Another apron

This apron is the second one I made from My Midnight Man's worn out jeans.  This is the back pocket and waistband section. I opened the crotch seam so that the garment would lay flat.  Then I found the place to mark off a straight line, where I could add a ruffle at the bottom. 

The bib is made from half a leg section.  I ripped open the inside and outside seam and used the front part of the leg.  You can see the center fold where the jeans had been pressed a few times. 

To make it the right size, I held it up to me and determined where the bib would be attached to the waistband.  I marked it with a pin, then measured and cut it to the correct length.

I decided that since I had some nice green material that would work really well, I had enough to make decoration.  I'd been wanting to practice doing applique onto garments, with the idea of eventually doing a quilt top.  I took a pattern from a child's colouring page to cut out three leaves.  I had some iron-on adhedsive to tack them into place with a hot iron.

I could have used some yellow or white thread to make the veins on the leaves, but I wanted to keep the apron simple.

Doing applique takes a lot of thread, but the result is a nice finish.  It's also time consuming because the stitching is very tight and close.  Of course sewing a seam is going to be faster. 

You can't see the dark blue stitching in this photo.  But this is how it looked once they were sewn on. 

Next I attached ties.  This time when  I used the pattern from the McCall's Easy stitch 'n Save M5358, I used the full length of the tie pattern instead of a shortened one. 







The ties were straight forward to put on.  But to make it even easier, I ironed creases into the material on the folding lines.  This made pinning much faster.  I attached the ties to the side of the bib, then folded the ties over and sewed them closed.

The jeans waistband is very thick.  Trying to sew the bib directly onto the waistband would have been very difficult as my machine is a simple domestic machine and not made for handling very thick material.  So once again I used the  McCall's Easy Stitch 'N Save M5358 pattern--the waistband piece to make a lighter weight way to attach the bib to the skirt.  Once the waistband was on, I sewed the bib to the back of the waistband.    The final touch was adding a ruffle to lengthen the apron and add to the cuteness factor. 

I really enjoyed making this apron.  My Midnight Man thinks I'll be following him around just waiting to abscond with his other jeans.  But he mustn't worry.  I have other sewing projects I want to work on.  A few people have even offered to donate their jeans to me.  So all is well. 




Serving Jesus, Author of our faith,  "Lady Helene"