I must confess I have thing for aprons, I know it might sound weird from someone who was born about a decade after women were burning bras and is part of Generation X but... I really, really like them.
I like that they are not just decorative. When I cook I tend to wipe my hands on whatever is close by, so wearing an apron seems to be the easiest way to make sure I don’t end up wearing half the ingredients.
Also given that hubby and I do not (yet!) have a dishwasher and that my sink area is very tiny I have found an apron to be pretty darn useful in preventing a lovely dishwater patch slopping onto my top. At least it absorbs the spills while I negotiate dishes in a sink the size of a bucket.
And they can look kinda cute...well I think so anyway.
Over the year friends have made and given me quite a few, but they are starting to look a bit raggedy so I decided to try and make a couple myself.
A quick visit to
Textile Traders in Osborne Park netted me 2 craft fabrics that were within budget (half price at $5 /metre), and fitted in with my kitchen colour schemes :
A coffee design cotton featuring cups and coffee bean motifs on a beige background. As coffee is one of my daily weaknesses I felt that this would be right at home in my kitchen.
A more traditional "wallpaper print" style cotton in really pretty shades of blue (one of my favourite colours).
After looking on a few blogs and pattern sites for inspiration. I decided to have a go at making my own pattern up as I only wanted half aprons and they seemed pretty simple to make- basically a rectangle with ties.
(If you are interested in free apron patterns Tipnut
has heaps, most just need to be drawn up from diagrams/measurements. Or you can try searching google for "apron patterns"- theres plenty out there!)
My first apron was a 75cm x 47 cm (1cm seam allowance) rectangle, hemmed at the bottom and gathered at the top to a distance that I felt wrapped around my waist nicely, This was then sandwiched into a folded strip of fabric (57cm x 10cm= 55cm x 4cm finished width) which served as the front waistband piece. I then attached ties ( 72 cm x 8cm = 70cm x 3 cm finished width)that I made to each side and added a patch pocket ( 12 cm x 12 cm to give a 10cm2 pocket )to the front.
Blue apron with "mobile phone pocket".
The second “coffee cup” apron I wanted to be a bit shorter and frillier. I made the main rectangle piece 25 cm deep for this one and left the width the same as the original fabric width. I figured the extra gathering would look OK.
I really liked the cute coffee cup motif in this fabric design and so took care cutting the pieces so that the cups were featured part of the waistband and across the centre of the apron skirt.
As I still had some fabric left I sewed 2 more strips of the cups motif together. Then gathered and attached them to the bottom of the apron, making a frill.
The ties were cut from the rather plain brown sections from near the selvedges
Coffee cup apron (folded in half)
Excuse the purple hoodie (cold here!) - the length of the coffee apron on me.I didn’t add a pocket to the coffee apron as I thought it might be too much at the time, however after using the blue one I wish I had. The little pocket on the blue apron is the perfect size for my mobile phone or iPod to fit in snugly and has turnd out incredibly handy!
Both aprons were made to be a bit wider than the usual shop brought ones as I wanted good coverage and to be able to tie them comfortably.
