Summer crafting: Apron sewing tutorial

This is a tutorial on how to sew the apron from the free pattern from my previous post.

This was the first I made, and now I am making a new one for the purposes of this tutorial. That's why the fabric is different.

First of all, we need to cut out the fabric. We need one piece for the centre of the apron, cut on fold, two pieces for the sides, two pieces for the pockets and four for the ties.

As I told you, I didn't put seam allowance on my paper pattern, but you can. If you did, just pin them to your fabric and cut around the pattern. I did it this way: I put the 2 cm line on my quilting ruler on the edge of the pattern, and cut. Lucky this pattern is almost all straight lines, the curves I just freehanded.

Here are my pieces. On the right the middle piece, opened, then the two sides, above the two pockets, and the ties. I did not bother much about the pattern of the fabric, except that it was not upside down, but I did fussy-cut the pockets. I wanted to have a nice pattern element on the pockets, not cut in half.

If you look at the first apron, in the above picture, you see that the pockets and the ties are made of a matching fabric but with a different pattern. You can also do that if you want.

We start sewing with the pockets.
First use the 2 cm seam allowance to double-hem the top of the pocket. The top is the slanted line:

Then we do the same on the shorter side and on the bottom. Since the bottom is slightly curved, I do it like this: I sew a basting stitch along the curve, about 5 mm from the edge, and pull the thread a little. Then I iron the fold while still pilling a little.

When 3 sides of the pocket pieces are hemmed (the longest side is left with a raw edge), we put them on top of the side pieces. Measure 10 cm from the top of the side piece (the blue dot) that's where the point of the pocket will be, the raw edges of the two should be matching. Pin in place.

Then we take the middle piece, put on side piece with the pocket attached on top of it. The wrong sides are touching, the right sides are outwards because we are going to sew a French seam. I love French seams, they mean that there are no unsightly seams or fraying edges on the wrong side.

Match the bottom of the pieces and pin them:

Sew them together, using a 5-6 mm seam allowance. Important: at the top, don't start sewing right at the edge, leave 2 cm unsewn, so we can easily fold that part down later for hemming.

This is what we get:

Do this on both sides.

Then fold them so they the right sides are meeting on the inside, and iron the seam lines:

Sew another seam from this side now, with 1 cm seam allowance. It will look like this from the back:

And this from the front:

Then iron down the seam on the back, towards the middle, and sew along the edge of it:

Hem the top part of the sides: I folded down the 2 cm that we did not sew together with the middle like this:

then fold half of this under, so the raw edge is hidden. Sew the hem.

Now hem the top of the middle piece, the two sides and the bottom of the apron. If you find it difficult to hem the curved button, use the basting stitch trick I showed you with the pockets.

Only the ties are left, and the sides of the middle top part.

Now let's look at the sides of the middle piece. Because of the French seam, there is a double fold at the edge, like this:

We need to simply iron it down as it is. We will not hem this side but put it in between the folded ties and sew.

So take the 80 cm long tie pieces. Fold them in half, iron, open up, fold the to sides to the middle, iron, and fold it in the middle again.

But for this, because it will be quite thick with the extra fabric put in between, I like to offset the folds a little, when I fold first, I fold not exactly in the middle but so that one side is a bit bigger than the other:

After this open the ends, fold and iron the edge in about 1 cm, so there is no raw edge visible when we sew.

Open it and put the narrower fold right side down on top of the wrong side of the apron, match the folded edge to the hemming on the sides, and sew a seam 1-2 mm from the fold line (red line in the picture):

Then fold the whole thing to the right side, and topstitch on the edge.

Start sewing at the waist, and after you have stitched it down on the top part of the apron, continue stitching together the tie. At this point I moved the fold a little so it was folded more in the middle. When you reach the end, pivot and sew across:

Only the waist ties are left. Fold the two 60 cm long ties the same way as the neckties, but make it symmetrical. Put the corner of the apron in between this fold for about 2 cm, and sew them together:

Your apron should be ready. Enjoy it. :)

Please let me know if any of the steps need clarification, if I forgot something - you can also tell me if it seems to be working. :)


I will be soon back with some embroidery and a cross stitch pattern.