Little Girl's Apron Tutorial

I went to a craft day on Saturday and learned how to make these adorable aprons.  There were adult size and child size, I thought the child ones were so cute so that's what I made.

I made a second one that's going to make a great Christmas gift for a cute little girl and I made a tutorial at the same time, here's the second modeled so you can see the finished product.

This next part involves a ton of pictures so if you don't want to make one of these aprons you may want to stop here.

We'll start with a cut list.

Front 14 1/2" sq
Back 17" Sq
Bottom Trim 2"x16" - cut two
Neck Strap 3"x19"
Waist Ties 3"x26" - cut two
Pocket template - cut two

Your pocket should be 6" from the top of the point to the bottom.

You'll start by taking your two waist ties and your neck strap and sewing them along the side, right sides together to make a tube. On the waist ties you'll angle the ends so you get a point.  Turn the three right side out and press them flat.  You'll end up with this.

Next we'll work on the pocket.  Now ideally you'd want one side to be the flowered fabric and the other the polka dot but I used a fat quarter and just didn't have enough for the pocket.   The white made a nice stand in though.  I also think the neck strap would have been cute polka dot but I had to make do with what I had.

Take your two pocket pieces and put them right sides together, sew around leaving enough room to turn it the right way.  Trim your corners, turn right side out and press nice and flat.  Topstitch all the way around closing up your open gap.

You can see that after I turned my pocket my point is no longer very straight, I must not have sewn straight enough.  Oddly enough I did this later too giving a cute effect but try to sew nice straight lines.  For now put your pocket aside.

Next we're going to attach our bottom trim.  One quick note, since I had so little fabric my bottom trim is just a little bit more narrow that it should be, still worked great though.

Lay your front piece on the table and with right sides together layer your bottom trim on top lining up your raw edges, like so.  Line up the edges on the right side too, this will give you some over hang on the left but just leave it.  Sew this piece on and then move onto the next side.

Line it up opposite the first strip, like so

See how those two flaps overlap at the bottom?  The right one is sewn already, the left is the one we're working on.  When you get to the bottom you're going to lift up that right hand flap and sew as close as you can to your seam.  I put a pin in so you can see where my seam is going to end.

This is what it looks like with both sides sewn.

Now before these pictures get confusing let me point out that the fabric I'm using for the front of the apron is leftover fabric that I used to cover my ironing board.  See how one fabric is the right side and one is the wrong side?  The right side is the ironing board.

Press your seams open.  On the bottom trim you have a bottom flap and a top flat, fold the top flap out of the way for now.  Twist the bottom flap until you get that nice 45 degree angle like above.  Then fold your top flap back over top and pin in place.   If you flip everything over you can see that you'll end up with a perfect line.

You're going to sew right down that nice line where my thumb is.  Once it's sewn turn it to the back, cut off your excess and then press your seam open.

I swear that was the only complicated part, from here on out it's smooth sailing.

Time to attach the pocket.  Fold your fabric in half like this.

Your pocket goes on about 6 inches from the bottom point.

Place it on, unfold your fabric and sew in place but don't forget that this is a pocket.  Don't sew across it.  Your also only going to sew up to the bottom of the triangle so you can fold the flap over.

Once it's sewn on, fold and press your flap and add a cute button.

Time to add your waist ties.  Place your fabric wrong side up and measure about 4 inches from side point (I only did 3 1/2 since my trim was narrower).  Place your waist ties on and pin in place.  The tie goes on at an angle, if you're looking at your diamond shape of fabric you'd want to line your ties up parallel (sorry, I forgot to take a picture, I made this lovely diagram for you though).

Do the same on both sides sewing into place.

Now it's time to put the back piece on.  I felt quite certain that I would end up sewing a waist tie into this seam so I gathered mine into the center of my fabric and pinned them in place just to keep them out of the way.

With right sides together line up your fabric.  There will be some overlap but you cut it off later.

Pin in place and sew around making sure to leave a section open so you can turn it later.  Before you turn these pieces trim off your excess polka dot fabric and clip your corners.  Turn and press really well and then top stitch all the way around.

Fold the top point down about 3 1/2 inches and stitch in place going over the same seam you used to top stitch.

See how both my folded over points are kind of angled?  I don't know how I managed to angle both of them but since they match I like them.

Now all that's left is the neck ties.

You could just sew both sides nice and secure and I did that on the first apron only to come home and find out the strap was way too big.  I could have just made it smaller but instead I measured the fit on Catie and left one side sewn on and the second side I unpicked.  I put two button holes on the strap a couple of inches apart so that as she gets taller the strap can grow with her.  Don't judge my buttonholes, not sure how they turned out so wonky.

I sewed a button to the inside of the apron to attach the strap too.

Once it's buttoned you can't even tell they're there and it fits really well.

You could also choose to put some buttons right where the neck straps get sewn on, that would look really cute.  I chose not too on either of my aprons because my fabric was so busy.

I hope that seemed easy because it really was.  I made mine during Catie's nap.  These aprons are adorable and even though I have no reason too I want to make more.

Pretty nice bruise on her forehead hey?  Perhaps she should take note of where the wall starts.