I n t r o d u c t i o n

On Tuesday January 17th, Sarah and I began our journey towards making two of the most fabulous aprons known to mankind.

I have a bit of sewing experience since I already used a sewing machine before to make scrunchies in middle school and sell them to my friends. I never created a piece of wearable clothing though, so I knew this project would be instructive.

F i r s t  S t e p s

Sarah and I started by reading the guide before sewing our apron and we decided to follow the beginner’s guide.

I used the Medium size measurements in the google document provided to us to and drew the figure of my apron on pattern paper. After cutting the pattern paper into the shape of an apron, I pinned it on top of the fabric. I then used a black marker to outline the paper’s shape and cut the fabric.

Video below: Our first day making aprons at the OEDK! 

 

Here’s a closer look at how I pinned the paper to the fabric and what I used to cut the fabric:

                                                        

 

N e x t  S t e p s

A few days later, I came back to the OEDK to continue working on my project. I realised my apron was a lot larger than I needed it to be and took an inch and a half off each of its dimensions. I placed the fabric in front of me and looked in the mirror to see if the apron was my size. It was still too large so I took my own measurements and cut the fabric a third time. 

Now that I was satisfied with the size of my apron, it was time to start sewing.

I folded around 1 cm of the fabric’s sides and taped them as seen in the picture above. I initially wanted to use pins again but thought they would get in the way when sewing.

I then started to sew one side of the apron.

Everything seemed to be going smoothly when…

Uh oh! 

Here comes my first failure.

I noticed three threads coming out of the fabric and knew this wasn’t normal. I am unsure about what  happened exactly but I wasn’t able to continue sewing no matter how fast I made the needle go.

So I decided to cut the threads and stop sewing this side.

I was faced with two options: I could continue sewing or un-sew everything and start over. I chose the second option because I didn’t want two sewing lines to be noticeable on one side (I thought this would make my apron look messy).

Video below: Here is part of the un-sewing process (it was a bit tiring so I finished to un-sew everything the next day). 

 

After that, I rethreaded the needle and started sewing (again). This time I used pins and took them off when the needle on the sewing machine would approach the pins.

Nice! I finished sewing all the sides. All I have to do is attach the straps using the box stitch technique!

I practiced this a few times on extra fabric and managed and thought I mastered this method after a few tries.  I started applying what I had practiced when…

Uh Oh!  (n°2)

It’s time for my second failure!

I unintentionally attached part of a strap to the front of my apron… I didn’t notice I accidentally folded the apron over a strap. Here again, I un-sewed and redid everything (I almost feel as if I did more un-sewing than sewing because of the mistakes I made).

I was now done with my apron! I forgot how delicate sewing was but had a lot of fun with this project!

F i n a l  t h o u g h t s

I remembered and learned a lot about the sewing process and made mistakes which I will most likely not make again in the future. I can certainly improve my skills in this area but I am happy with how the final result turned out!

Cost Estimate:

• 1 yard of fabric = $6.00 (similar fabric found on Amazon)
• Price for the straps of fabric = $(0.5/10 x 9.99) = $0.50 (the cost for 10 yards of cotton straps from Amazon is $9.99 and I estimated using 5% of this)
• 6 hours x $14/hour = $84.00 (average seamstress hourly pay in Houston according to “payscale”)
• Cost of thread used= 0.10$ (estimation from the price of thread from Walmart)

Total costs= $90.60

This is quite expensive for an apron.