Erica's Sew Easy Adjustable Apron // TUTORIAL!

[Music] hey guys and welcome back to my channel today i have a really fun tutorial i've had a lot of requests for an adjustable super easy cute apron so that is what we are going to be making today one of the cool things about this is that it is adjustable it's got nice long straps so you can wrap it around your back and tie it in the front and then it has this cute little pocket on the front as well and don't forget exact sizes and cutting instructions for everything you're going to need will be in the description box below this video so make sure to click the show more link there this is going to be for an adult apron but i will have information on how what cutting instructions you need to do for a child size down in the description box below as well all right let's go ahead and get started here's everything you're going to need one yard of fabric for your main color a half a yard of fabric for your contrasting color or if you don't feel like making a strap you can always use this cotton webbing this is one inch thick cotton webbing it's super soft and squishy it's not that hard really thick one you'll also need some basic sewing supplies and that's it let's go ahead and get started so for our main piece of fabric i've got it with the selvage edges together folded in half up here just like it came off of the bolt so you're going to want to cut this piece 32 inches long this way and then 12 inches up this way with it folded in half and the easiest way for me to do some of those is to just fold it up like this so that i can kind of get a little bit better access to all of my fabric here and then i'll be using just my regular ruler here and i'm just going to square up this one side and in order to do that i'm going to find a horizontal line on my ruler here line it up with the fold of the fabric i'm just going to kind of hold it with my left hand here and then just cut with my right hand and then now i've got a nice clean edge here so again i'm going to just line it up along the far edge of my cutting board here i'm going to come over to this edge over here to 32 inches and mark that and cut that off now because jax is in the way i'm going to scoot him out of the way gently okay and i'm just going to take my ruler and just find my 32 inch mark over here and i'm just going to cut that off so now from our yard cut we've got a 32 inch wide piece so i'm going to unfold it again and remember it is still folded in half with our selvage edges together up here and this time because my ruler isn't long enough again i'm actually going to fold it this way so i'm just going to line up my fabric clear down here on the edge of my cutting board and i'm going to measure i'm sorry i think i said 12 inches before but i meant to say a 13. i'm also going to line up the top edge with my 13 inch marker on my mat and just trim that off and you can save this for another project so now we've got our main piece and it is 32 inches long by 13 inches high and if we were to unfold it of course then it would be 26 inches wide all right but we're going to leave it folded in half still all right now we're going to make our marks for our bib section so from the folded edge here you're going to go up six and a half inches so one two three four five six and a half and you're just going to make a little mark right there and then from this edge down we're gonna go over ten and a half so one two three four five six seven eight nine ten and about a half so next i'm going to take my laundry ruler and i'm just lining it up with this mark and this mark and i'm just going to draw a line and this is just a friction erasable pin so it won't really matter because we're going to cut on this line you won't see it later so here's my line drawn now i just need to go ahead and cut it off i suppose you don't have to draw a line i just like to since it's kind of a wonky cut and we've cut both sides at the same time so the main body of our apron is done we can kind of just set that aside for a minute so let's go ahead and move on to our fabric ties and our pockets so i'm going to be using a contrasting color to do that you can of course make it all the same totally up to you if you don't feel like making your own straps you can also use this i highly recommend this if you are going to be making a lot of gifts because it really speeds up the process because it's already ready to go you don't have to make your own straps this is just a super flexible cotton webbing it is one inch wide cotton webbing you can buy this online or at local craft stores and it's just super easy and fast so i will show you both ways to do it i just want to make sure that you know how to make your own fabric ties but if you're doing gifts this is definitely a good way to go because it makes the whole process much faster so here is our half yard cut that we have for our contrasting fabric and our selvage edges are folded together here so it is folded in half just like it came off the bolts so wrong sides together the first thing i'm going to do is just go ahead and get rid of this selvedge edge because that way i'll just be out of my way and to do that i'm going to line up one of these lines on my ruler with the line on the side here and then just trim it off now that our selvage edge is gone we can start cutting up this fabric into strips so i'm just going to go ahead and fold up the folded edge just so that i have more room on my table here next i'm going to line up my ruler i'm just taking one of the lines on the bottom and lining it up with this folded edge and i'm going to cut four strips that are two and a half inches wide so here's my two and a half inch marker on here i just line that up with the side hold my ruler down and there is one two three and four so here are my ties we can go ahead and set these aside i am going to make a very long strap for this apron because i like the kind of aprons where they come around the front and then tie again in the front you can also still tie this one in the back as well you can adjust how long you would like your ties as well you don't have to make them quite as long as i'm going to um so you can kind of try it on check it out and then adjust it to fit your body the best so we have this little piece left over the next thing we're going to do is go ahead and unfold it and we're going to cut this we're going to cut this piece to be about 8 by 17 we have about eight inches left on here if you have nine inches left make it nine inches uh this is kind of what i have left on my fat quarter so it might have been a little bit short once i trimmed off that side there so i'm going to go ahead and just line this up and 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17. and we can discard the rest of this for another project so here's our pocket and here are our straps let's go ahead and prepare those so i'm going to go ahead and set our pocket aside for just a minute and we're going to take our straps over to our sewing machine and we are simply going to sew them end to end and so i just take one of the ends here with one of the other ends and just put them right sides together like so and just sew right down this seam using a one quarter inch seam allowance and then do that for your next two strips as well so you have one big long strip now that we've sewn all of our strips together it's time to adjust the length of your strap to fit your needs so i'm about five foot two and i wanted like i said for it to be able to tie in the front so i went ahead and made mine about four yards long next we're going to prepare this strip now you can do this a couple different ways you can fold it right sides together sew down this edge all the way down this long edge leaving an opening about halfway and then finishing up the other edge the same way and then turning it right side out i am not a fan of turning things right side out especially skinny strips like this so i'm actually going to do it a little bit different so we're going to take this strip and i'm going to go ahead and kind of repair it like i do my binding so i'm going to first just run an iron down and just go all the way down this whole strip pressing it in half like this okay so you're going to do your whole strip like that then you're going to come back down to this end and starting over again we're going to fold in this edge one quarter of an inch press all the way down to the very end of your strip fold in this edge a quarter of an inch and again go all the way down your strip and then we'll come back and we'll fold these in half together and press it even one more time and then once i'm kind of doing this final press i'll usually start throwing some wonder clips on here just to hold everything in place that way it doesn't come undone and i can sew it a lot quicker i can also kind of line up this raw edge a little better as well so i'll just kind of prepare just to help myself out when i get over to the sewing machine so i'm going to do that all the way down this entire strip the other thing i'm going to do is i'm going to take this short edge here and just tuck it under by about half an inch or a quarter of an inch it doesn't really matter just so you don't have a raw edge on this that way when you fold it in half you can stick a little clippie on there to hold it in place and then we'll have our straps once we're done doing this we're going to take it over to the sewing machine we're going to sew down this short edge all the way down the long edge and then back up the other end short edge to finish off our tie so i'm going to go ahead and finish pressing this tie and i'll meet you back here okay i finished preparing my strap so i can go ahead and set that aside i'm going to put it over by my sewing machine and next we're going to grab our fabric for our pocket and we're going to address that first so we're going to go ahead and start with the bottom edge and i'm just going to press the bottom edge up about a quarter of an inch or so and then fold it up one more time just to get rid of that raw edge now that our bottom edge is folded up nicely we're going to do the same thing to the side edges so we're just going to fold it in one quarter of an inch and press and then fold it in one more time and press and we're gonna do the same thing on this side as well all right i'm gonna go ahead and just stick a wonder clip right there just to kind of hold that edge for me while i'm doing this other side and again press it in one quarter of an inch and another quarter of an inch now for our top of our pocket i'm going to do the same thing but i am going to press it down just a little bit farther so i'm going to do a quarter of an inch for our first one and then i'm gonna do more like half an inch on this one kind of just eyeballing it guys and i'm just going to throw some clips in there to hold those corners where there's some bulk there now we're going to take this over to our sewing machine and i'm actually just going to sew down this top edge and i'm going to do two seams just because i think it looks a little more professional so just write about an eighth of an inch down from this top fold and then i'll do another one about another eighth of an inch or a quarter of an inch down and that'll seal the top don't worry about the sides in the bottom right now because those will get sewn when we attach them to our apron okay so here is our top seam for our pocket i'm going to go ahead and set that aside next we're going to work on our tie and i'm just going to back stitch here run down this short side all the way down the long side and back up the other short side and i will backstitch there again once i get to my corner here i just left my needle in my down position moved my fabric around pivoted my fabric around and i'm going to keep going so with this long strip you just want to make sure that you're sewing through both of these edges and if you just have to adjust it to straighten it out as you go please do so so here is our finished front pocket we just did that nice uh striping on the top of it there the rest of it will get sewn on later and then here is our tie i told you this was going to be a long tie and i'm really glad i did it this way because i would not have wanted to try and turn this long of a piece right side out but you do it whatever way you prefer so now that we have these two bits done we're ready to move on to the apron and you can probably also see why this is a much faster option if you're going to be making a lot of these for gifts so first we're going to work on this top section here and then we'll do the sides and then we'll do the bottom and then lastly we will do these side strips and we are going to press down the top of this apron by one quarter of an inch just like we did everything else and then we're gonna do it over by one full inch and i actually have markings on my little board here you may not have that so you can kind of measure those with a ruler or however you want to do it but one full inch down and then i'm going to go ahead and just stick a couple of pins in here just to hold this in place so that it doesn't move until i get over to my sewing machine all right and then we're going to go ahead and prepare the sides as well i kind of like to do all my pressing in one step and then all of my sewing in one step so same deal with the sides except we're only going to do a quarter of an inch and a quarter of an inch i just like that wider top up there i think it just looks a little bit nicer so again fold it in a quarter of an inch and by the way i'm not measuring i'm just kind of eyeballing this so and again i'm just going to throw a couple pins in there it's not a big deal but just so it doesn't move around on me too much okay and then we're going to flip this around and do the other side [Music] next we're going to take this over to our sewing machine and i'm just going to sew right down this seam just to secure it i'm going to do that on both of the side seams we just pressed and then i'm also going to do that on this top seam as well for the top seam now i'm going to kind of do what we did on the pocket so i'm going to run a stitch kind of along this top edge here and then i'll run another one down here so we kind of have a wider top edge i think that'll just give it a nicer look [Music] [Applause] all right now that we've got our tops and sides sewn we're gonna go ahead and work on the bottom and so we're going to fold this up a little bit higher as well now you can make your apron a little bit longer if you need to i'm about five two my daughter is five seven fits both of us okay um as far as length goes but you can definitely adjust the length if you want but i'm going to go ahead and fold this up again kind of like i did the other one by a quarter of an inch and then i'm going to fold the bottom up all right so i'm going to fold mine up i think more like one and a half inches is what that is on my board here and like i said guys this is an apron kind of eyeballing it just going straight across you can use a ruler once i get that in i will put my wonder clip a couple wonder clips or some pins on there just to kind of hold it so that it doesn't get too wonky when i bring it over to my sewing machine so i will run one top stitch right down the edge of this seam just to make sure that it's nice and secure and then i'll probably do another one next to it just to kind of mimic what we did over here on the top edge all right so here we are i'm actually going to start on this short edge just so i can secure up this seam right here this opening i'm going to try and just stay on my stitch line from before i am going to backstitch at my stop and starts okay when i get there i'm gonna go ahead and just lift up my presser foot pivot my material and then i'll just keep on [Music] going all right guys we are in the home stretch we've got the bottom of our apron the sides and the top done the last thing to do is just deal with these little side pieces then we can thread our strap through and we're all done with this project all right to work on these side bits you do probably want to measure for this one so i'm going to go ahead and just take this first edge here and like we did the other ones i'm going to fold it over by one quarter of an inch and i am eyeballing this one okay the next measurement is going to kind of depend on how wide you made your straps now we made our straps one inch wide and this is also one inch wide so if you're going to be doing one inch wide like i have you're going to want to fold this over by one and a quarter inches at least and you will probably want to just kind of get a little tape measure and measure this as you go and i'm just going to press a little bit here and then i'll just kind of keep measuring as i go down just to make sure that i have enough room to get that strap through and again i am actually going to pin this edge because i don't want this edge moving around and then we're going to repeat that same process on our other side over here and again we're going to do one quarter of an inch ish and then um one and a quarter inch and be a little bit more precise there all right next what we're going to do is take this over to the sewing machine and then we're going to back stitch right here and stitch right along this edge and again back stitch here at our edge you don't want to stitch anywhere in here because this is the casing for our strap to go through so just stitch right along this edge on both of your diagonal sides so we're done sewing all the way around the edges of our apron the next thing to do is to add our front pocket and i'm just going to go ahead and line it up with right here where the casings kind of stop you can put your pocket wherever you like the other thing i like to do is just fold my pocket in half and just kind of finger press it so i have a center crease and i can still see the center crease from where my fabric was folded so i'm just going to line it up that way but you do want to center it horizontally if you're curious it is about i don't know eleven and three quarters inches down from the top eleven and a half something like that you can also try your apron on kind of hold it up to you and then put your pocket where you would like your pocket to be as well so i'm gonna go ahead and just line that up and pin it in place and then we're going to take it over to the sewing machine and we're just going to back stitch right here at our start go all the way down across the bottom and back up to the top and then i'm also probably going to add you can kind of customize these pockets of course however you would like but i'm going to add so right down this kind of center crease back stitch right here and then i'll have two pockets all right so here is what our apron is looking like it's super cute we've got our little pocket and i just did um one strip down the middle here so that i have two pockets on here but you can do whatever you want next we're going to go ahead and just thread our strapping through this casing right here and we'll be all done now one thing i wanted to mention of course we made this so i wanted to show you how to make your own straps if you want plus you can kind of customize it to your fabric which is always fun but if you are going to be using this cotton webbing you're just going to want to take your raw edge here and you can either fold it over by about one inch and do a sew a square around it with like an x in the middle that's always super cute or you can just fold it over by about a half quarter of an inch fold it over another about half inch or so and then just sew down this edge if you're going to be doing that you may also want to switch to a denim needle so you can get through this that can be kind of thick right there but either way just finish off the raw edges of your webbing if you're going to be using that and we're ready to move on to the next step so for this step we're just going to need one of these larger safety clip safety pins they also have i think little clips you can use as well and it doesn't matter which strap you have you're going to be doing the same technique but you're basically just going to take your pin and just loop it through one end there and then just take it we're going to start on the right side come across and then back down on the left side right there and you just want to take your pin and just kind of scrunch it on there i think a pin is probably one of the easier ways in my opinion and if you made your casing wide enough this should go pretty easily if for some reason your casing is just way too tight and you just didn't make it big enough for however big of a strap you made then you can just go ahead and just go pick out those stitches make it a little bit wider and then just re-sew it and you'll be all set so i'm just going to kind of straighten it out on this side here and just kind of pull it through until it straightens itself out and you can feel it's nice and flat in there i just leave a little bit out there this is adjustable so it doesn't actually matter how much you leave and so we're going to just take that other end pull it out and we are all done guys and then the last thing i do is i just kind of even out these edges here and then i'll just pull this strap through until it's even and here we go guys we're all done with our adjustable apron and then you can put it on and one of the cool things about these is you can adjust how high up you want simply by grabbing your straps and pulling the top up you can pull it down a little bit if you want and hopefully these straps are nice and long and they'll go around a variety of sizes of people so that is my tutorial for today i hope you enjoyed it if you did please make sure to thumbs up and subscribe that way i know to keep making these fun videos for you if you have an idea for a project you'd like to see me do a tutorial for let me know in the comments section below and i will definitely take a look at those thank you so much for joining me today i hope you enjoyed today's project and i will see you next time so for our main is it recording yes i wasn't even filming okay all right i got this i just realized that my fabric is going sideways and don't forget sizes and exact cutting instructions for everything will be in the description box below this video i'll also have below this video okay fun good times okay eight by approximately 17. and you can kind of decide if you want your bottom to be a little chunkier or well i guess nobody wants their bottom to be chunkier well maybe some people do i don't know and then just like the top i'm actually going to run two stitches two stop top stitches down this so i'll run one run one oh who's making cookies [Music] [Applause] you

Channel: Erica Arndt

Views: 116,577

Rating: 4.9390912 out of 5

Keywords: How to sew an apron, diy apron, how to sew for beginners, beginner friendly apron, how to sew an adjustable apron, adjustable apron tutorial, Erica Arndt, sewing tutorial, easy diy apron, erica's sew easy apron, easy apron tutorial, easy adjustable apron

Id: W2LFsZmOkAM

Length: 23min 37sec (1417 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 24 2020