Hey Everyone, 

Welcome back to another blog post, this time we are gonna dive into the wild world of sewing. This week’s project was to make an apron, which I was really looking forward to as I have never done any machine sewing before. Overall it was a great experience, the sewing machine might have permanently destroyed my posture and I now have a seething hatred for trying to thread needles, but I am very happy with the skills and end product I now have. 

 

Part 1: Planning and drawing

When coming up with my apron design, I drew out a rough sketch of how I wanted everything to look on my Ipad and I followed the template that we were given, adjusting the measurements for my personal preference. I then drew a baseline design onto a piece of parchment paper. After that I cut out the design, attached it to my main fabric and traced the design onto the material, adding a 2in brim on the sides for later hemming. Finally I cut out the design and moved onto the hemming stage. 

 

Part 2: Pins and Irons

For hemming my apron I stuck to the guide we were given, using a standard double folded 1in hem. I did each straight edge of my apron independently, first measuring and cutting out the flap of material before folding and ironing the hem in place. After that I placed Pins in at roughly 2in spacing before moving onto the next side. 

Part 3: Hemming and suffering

This part was the hardest of this project as it is where I really learnt how to do everything. It was the first real time that I had used a sewing machine outside of some test stitches I had done on scrap material, which meant I fell into all of the pitfalls that a first time user does. The machines pedal as the sensitivity of a Ferrari, and I created zig-zag stitches while trying to figure out how much pressure to give it. Once I got that under control I created beautiful stitches only to find out that I had threaded the machine wrong and my stitches fell apart the second I cut the thread. However, after using the thread ripper more times than I care to admit, I started to figure out how to stitch in a straight line and gradually hemmed each side until I had a completed apron body. 

Part 4: Accessories and inspiration

Once done with that I moved on to adding straps and accessories. My first couple of box stitches went as good as you think it did, however with a lot of practice and manually moving the needle instead of using the foot pedal, I was able to improve on my last 2 straps.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After doing the straps, one of my classmates (Shout out to Aiden), found a spare piece of denim for me to use, which I had originally planned to turn into a reinforced patch/pocket on the bottom of the apron. However, Professor Bisesti, had the great suggestion of trying to make it into a tote bag, and I decided to scrap my original plan and do that. To accomplish this I cut out holes in the side stitching in between the panel and the apron so that the apron could be folded in on itself and the waist straps could be threaded through to create the shoulder straps for the bag.

 

Final Product:

 

 

Part 6: Reflections and future plans

Overall I am happy with how this project turned out. I think that I definitely learnt a lot and am happy with the quality of the final product and the improvement, from the first stitch to the last stitch, that it shows. Additionally, I also got to learn how to hand stitch with twine which was interesting to learn. All of that being said, there are many things that I would have done differently and areas in which I want to improve. Firstly I would change how I assembled the main body of the apron. The first time I did each side independently, cut the thread and then moved to another side. This caused me to have a lot of incomplete thread lines and excess bundles of thread in the start and end sections of the stitches. For the denim panel I did the hem in one go which turned out a lot better and is what I will do in the future. Additionally, I also learnt to do the start and end sections of each stitch manually which allowed me to have much more control and led to a better finished product. For the tote bag I would have changed the measurements of the panel to be a better bag size, as while my current prototype works as a proof of concept the dimensions are a bit off for a proper bag. 

 

Part 7: Expenses and Work Station 

Below are my calculated expenses for this project, along with a photo of my clean work station.

Expense	Cost	Link
Fabric (denim and cotton)	(0.64 yards*$9.99 per yard)+   (0.2 yards*$12.59 per yard)=  $8.9116	Amazon  Amazon
Thread (one roll)	$7.90	Amazon
Straps	(3 yards *$7.99 per yard) = $23.97	Amazon
Labor	(8 hours * $7.25 per hour) = $58	state minimum wage
Machine Rental	2 days * $20 per day =  $40
Total:	$138.78

Work Station: