Hi everyone, welcome to Ravi’s process of making his first apron. To preface, I’ve never sown before so this was a very explorative and creative process for me. While the end product isn’t perfect, I’m really proud of what I’ve made.

After selecting a yard of floral print fabric, I started making measurements of my size and then transferred it onto butcher paper to create a cutting template. I used a ruler to sketch only half of my template (which was symmetric) and cut my apron accordingly. A huge mistake I made at this point was that I forgot to account for 1” excess on edge for the double-pleated 1/2” seam I did. This caused my apron to be a little narrower than it should’ve been.

I wasn’t sure how to really measure the folds of the seam so I pretty much eyeballed the double-pleat seam. As I was sewing, I controlled the speed to where I could make the double-pleat as the machine advanced. There were obviously some errors near where turns needed to be made. Here, I felt like the Juki Industrial excelled over the Singer & Brother because it was slow and steady. If I had to do this again, I definitely would use the Juki for the whole apron because it’s relatively easy to lose control with Singer’s & Brother’s speed.

What was really difficult was sewing double-pleats on double-pleats which occurred at turn points. Since the floral print fabric I was using was oddly dense, the machine kept getting jammed if I tried to advance slowly when sewing turns together. I had to overcome this by literally full sending it and cutting excess thread.

After the apron’s edges were done, I had to add straps. I first started with the neck strap. The first box stitch was difficult but through forward and reverse stitching, I got a decent stitch. There were times when the Juki would act up and string escaped the needle – even though I was almost done. At one point, I’m pretty sure I got frustrated and just left.

Lastly were the waist straps. After having done the neck straps, I was pretty good at making box stitches. I used techniques like rotating the fabric as the needle was inside to make sure I didn’t lose the box corner. I wish the string I used was a little thicker because I also did a lot of forward and reverse stitching just to get it to show up. Unfortunately, the box stitch wasn’t so nice on the front. For the waist straps, I used a new technique where I folded a small square piece of strap on itself before stitching because it served as its own template. I also made a mistake here because I didn’t consider the direction of the strap which should’ve been facing outwards, not inwards.

I’m finally done. This was a really fun experience and a little therapeutic honestly so I’m looking forward to doing this again. Here’s the final product – hopefully, it isn’t too shabby.

REFLECTION – THINGS TO IMPROVE

• Create extra space (1”) at the edges to account for double pleat
• Understand how to use fabric needles to help hold certain positions
• Use the Juki from the start because I find the Singer & Brother unreliable at times
• Try to continually stitch and minimize times when I need to cut thread & bobbin

COST BREAKDOWN

Cost	Price	Source	Quantity	Total
floral fabric	~$14/yd	shabbyfabrics.com	1 yd	~$14
thread + bobbin/excess	$3.5/spool	Walmart	~¼ spool	$0.90
operator	$15/hr	me, the operator	6 hrs	$90
overhead	$10	estimate	1	$10
			TOTAL:	$114.90