So here’s the apron.

The moment I chose this simple red polka dot pattern I thought, “I have to line this with brown”, so it could look like I live in a cottage and bake apple pie for fun. Unfortunately, there was no brown scrap fabric so I had to settle for red but it’s still cute.

I started by folding the fabric in half and drawing a basic apron pattern on it after holding it up to my body. I used a paper towel as ‘fabric’ to see if the top part of the pattern would fit me well. That worked out well. I then hunted scrap fabric to cut and iron ‘bias’ tape (I did not cut it on the bias. I did not have the fabric quantity for that) for my edges.

I immediately sewed the top edge and neck strap. I did not iron this bias tape so the back doesn’t look as smooth but it’s still cute. For the straps, I lined up and sewed the edge of them to the edge of the lining that would be on the inside. I then sewed the bias tape like normal and added a small line of stitching to the strap to hold it up in the right direction. This was done for all straps.

 

I have some experience putting in zippers. Those zippers were on the edge of fabric and only enclosed on one side. I have never done a zipper in the center of fabric so I just went for it. It was a bit hard to tuck and pin the stray fabric at the ends, especially with both sides enclosed but I did my best. This zipper was also super long so I hand-stitched a stop where I wanted the zipper to end and snipped off the excess. It looks pretty clean if I do say so myself.

<<<Fully Sewed Zipper

From the beginning, I thought it was weird to just have a zipper divet in the middle of my stomach so I covered it so it would look like a neat little pocket. I couldn’t figure out how to sew from the inside on both the top and sides so I chose to do the top edge from the inside and the sides from the outside while it was folded down.

But get this, I did all of that and forgot I would need to attach a pocket to the zipper. I did not know how to do that. It was just a giant hole.

So, I go look through the scrap fabric bin and hit the jackpot. There’s animal crossing fabric. Absolute win. I decided to start with something I knew how to do and sewed 3 edges together with French seams so that there were no raw edges on the inside or outside. I cut the fabric so one side was tall enough to line up with the top of the zipper and the other lined up with the middle. After some contorting and pinning, I was able to sew the pocket directly onto the zipper, and under the red cover I had already added to the other side with no gaps.

Lastly, for the straps on the side, I made a triangle shape with one edge at the top corner of the apron and the other at the waist for optimal fit when tying. I chose not to line the sides with red due to a lack of fabric of the same shade.

And that’s the apron.

This took me about 7 hours to make. 5 on the machine and 2 on cutting, prepping, and pinning pieces. Let’s say I make $12 an hour. $84 in the bank. There are also materials. I’d guess it’d be ~$15 total, ($5-10 for a yard of fabric + scraps, $2 zipper, $2 thread). If I didn’t have my own machine or access to a free one I would have to rent machine time however, I was not able to find info on how much that would cost nor where to do that. So in total, this would be ~$98, but here in reality it is $0. I got these materials for free and I am not getting paid or selling this.