Step 1: Taking Measurements
To begin, I went ahead and started taking measurements of myself in order to determine the dimensions of my paper, which would be used to trace out the apron. I found my waist size to be about 36”, so I went ahead and set the bottom part of the paper apron to have a width of 20” and the top part to have a width of around 12”. I also cutout the apron to have a total height of 34”. The dimensions of the final product do end up deviating from this ideal for reasons which I will go over later.
Step 2: Cutting the Apron
Once the paper has been properly measured and cutout, I placed it over my fabric and taped it so that I can cutout the fabric in the shape of the apron. Unfortunately, it was in this step in which I made a crucial mistake.
Paper cutout of apron taped over desired fabric.
Apron, neck strap(22”), and side straps(36″)
Although the cutout of the apron didn’t have any major defects or deviations from the dimensions of the paper, it failed to fully account for the fact that the material would have to be bent around the edges for the double hem stitch. As a result, the final apron would be slightly smaller than than the paper cutout. I did try to account for this, as can be seen by the fact that I left a little more apron around the paper, but I did not leave nearly enough. If I had read ahead, I would’ve realized that I needed around one inch of extra material around the edges.
Furthermore, because I cut out the material with scissors instead of a more precise tool, such as a circular saw, the edges were a lot more jagged and uneven than I would’ve liked them to be.
Step 3: Sewing the Hemline
As previously mentioned, I did not leave much space for the hemming, and the uneven edges of the apron made it so that I had to be extra careful in measuring out the hemming lines. In order to ensure that my hemming lines, and therefore the edges of my final apron, remained as straight as possible, I used the edge of the table as my marker instead of the edge of the material. I lined up the edge of the apron against the table and drew the hem line to be 1” away from the edge of the table.That way, even though the edge was ultimately uneven, the hemming would remain as straight as the table.
1). Apron lined up against edge of the table.
2). Apron with the edges of its hemline marked out.
3). Apron with the edges folded, ironed out, and pinned down.
4). Final product with hem fully sewn
Step 4: Neck and Side Straps
With the hem complete, I started the process of box stitching the neck strap. I decided to practice my box stitches a couple of times before going ahead with the real thing. Once I decided that I have become proficient enough, I went ahead and got started with the neck strap. First, I folded over the end of the neck strap. This was done in order to avoid fraying and extend its lifetime.
The process of making the box stitch was a little frustrating. This was because of three small mistakes that I continued repeating throughout the process.
- Accidentally back pressing the pedal, resulting in the fabric getting cut without my intention.
- Forgetting to change the direction in which I am stitching based on where in the box stitch I was heading.
- Not pressing the foot of the sewing machine down into the fabric as I was sewing.
These mistakes presented themselves in the final product in different ways, which I will highlight now. I will also go over how I fixed them or my justification for leaving them as is.
The gap in the box stitch was a result of mistake number one, accidentally back pedaling and cutting off the thread while I was still stitching. I corrected this error by going over the box again and filling in the gap.
The trailing corner was a result of mistake number two, forgetting which direction I was stitching towards. I decided to leave this error as is. The reason for this is because from the front, this error is practically invisible due to the similar colors of the thread and neck strap. Furthermore, this error does not affect the integrity of the stitch, so there was no real reason to try and correct it and potentially make things worse.
This bundle of thread was a result of mistake number three, not pressing the foot of the sewing machine down before sewing. In order to fix this mistake, I cutout any excess threads and filled in the resulting gaps wherever necessary.
Box stitching the side straps wasn’t any different. I cutout two 36” inch straps and stitched them to be level with my waist. At this point, I was able to learn from my previous mistakes and produced noticeably cleaner box stitches that required minimal correction. As for the ends of the side straps, I once again folded them over and stitched them together in order to prevent future fraying and extend the lifetime of the apron.
As a final note, I’d like to point out that some parts of the hem aren’t fully tucked. That is, in some areas, the hem wasn’t folded twice. This was, once again, due to the uneven nature of the edge that I cutout and the fact that there wasn’t a lot of fabric left around the edges that I could work with, rendering some sections too short to fold twice.
Final Fit
Overall the final design fit pretty well, except for the upper sections of the apron, which were a little too thin and didn’t fully cover my upper body. My waist and legs, however, were fully covered by the apron.
Cost Breakdown
Labor – I worked for 6 hours and at $10/hr (average rice student pay) that leaves labor costs at $60
Apron Fabric – Blue apron fabric can be bought for $6.99 from Hobby Lobby
White Thread – White thread can be bought for $4.99 from Hobby Lobby
White Straps – White Straps can be bought for $2.14 from OnlineFabricStore
Sewing Machine – The machine I used(JUKI TL-2000Oi) was provided for free by the OEDK, but can be purchased for $1200 from Walmart
This gives us a total cost of $74.12 excluding the sewing machine as it was provided for free and is not necessary since this apron could be hand sewn as well.
Clean Workspace
As always, I ensured to maintain all used work spaces as clean as possible…
