How to Make a Cross Back Patchwork Apron With Pockets - No Pattern Needed

hello everyone thank you so much for joining me today we are making a one-size-fits-all cross back quilted patchwork apron just like you see here I'm gonna do a little fashion show so you don't need a pattern to follow along with us today I'm going to walk you from the very beginning until we have a finished apron so check this out I've used recycled denim to make all kinds of pockets and little loops I love to use an apron all through my day I put it on all of my tools everything I need goes into these pockets I've even worn it to the grocery store putting my list my pocket my cell phone not my pocket my wallet and so yet I wear it from the very beginning of my day until the end of my day which means I need an apron that does not hang on the back of my neck at the end of a long day with all of the weight of the stuff in my pockets I tend to get a lot of neck aches and headaches and sometimes a back ache and it's all from the weight on my neck I have to have everything loose around my neck so I've been on a mission to create a cross back apron that really worked for me and because of the long cross back straps this apron fits everyone I'm going to show you how you can adjust the size as we get to that part and I hope that you follow along now if this is the first time you're joining me on my channel I would love if you subscribe and hit the bell notification you'll get notified when I make all kinds of videos like for t-shirt quilts art quilts fun patterns like this and if you would hit the like button I would really appreciate that too so we're gonna go ahead and jump right to it and get started today so grab your fabrics your ruler your sewing machine and let's get started as we jump to work today I want you to gather a bunch of fabric and the colors that you would like your apron and your pieces need to be at least six by six inches because we're cutting 24 exact six inch by six inch squares so I'm using my rotary cutter my ruler and my mat I'm just going to go through my selection and cut my six inch by six inch squares as we sew up them together they will finish at five and a half by five and a half inches sometimes I like to double up my fabrics to make the cutting go by a little bit faster and all of these extra little bits go back into my fabric stash now I'll go through this selection of red and pink fabrics and choose the fabrics I want to use once you have your 24 squares go ahead and arrange them in a layout that looks just like this if you want to add some length to your apron you can cut an additional six squares which gives you 30 altogether and you'll add an extra row at the bottom just like you see here once you have all of your squares we're going to go ahead and connect our rows using a quarter inch seam allowance so we're so in the blocks together to form our rows and once you're done you'll press your seams alternating one row to the right and one row to the left and that'll give you some nesting seams to make your points nice and pretty let's take a look at our top row I'll take this to the pressing board and press this row to the left and then the next row to the right and follow that all the way down then we're going to take our second row and third row just like you see here and we're going to join those together with a quarter inch seam allowance we'll bring that over to the sewing machine and for each one of our rows that we join together we want to remember to do a back stitch at the beginning of the seam and at the end of the seam and that will really lock that into place just following along the raw edge of the seam from one end to the next going right along once they come to the end we'll do a couple back stitches and then I'll bring this to the pressing board and I'll give this seem impressed once we've pressed that scene between the second and third rows we're ready to trim away the sides of our apron I'm going to match the little corner up at the top to the quarter inch mark on my ruler and same with this bottom corner right here we're going to trim away at these little triangle bits on one side and then flip the apron around and trim away the corner bits on this side as well remember to line up your corners with the quarter inch mark on your ruler throw those little corner bits back into your fabric stash they're great for doing little raw edge applique projects you should have a quarter inch that extends just like that now we can finish assembling our apron we're going to join this top seam and then this seam and then finally this seam and those of you who are adding the extra row you'll add that row on to sew our finished apron top should measure eleven and a half inches wide at the top twenty seven and a half inches from top to bottom and thirty two and a half inches at the very bottom the next thing we're going to do is lay down a piece of thin batting and we're going to pin our apron with the pretty side facing up all the way around the raw edge and I like to throw some pins into the middle just to anchor that down too you could use safety pins if you don't want to be pricked on your finger with the little straight pins we're getting ready to do some free motion quilting with our apron you can quote your apron any way that you like once I have it all pinned down I'm going to go ahead and just remove some of this extra batting that extends beyond the edges so that's not in the way now we're going to move over to the sewing machine and I'm going to do some free motion quilting on my apron I think this is the most fun part of this project certainly I think you could do some stitch in the ditch quilting you could tie your apron I do think with the layer of batting that it adds some support especially if you're adding pockets to your apron and you put lots of things in your pockets plus as a quilter I love the quilted look so I'm just going to bring you along as I do some quilting on this apron I'm gonna do an all-over meandering stitch you'll see I have on my gloves to help give me some traction with the fabric and for this apron I am using this thread that you see here from a k trading company I'm just taking my time starting in the middle of the apron and working my way all the way around as I come to a pin I'll take the pins out and keep on quilting I've always found for me that the hardest part of doing this is along the edges you can go as fast or as slow as you would like shifting and moving the clothes around making sure everything is nice and flat as you work along on your apron I think it would have been really pretty if I would have quilted some hearts on this now looking at it you know you always have the afterthought so I should have done this I should have done that I tried to do my prettiest quilting and the darker red blocks because it shows up more do you ever do that and I'm just working from one side to another and I'll float around here and I'll float back over here my goal is just to make sure that every part of the apron top is quilted now let me move you over in another direction so you can see what it looks like from this way you'll notice I just had to stop I had to adjust my top tension because I had a thread break which is a little bit unusual so if your top thread ever breaks try adjusting your top tension mine was too tight I had to loosen that up a little bit I think projects like this are the perfect size to get in some practice if you're nervous about doing free motion work on your quilts to think if you make four or five aprons and get practice in you should be pretty confident to move to a quilt top maybe so now I'm just gonna go ahead and finish up quilting the rest of this off-camera and then we're going to move on with the next step in making our apron once it's all quilted we're going to take our straight edge ruler and rotary cutter and we're going to trim away all the extra batting that extends beyond our apron do this all the way around all of your edges removing all of those extra bits now we can take a look at our apron front I think it's going to be so pretty and right now we do not have a backing on our apron so the next thing we're going to do is make some straps for our apron I like mine to be at least fifty inches long these two straps I cut at 52 inches long but you can make your shorter or longer it's all up to you so my piece of fabric is about eight inches wide I'm going to cut the length of my straps first so my fabric is folded in half I'm going to fold it again and now we're going to cut our two separate apron straps I cut my straps at three inches wide that gives me a little bit of a thinner finished strap you could cut yours wider or thinner if you like to get my long straps I had to piece two longer pieces of fabric together and then cut my straps so here is my long 52 inch strap let's bring this over to the ironing board the first thing we're going to do to make our strap is we're going to fold our strap in half and press that all the way from one end to the other once you have it pressed go ahead and open it back up and fold each of your ends into that middle fold line that we just created so there's one side give that a press and then we'll fold the other side into the middle give that a press and then we'll fold it one more time just like you see me doing here and give that a press once more and we'll do that all the way from one end of the strap to the other and we'll do that for both of our straps once you have your straps made we can bring those over to the sewing machine and I'm going to do a running stitch I'm going to first do a long running stitch on the open edge of my strap and that permanently seals closed our straps oh boy and keep going keep going coming to the end of this one I'm gonna bring the next step right in and do the same exact thing I usually like to use a little bit of a longer running stitch like let's see a three or a three and a half once we feed this through I'm going to go ahead and remove it and I'm going to flip it over and do another stitch on the other side so that it matches a little bit it gives it a little bit of a more finished look there we go isn't that so cute now to really finish off our straps we're going to take one end and fold it once and then fold it again just like you see here and we're going to do a straight stitch just to secure that into place and that will be the finished edge finished end of our strap now mine is a little bit thick because I used flannel for my strips if you're using cotton your little folded over end will not be as thick as mine I'm going to do some back stitches to really lock that into place because our straps will get a lot of use now I'm thinking I could have done a neater job than that so now we have our straps done that let's go ahead and create some loops I have a piece of fabric that is 11 inches long and I'm going to fold that in half I'm gonna line that up the folded edge on a line on my mat I'm going to cut two pieces to create our loops and I'm cutting these three inches wide now just like we did with our straps we're going to take this to the iron press it in half and then open that up and press put oak both raw edges into the middle and fold again and press just like we did with our straps go ahead and sew those as well now let's recycle some blue jeans for our pockets I have a big trunk full of blue jeans I have found at the goodwill I love to go to the goodwill outlet where you can buy clothing for really cheap and look for all different kinds of jeans with interesting pockets like this one and I not only use the pockets and the little pocket loops or the belt loops but all that extra denims goes into some fun quilts I like to use the little tiny pockets just like you see right here I cut those out I cut the inside lining of the pocket away and then I want to add some loops so I'm going to cut off some belt loops and add those to my apron so I'll go through and cut an assortment of different pockets until I have as many pockets that I would like to add I like all the different sizes I like some that have buttons on them now we can arrange our pockets in any fashion that really works for you I really like buying kids jeans too because those pockets are a little bit smaller so I have a huge array of different size pockets once I have a layout with my pockets that I really like I'm going to take some fabric glue and just glue those down and wait for that to dry you could use pins if you wanted to pin your pockets in place one of the reasons why I really like the glue is because on the rivets I make sure to put glue there because we will not be able to sew where those rivets are so I'll glue down all of these little pockets and belt loops I'll wait for that to dry and then we're going to move over to the sewing machine again and just do a straight stitch around all of our pockets to really secure those permanently in place what do you think don't you just love the red white and blue I think this is so adorable I like this pocket because it has a little loop and a pocket alright now I'm going to try to be patient and wait for that to dry and then we can sew these down if your pockets have rivets be very careful because you can break a needle in the blink of an eye and ask me how I know that I'm just doing a running stitch around the edge of my pockets I'll bring you through a couple of pockets and sew those together with you so you get a good idea I like to do a back stitch at the beginning and at the end just to make sure that it's really locked into place because I plan on using each and every one of these pockets now when I get to the little belt loops I like to switch from a running stitch to a zig-zag stitch I lower the length to a zero and I increase the width to like a four and then it just the needle stays in place and just goes back and forth back and forth and really locks down those belt loops now right apron is really starting to take shape I'm gonna go ahead and finish sewing these pockets down see without the lining you can see the quilted apron underneath inside the pocket now on this apron I remembered to make one of my tags I have our two loops and I have our two straps so we're ready to go ahead and pin all of these things into place let's start with our two straps remember we have a finished edge and a raw edge we're going to pin the raw edge into place up at the top remember that we're going to have a seam allowance all the way around the edge of our apron so make sure your strap does not go within a quarter inch of the side of your apron or else you're going to sew your strap into your apron now we made our loops long so that you could adjust how open you want your loops to be I like mine to be a little bit tighter just like you see here and that's about two inches long of course you have some extra to play with if you want your loops to be a little bit longer and looser than that and I like my loops to be pinned about an inch away from the little turn that you see here now if you're not sure where you want your loops to be go ahead and safety pin your straps on and try on your apron and see where they feel comfortable for you to lay I'm going to pin my little label I almost pinned it wrong the label needs to be facing just like this pin that right into place and now you can start thinking about the fabric that you want to finish off the backside of your apron go ahead and find a piece of fabric that extends beyond all of the edges of your apron and we're going to pin with the pretty side of our apron facing down onto the pretty side of your back fabric going to pin all the way around the raw edge and then throw some pins into the middle of the apron to really anchor that down into place once it's all pinned we're going to bring this to the sewing machine I like to start at the bottom with some back stitches at the beginning of my seam and I'm sewing around the entire edge with a quarter inch seam allowance whenever I come to a strap or a loop I make sure to sew through it one time and then go back over it and that'll really keep those stitches into place and add a little bit of strength to the seam where our loops and our straps go also remember to leave a good-sized opening so that we can turn this right side out when we're done I forgot to do back stitches on that strap but I remembered for this one coming to where our tag is and now we're coming back to the bottom edge well do some back stitches there remove all the pins and then we can start trimming away the extra backing fabric and that is when the extra bits of my loops will be trimmed away as well now I do like to leave a little bit of extra backing fabric at the opening where we're going to turn this apron right side out and that just helps me finish off the apron once you've turned away all your backing fabric let's take a pair of scissors and do a couple little snips we're going to snip right in these corners and snip away these corner bits as well and now for the big reveal we can turn our apron right-side out leaving a bigger opening really helps with this process and we can take our hands and go in and poke out our corners I really thought I was on camera doing this part and we can flatten everything out and take a look and we're going to turn in our raw edges into the middle of our apron just like this you can bring that to the pressing board and give all of our scenes a nice good press there's our opening I'm going to go ahead and start at the bottom right at our opening and we're at the sewing machine one last time we're going to do a top stitch just a longer running stitch around the entire perimeter of our apron that'll close off our opening and give a really nice professional clean look to our apron it'll also add a little bit of strength to our loops and our straps be careful not to sew our straps to the backside of our apron know where your straps are at all times we're coming back down to the bottom and we'll do some back stitches right where we started so now that our apron is finished let me show you how the straps cross on the back we're going to take this strap and cross it this way and that strap and cross it the opposite way and we'll feed our straps through our loops this is really the part that makes this apron and one-size-fits-all because the straps are adjustable the front really fits anybody and you can certainly make it longer by adding the extra row so we put our head through this opening here and our arms go in and this way I'll show you here in just a second how exactly I put it on but let me show you with my purple one this was my first one on this one I took my straps and I pinned them where they crossed and I sewed them together like this so you could also do that isn't the purple one so pretty this was my very first one I wanted to make this one even a little bit shorter so I turned up the edge and put a couple seams just to tack that into place but yes I absolutely love these aprons so now that we have our apron all finished let me show you how I put it on so I'm gonna be awkward about this because whenever I'm filming anything I'm awkward but when I'm not filming up with this right on easy up easy so bear with me as I show you how I put on my apron so in the back it crosses over just like this I'll put one arm through this side I put one arm through this side and I open up the area for my head to go in I put it on just like that adjust it where I want it to sit and then grab my straps just like this like that make sure it's laying flat across your back see if that is flat across my back and tie your apron you could even tie it around if you make straps that are long enough if you wanted to do that so I usually just tie mine right in the back and then to take it off you could just pull this completely out of the loop or yeah pull it off the loop coach-house be awkward and pull it right over top of your head but I absolutely love this because there's nothing resting on my neck there's no weight in tension on my neck while I'm working even if I load my pockets completely full so I hope you've enjoyed this I hope you make your own aprons they make wonderful gifts and with Christmas coming up I can think of no better project than to hand make aprons for everybody for Christmas imagine all the different fabric possibilities you could really match someone's personality and character with the fabric remember to use your denim for your pockets too okay I'm off to start a new project I'll be wearing my apron and I hope you wear yours and I would love to see your pictures you can jump down to the description box jump over to the creative crew group and share your pictures of your apron and we'll see you all really soon bye everybody

Channel: Lisa Capen Quilts

Views: 12,207

Rating: 4.9588099 out of 5

Keywords: how to make an apron, cross back apron, cross back apron patterns, free apron sewing patterns, quilted apron, free appron patterns, chefs apron, how to make a cute apron, cross over apron pattern free, smock apron, criss cross apron, patchwork apron pattern, apron patterns, apron tutorial, apron sewing tutorial, easy apron tutorial, lisa capen quilts

Id: 4GPUHFaPMB8

Length: 37min 23sec (2243 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 27 2019