So enjoy the apron tutorial! It's created from dish towels. Really, any old towels will do, but I think the more colorful, patterned and mismatched your towels are the better your final results will be. It's very easy and only takes between 30 minutes to an hour from start to finish.
Materials:
2 dish towels (approx 18" x 24") Preferably mismatched. Preferably pretty
ribbon or twill tape (at least 1 1/2 yard)
Preparing The Pieces
First decide which towel will be used as the skirt portion of the apron and which will be used as the bodice.
Step 1: Take the towel intended for the bodice and fold it in half.
Step 2: Cut directly on the fold.
Step 3: Set one half aside for now. Lay the other piece, good side down, on your work surface.
Step 4: Fold in each of the sides at whatever angle looks most appealing to you. (For mine I decided to go with a 6 1/2" width at the top edge and 15 1/2" at the bottom edge).
When you're done, flip it right side up and it will look like this:
Step 5: From the other half of the towel cut a 6 1/2" x 9 12/"rectangle. This will be used as a pocket.
Step 6: Use double stick tape or pins to fold back the cut edges on the pocket.
Step 7: Time to sew! Sew down the two folded sides of the bodice and the folded edges on the pocket.
Step 8: Now you'll prepare the skirt. Figure out how long you want this portion to be. (I found it was easiest to visualize this by folding portions of it back until it looked right).
Step 9: Cut 1" below the fold.
Flip it over, and it will look like this (basically just a smaller version of what
you started with), but that's all you have to do!
Putting it all together
Step 1: Lay the skirt over the bodice. You may have to play with how much bodice you want showing until you get it the way you like best. (For mine, I liked the look of having a really high skirt. If you want a more blousy effect, drop the skirt a bit lower down.)
Step 2: Now figure out the placement of the pocket on the skirt and pin into place.
Step 3: Finally take your ribbon and cut into 3 pieces: 1 for the neck strap and 2 to tie around your waist.
*My pieces ended up being fairly similar in lengths, because I wanted fairly short waist straps. If you want yours to wrap around your waist and then tie, you will make need to make them much longer.
Step 4: Pin all straps into their appropriate places.
Step 5: Now you're ready to sew it all up! Begin by sewing straight across the top of the skirt, about 3/8" away from the fold.
Step 6: Sew across the top edge again this time an 1/8" away from the fold. This will give you a really pretty double stitch detail.
Step : Finish the apron by sewing on the the pocket and all of the straps.
I'm hoping this will act like some magical charm in my constant effort to resist takeout.
Bonus Project:
-Sew the cut ends of the left over pieces of towel to have somewhat smaller ones, or divide the material further for a cheerful set of dinner napkins!
TOOLS
*tape measure
*scissors
*pins or double stick tape
*sewing machine
**Thank you so much for everyone who entered the giveaway for Stephanie's awesome bangles! The winner is Dickens Sanchez! Dickens, they're on the way. I hope you love them as much as I do:)
