For my first sewing project, I’m proud of the apron I was able to produce! My finished apron with hemmed edges has a length of 32 inches, is 22 inches across the body of the apron, and has a top width of 19 inches. The body is made of a blue fabric, with white and blue patterned pockets, and the neck and side straps are made of the provided cotton tape material.

To start, I cut out two pieces of butcher paper: one for the body of my apron and one for the patch pocket attachments. The apron cut out had an extra 1/2 inch added to each side to allow me to hem the edges of my apron in.

I was able to use these cut outs to cut appropriately-same sized fabric pieces following the given dimensions for a size small in the workbook — this is the first place where I probably should’ve followed my instincts. The top width of the apron looked way too big for me. My shoulders are no wider than 15 inches, and I was worried about deviating from what I thought would eventually turn out to fit me (maybe it would bunch in and look the way an apron is supposed to look?). Nonetheless, I continued with the original dimensions I had set to use.

 

 

 

 

 

 

To take in the sides for a clean hem, I pinned along each edge and did a straight stitch across the perimeter of the apron. At some point along the first edge, I realized that I had not only sewn the edge of the apron, but about four inches of another part of the apron that got layered under the sewing needle to it. I was able to take the seam ripper and thankfully only undo those few inches, but it makes me nervous to think about redoing the whole perimeter of the apron if I had gone the entire way without realizing.

I then moved on to adding my straps, which I thought might resolve the awkward width of the top of the apron if I made the top strap just a little shorter than it should be — I hoped that the way that the strap fell around my neck would naturally pull in the width of the apron. I used box stitches to adhere the strap fabric to the apron, and I ended up really happy with the way they looked in being fairly symmetrical. It was also here that I was able to pick up a trick to hide the ends of my threads on the back side, by using a seam ripper to pull the last stitch to the back, as seen in the video instructions for sewing a patch pocket. This made the look of my apron cleaner than I could have expected.

Putting together the pockets was a bit tricky at first. The sides required specific seam allowances creating a cut-out shape of a trapezoid with the longest length at the top of the pocket, and I was uncertain about how this shape would turn into a rectangular pocket. Eventually I realized that the extra width at the top allows for a flare for the pocket to actually be able to open. Mostly, I kept having trouble with thread getting bunched up at the back of my fabric and was able to troubleshoot (after three times) by replacing the bobbin; the way the end of bobbin thread had been initially tucked in made it get caught in the stitch multiple times, and I ended up using a new bobbin to resolve this.

I am excited at the clean look of my apron, relative symmetry of my box stitches, and the addition of patch pockets on my apron. However, if I were to re-do this project, I would have probably taken off a total of 8 inches from the top width (4 inches from each side), to make a better fitting top (you can see below how I tried to mitigate this with rolling up the bottom of my apron to hold the top in, with the width at the top still being too big). Additionally, I would make my pockets a little longer; while they were wide enough for my hands, I think that more depth would be beneficial for actually holding things while I work on projects.

With the given cost of the sewing machine in the workbook, the cost of this project can be estimated as follows:

• Singer Sewing Machine………………………………………….$160
• 1 yard of fabric (< $7.99/yd)…………………………………….$7.99
• 3 yards of cotton tape (strap material) ($0.10/ft)……….$0.90
• 1 spool of thread ($2.50)………………………………………..$2.50
• 5.5 hours of labor ($10.00/hr)…………………………………$55.00
• Total Costs………………………………………………………$226.39

Without the one time cost of the sewing machine, the cost comes down to $66.39, and the overall cost of the material to create this apron was approximately $12, making this a fairly inexpensive project to complete. With that said, I do feel like I overestimated my personal labor value with my novice ability to sew, but paying someone with greater experience to create a custom apron may bring the cost up.