Apron finished

My apron is done!  I have wanted a custom apron for a long time.  Namely, us well-endowed and curvy women need an apron that covers enough.  None of the 'sew a ribbon onto a hand towel' stuff!

I had a few objectives here:

1.  It must have a long enough torso part.  Every apron I put on has the waist tie several inches higher than I need it.
2.  The top bib needs to be wide enough or it -ahem- leaves me half exposed.

I browsed a ton of blogs before I settled in on how to do this.  I didn't want to buy a pattern.  And I had to be able to customize for my figure.  I loosely based mine on Sugar Bee's tutorial. (Here and here).

Cute, no?

Here is what I did.

My first change was having the front of the apron be all one peice instead of sewing a bib to a skirt.

My top edge was about 15 inches wide and the bottom of the skirt was 32 inches wide.  That felt like good coverage to me.  I folded the fabric in half lengthwise and cut out the curve for the sides of the chest bib.  I just eyeballed it.

Then I cut out:

top band: 4"x15"

neck band: 4"x24"

waist band: 4"x32"

side ties: 2"x24"

pocket: I traced a bowl

bottom band: 4"x32"

bottom ruffle: 4"x50" (or so)

For the bands, I used this method shown here: nursing cover up tutorial.  That was the first project I had ever done and I learned many sewing techniques from following it a couple years ago.  She shows us beginners how to fold and press and attach bands while encasing the raw edge.

I worked from the bottom up.  I ruffled the bottom piece.  Then I attached the bottom band to the apron and pinned the ruffle to fit.  That was easy to sew on but my fabric is a thick twill-like fabric and it got a little bulky, plus it doesn't lay down like most ruffles do.

Then I lined my pocket and added a ruffle.  I love the detail.

I topstiched it onto the body.

Then we came to the waist.  I tapered the edges of the waist piece and fed a few inches of the side ties into the openings.  I was really happy with that transition area, as I wasn't sure how it would work.  I only had it in my head.  And I got to my second real change from the example.  I have major issues with tying things behind my back. 

I went to Walmart and got some webbing.  Then because Walmart is dumb, doesn't have fasteners and I didn't want to drive to a fabric store, I got a backpack from the thrift store for $1 and cut off the black buckle (wish it wasn't black, but after 20 min of looking at various bags I determined there really was only black to choose from).

Kinda stupid, but like I said, I have dexterity issues when I can't see what I'm doing!

I added a white cotton neck band.  All the fabrics so far were just remnant pieces in my stash, so I was out of the blue accent pattern.  I thought white would be fine at the top.

I just have one issue.  Maybe a reader can help?  Because I needed the top wider, it gaps in the front when I'm wearing it.  Any suggestions?  I thought about moving the neck strap in a bit toward the middle, but wouldn't that look silly to not be attached at the corners?

I had the fabric already so total cost was $ .83 for webbing and $1.00 for a thrifted buckle. 


It took me a couple nap times to sew up.  I learned a lot and I'm glad it's done!
It's not the finest creation, but I am happy with it and it hopefully will work out well. But I'm not gonna lie; the thought of spaghetti sauce on it makes me twitch. A little.




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