Learn to Sew: Aprons

1. Introduction: Hi, I'm Stephanie from cross-cut sewing, and I have Amanda here with me today and we are going to so one of my favorite projects, aprons. This is one of the first patterns I ever designed and I used to make and sell these. So I've made hundreds of these. They make great gifts and they're a fun way to use holiday or seasonal fabric. We're gonna make the child size today which fits kids about three to eight, but there is an adult size to you just print out the pattern piece. This is the only pattern pieces you print out the one you need and then just cut it right out. The supply lists and amounts are all listed in the pattern that you can download. And you can make this wider or longer if you like. It doesn't change the pattern piece or how you go about sewing it. So these are reversible for the child size. I have fabric that's at least 20 inches long. I have 60 inches of twill tape for the straps and 2D rings. So I have one inch D rings because I have one inch twill tape. But if you use, you can use whatever twill tape you have. This is one and a quarter. Just have the right D rings to match your width up twill tape. 2. Cut the Fabric: So the first thing we're going to do is get this cut out. I have my fabric here. And I already know that this is 20 inches. This way. I went ahead and cut my salvage off the edge of the fabric. So the salvage is the part that has that writing on it. So I cut those out because we don't need those. I'm gonna go ahead and fold this just because it will fit better on my mat here. These edges lined up a little bit better. I have this here at 0, and I have this nice and straight on this sign here. So I'm going to measure this. I want this to be 18 inches wide. I'm going to measure right here at 18 inches and draw my line. I'm gonna go ahead and cut right here. This is my I have 21820 inch rectangles and I already have them lined up right sides together. We're going to go ahead and use our pattern piece. If your fabric is directional, then you definitely want to make sure that you are putting this at the top here. My fabric kinda goes every which way, so I don't have to worry too much about that. We're going to place this here in the corner just like this. And I'm going to cut both layers at once. I'm going to put a little weight and then Amanda is going to go ahead and trace read at the edge of the paper there. Okay, then I'll do this side just so you don't have to reach over. It's okay to flip the pattern piece. You want to make sure that it looks like this because this is gonna be the bib of our apron. And now I'm gonna go ahead and cut these out. Okay, so now I have my two apron pieces. Now as I mentioned, these are reversible. I like to cut a band off at the bottom and flip it so you see both fabrics on both sides. It is optional. You don't have to do that. If you have two fabrics that maybe don't coordinate as well for two different holidays or something like that. But for the child size, I'm going to measure three inches from the bottom and draw my line. If you're making the adult size, I usually cut it at about 4.5 inches. While we're doing our cutting, Let's get our straps cut out. I need one piece of this. That's five inches, then three that are 18. If you're making the adult size, you need two that are 341, that is 251, that is five inches. All right. So these are the three pieces I need. 3. Sew the Bottom Band: Okay, Let's start sewing. We want this to look like this when it's finished. So I'm gonna go ahead and flip this up so that these are right sides together. And we're gonna go ahead and put some clips on there. You can do that. One over here. Amanda is going to go ahead. And so this were set up with our machine with a 3 eighth inch seam allowance. And so she's going to start right here and backstitch. And so just right along this whole edge. While you do that, I'm gonna get this all equipped and ready to go for you. Okay? Alright, so go ahead. Get those out of your way. Stop for a second. I'm just gonna kinda like straight and yet they're very common and you keep on. Just stop for a second. Let's get straightened out again there. Straighten that out theta right to the edge there, and then you're going to backstop. You can take it out. Alright, so go ahead and you're gonna do the same thing for this one. Because you're doing such a great job. And because this is just a nice long straight line, I think we can turn the machine up just a little bit for this. All right, Go ahead. There you go. Make sure you starting right at the edge of the fabric there, so pull it towards you. Yeah, there you go. Go ahead and make sure you do your backstitch. Go forward a couple. All right. Put those clips back in here because you can read them again. And I'm going to do some ironing. Had I'm going okay. I'm just going to go ahead and press this. I like to press towards the darker fabric. Then you know, you're going opposite ways on this. I'm going to press this this way. 4. Sew the Tab: Now before we put these together, we're gonna take our five inch piece of twill tape and our two D rings. We're going to loop. That's right in the middle. And I'm just going to put a clip on the end there and Amanda is going to so this just as close as she can get right here. Let me show you back. 5. Sew the Apron: Okay, Why don't you trim off all those little threads while I start lining this up, I'm going to line these up. Right sides together. Just like this. Eclipse. Thank you. And I'm going to clip I want to have these seems lining up nicely right there. I'm going to start there and that's all I'm going to clip for the moment. Because I'm going to put my straps on the inside. If I pull this down, I'm going to lay my straps for the child size. I'm going to use my mat here to measure an inch down. For the adult, about an inch and a half. I just crisscross these so they're not hanging out and they don't get caught in your stitches. We don't want those ends to get caught. I'm going to measure an inch on that one. And then can I have the one you just saw? An inch on that one? I find that on this part here, if I move the rings like that, they're a little bit less bulky. And I also find that if I put a little piece of tape, it will hold all of this so that they don't come loose and accidentally gets zone when we are sewing the edges. I'm going to flip this backup. Go ahead and help me quit. We definitely want to make sure we clip where those straps are there. Make sure you put one up there with us. Okay. Now we're gonna so around this bowl apron, but we're going to leave an opening down here at the bottom so that we can turn it right side out. So I'm just going to mark where I want to leave my opening. We go Let's make sure that those guys are lined up enough. They're all going to catch me. I'm just going to start sewing here and back stitch. And then she's just going to go around this whole thing until we get back to here. Put the speed on the little higher for them a little bit, but you might want to slow down when you get to those curves. Let's get this out here away. Again. Just make sure everything's going the way you want it. You can speed up a little bit. Needle down. Presser foot up. Yeah. Just make sure you put the presser foot back down. Yeah. Why don't you take that club out of date on there you go. Turn the corner just like you wouldn't even though it's not. Remember how we did the curve. So your presser foot back down and then just do a little bit at a time and kind of steer that fabric. You put that presser foot down. Man, it takes us upset. She's making sure that those scrap ends don't slip, that they stay with us. Presser foot down. Make sure you're kind of steer on that curve. Stops. Good. Put them. So keep going as we get, get a little closer and then we'll talk. Then we can tuck it under and then there you go. Keep going. Put your needle down. Great. Go ahead and back stitch. You can take it out. You can use those little snip thread cutter. Okay. Great. So before I go any further, I I know it looks good on this side because this is the side that was facing us when we were sewing. But it's always good to check on this side and make sure that everything caught. As you can see up here, we're gonna have a little problem. There's gonna be a little hole. If that happens, it's not a big deal. We'll just it looks like maybe I didn't do such a good job cutting. I will say it was my fault. I'm just gonna go in and I'm going to patch that little part up. I'm going to back so I just want to make sure I join it back up with the original stitch line. Otherwise I will look kind of funny. I'm going to trim this up a little bit. I'm going to use my pinky shears. If you don't have thinking shears, you can just cut some little notches into the curved barbs. This will help it because it's curved. When we turn it around, it will help it lay nice and flat. Then I just want to cut off these corners so that they look nice when we turn this around. I'm going to trim because this is a light fabric. I'm going to trim this extra off because I don't want it to show through. When I turn this around. All these corners. Just going to go ahead, oh, I see another little place to patch. Now we can go ahead and reach in, turn this around. Don't need this anymore. I can use whatever tool I have to reach in there. The corners. I'm going to press this nice and flat on the bottom where I lived, the opening, I just want to tuck it in. Nice and neat. Press that. Just get the rest of it here. Roll it between my fingers just to make sure I'm really on the edge there. All right. Now, we're just gonna top stitch this. And what that means is we're just going to sew all around this pretty close to the edge. So about an eighth of an inch or so from the edge all the way around. Hold all our layers together. I'm gonna get you set up and I'm going to start this a little bit just to show you. I'm a little in from wearing normally would be. Alright. So I'm just going to finish doing that all the way around it, all the way around this. Now we just have one last little thing to do. We don't want to leave the ends up our straps like this because they'll start to get stringing. And Frey, We just want to fold that edge in once and then fold it in again, and that will just hide that right edge. Then I'll have you do this but just set it up. So go ahead and just that little bit. Sorry about that. Turn it up on you. All right. We're gonna do that on the three straps. Keeping, pinch, reach over you. Just trim these up. Everyone. Term that guy up. That will drive me crazy. Once you trim these app, you are done. You have your apron. You probably want to give your apron of final press. If you make one of these, we would love to see it, so please share it. Thanks for watching and happy selling.