictures of this machine below. It is worth noting that for all of my sewing, I used a stitch length of 2.
Figure 7 & 8: The sewing machine’s box with its name labeled and the machine itself, respectively.
Once my hem was finished, I began to work on adding the neck and waist straps. After a fair amount of inspection and testing, I cut out 31 inches for the strap fabric for the neck strap and two waist straps each 19 inches in length. These lengths were decided upon after accounting for the fact that there would be 2.5 inches of the fabric used up for every end attached to the apron (1 inch of the ends were folded over on itself and were attached below the hem which added another 1/2 inch). I sewed the ends of the straps onto the apron by doing a box-shaped stitch pattern as shown below.
Figure 9: Box-shaped stitch pattern to attach each end of my straps.
Feeling very accomplished for sewing an apron with straps despite having limited prior sewing experience, I decided to call my apron complete at this point. In total, I actively used the sewing machine for about two hours and spent around six hours of my own time on this project.
Areas for Improvement
Admittedly, there were a handful of things that I could have done better in the creation of my apron. A lot of these were minor mistakes I made as a result of being somewhat new to sewing machines, such as sewing lines that could have been more straight or forgetting to put the presser foot down before beginning a seam, although there were also a few significant errors that I can only blame myself for.
One significant error that I made was in the dimensioning of the upper edge of the apron. In the ENGI 210 textbook, this length was denoted as “1/2 Waistband Minus 3” “, where “1/2 Waistband” was the length of the lower edge of the apron. After cutting the fabric out and hemming the edges, I quickly realized that this upper edge was a bit too long – when fully extended, it would reach slightly past my shoulders. Also, when planning the implementation of the neck strap, I realized that if I attached the neck strap at the ends of the top edge like it is for most aprons, this would result in a strap that reaches far outwards rather than a strap that falls naturally down over the torso. In the end, I decided to attach the neck strap 3.5 inches further in towards the middle of the apron so that it could fall downwards, and the extra fabric on the outside I could simply let hang or tuck under my armpits. If I were to create another apron, I would remove approximately 4 inches (2 inches on each side) from the top edge of the apron so that the fabric does not reach past my shoulders like it does with this design.
Another significant mistake that I made while making my apron had to do with attaching one of the waist straps to the apron. As described in “My Process,” I attached the ends of these straps by folding an inch of the strap over on itself and then attaching it to the apron using a box-shaped stitch pattern to attach the folded portion to the section of fabric just following the hem. I intended to attach these ends in such a way that the strap’s natural path was away from the apron rather than towards the inside (this can be seen in Figure 1 and 2) so that when I tied them around my waist, the ends of the apron near the straps would not bow outwards. However, I must not have been paying enough attention while I was attaching one of the straps because the strap’s path ended up being towards the inside of the apron, and sure enough, when I would tie the straps behind my back, this end of the fabric bowed outwards from my body. To fix this, I had to fold the strap over on itself again so that there were three layers of strap fabric at the place where it was joined to the apron, and then did another box-shaped stitch pattern to hold it in place. Not only did this result in a thicker portion of strap fabric, but also caused me to lose an inch of length on that strap and since I had to do the box-shaped stitch pattern twice, it resulted in a pretty messy appearance on the front of the apron, which can be seen below in Figures 10 and 11.
Figures 10 & 11: The back and front of the “bad strap,” respectively.
Cost Analysis
For this analysis, I will be approximating my figures based off of prices I find online. The requirements of this project that contribute to its cost consist of: fabric, masking paper, strap fabric, thread, the cost of access to hardware used (scissors, rulers, and sewing machine), and the opportunity cost associated with the time spent by the creator.
Fabric
Most fabric sold by the yard that I can find online has a price range of between $5 and $10, so I will approximate the cost of fabric to be halfway between these two figures – $7.50.
Masking Paper
Masking paper is sold in very thick rolls. If laid flat, these sheets of paper are often a few feet in width by hundreds of feet in length. Since I only used 2.5 feet of masking paper for this project, the cost of the portion of masking paper that I used would be totally dwarfed by the cost of a full roll. Although I can see quite a range of prices for rolls of masking paper online, even the highest price I see ($63 for 720 feet of paper) is only around 20 cents for the portion that I used, although this price can be below 10 cents for other rolls of paper. For a mid-range estimate, I will approximate that the masking paper I used cost 15 cents.
Strap Fabric
For this project, I used 31 + 19 + 19 = 69 inches of strap fabric. Like masking paper, strap fabric is usually sold in long strands that are rolled into a compact cylindrical roll, although strap fabric usually comes in total lengths of between 50-75 feet, much shorter than rolls of masking paper. Normalizing the costs of various rolls of strap fabric for a 69 inch length, I am finding costs of around $2.50.
Thread
I am unable to measure the exact amount of thread that I used for this project as this is not really a dimension that one predetermines – the creator usually just uses as much as is needed for the project since it is a common, cheap product. Online, I am able to find rates of about three rolls of thread per dollar, which would be about 33 cents per roll. Although the amount of thread I used in this project is dwarfed by the amount of thread on a roll, I will use a very generous approximation of 5 cents for the thread that I used, which is still so small that it will be almost insignificant in comparison to certain other costs associated with this project.
Access to Hardware
As I mentioned earlier, in the making of this project I was actively using a sewing machine for about 2 hours. The only other hardware I used for this project were scissors and various rulers, which I would approximate to have no cost since tools are so commonplace and cheap. If you were making aprons constantly or for a living, there would be a cost associated with these tools because you would likely need to own your own, but for a one-time-use, you could go to practically any office space, household, academic building, or just contact a friend or family member and they would likely be happy to lend you these tools for a short period of time with no rental fee since they are so inexpensive to begin with. The sewing machine, however, is another story. I can find rates online of around $10-30 per hour. For a mid-range estimate, I will approximate the cost of renting a sewing machine for an hour to be $20. Since I actively used the sewing machine for around 2 hours, I will approximate this cost to be $20 x 2 = $40.
Opportunity Cost of Time
Our most valuable resource is our time, and any project is going to take a personal investment of your time in order to complete it. Although you are not actively spending money to invest your time, you are losing time that you could have spent doing anything else – doing homework, learning a new skill, or doing some money-making activity – and by not spending your time doing those things, you are losing the opportunity to do those things that have value to you, personal or monetary. I currently work at the Rice Recreation Center as a lifeguard for a salary of $9.50/hr, so I will use this as an approximation for the value of an hour of my time. I worked on this project for roughly 6 hours, so I will say that the opportunity cost associated with the time spent on this project was $57.
All together, the cost of this project was $7.50 + $0.15 + $2.50 + $0.05 + $40 + $57 = $107.20. This means that approximately 90% of the cost of my apron was associated with the time I spent on the project – the opportunity cost of my time and the time I spent using the sewing machine. If I were able to produce the same product in less time (which I’m sure I could do if I attempted it a second time, now that I have more experience with the techniques involved), I could drive the price of the apron down quite a bit.
