Since I’ve never sewn with a sewing machine before, the apron project was initially very intimidating, but once I got a hang of the sewing machine, I realized how powerful a tool it can be.  In this blog, I’ll take you through the process of creating your own apron with a sewing machine!

Starting Off

I decided to do the beginner assignment as I wasn’t very comfortable with the sewing machine yet, but looking back, I probably could have added a pocket or two and made it look good.  First, I cut out the fabric; there was no pattern paper left, so I just borrowed someone else’s and sized up the length accordingly, such that the piece was about 36″x26″ with the taper.  This gave me a nicely-shaped piece of fabric that I could use for the apron base, albeit it was very wrinkled.

Next, I folded and pinned the fabric with about a 1″ overlap around the entire perimeter of the apron.  This prevents fraying on the edges and gives you a much more solid outer edge.  I planned to do this by starting at one of the corners and sewing straight lines around the entire perimeter.

Now it came time to sew!  I put one corner into the sewing machine, locked the needle in place, and just went for it.  Everything ran smoothly in the beginning, but halfway through sewing up my first long seam, I realized the fabric was creeping a bit towards the edge when I was sewing, which resulted in the fold on that side being a lot bigger than I wanted.  I tried to correct this by changing the fold-over, but couldn’t get it to be as tight as I wanted.  This shows in the final apron only in the taper; it looks a bit uneven as the trapezoid created by the taper at the top just isn’t exactly symmetrical.

After that, I re-threaded the needle and continued to sew around the edge.  The rest of the sewing went very smooth outside of having to re-thread the needle almost every time I made a turn.  Luckily, I never needed to refill the thread underneath the machine, which made everything better as a first-time user.

Next up, now that I had a finished apron base, I decided to measure the straps.  I cut the neck strap long, then planned to sew the first box stitch before holding it up to myself and pinning where I wanted the second box stitch to be.  Then, I cut the waist straps; I cut each one to 24″ which is much longer than necessary to make it a bit easier to tie when using it (I can always cut them shorter).  Now, it was time to try my first box stitch!

Box stitching was hard on the first one; I sometimes got confused about which way the machine was running and the thread didn’t want to cooperate with all the movement of the workpiece.  But, after getting one done, I was significantly better on the next one.  Now I feel confident that I can make good box stitches, but the first one on the apron doesn’t look good.  Here’s the first box stitch I did and the last one:

In between the first and second box stitches, I held the apron up to my body and hung it by the strap with me holding the other end of the strap up to the apron.  I then pinned it and attached the second half, then cut the strap to length.  Lastly, I had to attach the side straps, which went pretty smoothly.  However, I attached them much lower than most other people because I wanted it to tie more around my waist than the top of my back.  My final apron looked like this:

While it could definitely use a little ironing, I am pretty proud of this as my first ever project with a sewing machine.  I will definitely be using the sewing machine a lot more in future projects; I always underestimated it as a tool and am already seeing so many cool things I could do with it in the future!

What Could Be Better

Besides just ironing the fabric, I feel quite a few things could be better now that I know how to use the machine well.  First, I could make the exterior stitches a bit straighter; if I used more pins and ran it a bit slower I think I would end up with a much cleaner edge.  Also, the box stitches could be a bit better aesthetically, but I do think they are good structurally.  I also would like to have added pockets or an adjustable strap with a ratchet strap loop or other adjustable clip.  Lastly, I would like to be more intentional about my measurements and measure everything to my own body; my body type doesn’t go well with any of the sizes so it would make sense to measure my own to be longer and skinnier in the future.  If I ever find myself making another apron, I’ll definitely implement all these things!

Cost

• 3 hours at ~$20 an hour = $60
• Spool of sewing thread = ~$5 on Amazon
• One yard of fabric = ~$10 on Amazon
• One small roll of strap material = ~$10 on Amazon
• Sewing machine is shared equipment = $0
• Scissors, fabric cutting wheel, and all other non-consumables = $0

All in all, the estimated cost for this apron, given my approximate hourly wage and the cost of consumables, would be $85.