Japanese Linen Cross-Back Pinafore Apron Pattern Tutorial

hey guys it's serum from the blog Rocky hedge farm calm and today I'm gonna be sharing with you guys how to take a tablecloth and turned it into a japanese-style apron one of the goals I set for myself this year was to become a better seamstress I know a lot of the basic details but I don't know as much as I want to know so I actually took a class earlier this year that taught me how to make the japanese-style apron and my friend Nancy actually teaches that class she's local to me she just opened a beautiful sewing studio so I am very grateful for all that she taught me during that class and I'm also very thankful that she was willing to let me pass on the things that I've learned to you guys so that you can also learn how to make one [Music] so I'm gonna be making my apron out of 100% linen and this is a tablecloth that I just recently purchased which I will link this for you guys below and where you can find one because it's a really good price for linen but the first thing that you want to do is wash and dry this before you ever use it to make anything with that way it's preshrunk when you go to use it so this is a very simple tutorial there's not a lot of supplies that you need and if you can so just a very basic straight line if you know how to wind a bobbin if you know how to thread a sewing machine but this is definitely something that you can make as well so here's the supplies that I'm gonna be using today I have thread that's gonna match my linen fabric I have a cutting board a ruler to use on my cutting board a bobbin I also have a rotary cutter to use on cutting my fabric and then pencil or pen and paper to write down some measurements and a pair of scissors and also an iron so those are the basic things that you need other than a sewing machine you need in order to make this Japanese style apron okay so the first thing you want to do is measure your bust line to get the inches that you need for the top of your apron so you just measure right above your bust line and whatever number you get is the number that you want to write down on your piece of paper and then to that number you want to add anywhere from 8 to 10 inches and that's just recommended so that you have plenty of room in your apron and it's not really tight on you so for me that's gonna give me 50 inches across that I need my apron then you just need figure out exactly how long you want it to be so I have mine just below my knee and if I measure up to my best line that's about 33 inches in here and then I'm going to add 3 inches and that's just for my him on the top in the bottom and that gives me a total of 36 inches so now I know how big my rectangle needs to be my rectangle that I need to cut out of my linen fabric will need to be 50 by 36 inches so the linen tablecloth actually already has him that seam all the way around so what I'm gonna do is just go ahead and I'm gonna cut that off [Music] so to cut off this piece right here I just line it up on my mat and then I have my ruler here and I'm I'm just gonna cut off that him and then you'll just want to flip your fabric over and you'll want to do the same thing for the hem on the other end of the tablecloth just go ahead and cut it off as well and you will just have one section that is still hemmed and go ahead and cut that off as well and what you'll be left with is fabric that does not have any hem on it at all okay so hopefully this step will make sense to you but because I need my piece to measure fifty inches long by 36 inches and my mat is only 18 by 24 what I have done is folded my fabric in half here and then I folded it in half again [Music] so what you want to do is make sure that your fabric is laid out as evenly as possible in in order to get a straight edge I'm gonna make sure it's lined up on that 18 mark again for my measurements and then I'm gonna take my ruler and lay it so that I'm even right here on this mark and right here which would essentially be the starting point for my measurements so this is zero and I'm measuring down 18 to give me that 36 inches right here when I unfold this so I'm gonna cut right along this line and now when I open this up my apron will be 36 inches long which is what I need for my measurement okay so now I have that 36 inch length that I need and again I measured from like my best line here and you can tell that it's just like right below my knee and of course we still have to figure our hemming so the next step is I need to cut it to get the 50 inch length for around the top part of the apron so since I have my 36 inch links for the apron the next thing I'm gonna do is just measure out how wide this piece of fabric is now you can lay your fabric down on the table and it'll be a lot easier and I've already done mine and I know mine is 56 and a half inches so I need to take off six and a half inches in order to reach the fifty inches that I need for the rest of my pattern so I'm gonna go ahead and take off that extra six and a half inches that I have on mine and I have my fabric folded in half and my edge lined up as close as I possibly can get it then I'm just gonna fold it in half again keeping my edges lined up as much as possible like this [Music] and then with my ruler I'm gonna cut off six and a half inches [Music] right so the main part of the apron is cut out mine is 50 inches by 36 inches and I'm just gonna set this aside and the next thing we're gonna do is get ready to cut out our strap okay so for cutting the straps I want to have a straight edge right here so what I'm gonna do is cut this excess off in order to get a straight edge that I need in order to make the straps my straps are gonna be 22 inches by 5 inches so what I'm gonna do is line up my ruler on the seven and my fabric is already on the two so from 7 to 2 is 5 inches and I'm gonna cut my straps the 5 inches wide that I need so this is the 5 inches wide that I need for my strap and then I need it to be 22 inches long so I'm just gonna very carefully turn the fabric and I'm gonna start it right here and measure down to 11 and cut it on the 11 because when I unfold this since it's folded two times it'll be 22 inches so now I have two straps that are going to be 22 inches by five inches and you can set those aside while you get ready to cut your pockets so the next step is to cut your pockets nine inches by ten inches so I'm going to cut them nine inches first this direction [Music] and then I'm just gonna turn my fabric place it up here at the top and then cut it at ten inches again making sure that my rulers lined up at the tin there and the tin down here on the bottom I [Music] actually folded my fabric in half so that's why I have this excess but now if I just pull these apart right here I have two pockets that are ten inches by nine inches okay so I have all of my pieces cut out and hopefully we're able to follow along as I cut them so remember if you measure your best line and then you add eight to ten inches depending upon the comfort ease of the fabric that you want as far as how loose your apron is and I added 10 inches to mine and then you'll also have your straps so each one should measure 22 inches by 5 inches and then you should have two pockets and they should measure 10 inches by 9 inches and now it's time to start ironing and sewing all of this together okay so I'm gonna start with the 36 inch link of my apron so what I'm gonna do is actually fold this over about half of an inch and I'm gonna press it down with the iron now you might be able to eyeball half an inch if you've been sewing for a while but also feel free to use your measuring tape and just lay it at the edge and fold up about half of an inch and you're gonna do this all along that shorter edge of your apron [Music] unfortunately my iron leaks just a little bit so you'll see some wet spots but once you have that half inch fold it over the first time you're gonna fold it over again a second time and press it again the next step that you're gonna do is you're gonna go to your sewing machine and that edge that you just pressed you're now going to sew that down [Music] so my side is finished and I have my fabric the right side down on what on my towel that I'm ironing on so now I'm just gonna fold this approximately an inch down and then I'm just gonna iron that down and you're gonna do one inch all the way across the top so once you have that press down an inch you're actually just going to go ahead and take it and turn it another inch and press it down again [Music] what I've done is the sides the shortest side of apron has been turned down half an inch turn down another half an inch and so and that's both sides of the shortest side of the apron and then at the top of the apron the longest part I've turned it down an inch ironed and then turned it down another inch now it's time to work on the strap so I'm just gonna set this piece aside for right now okay for the straps my fabric this isn't really going to matter but if you had a printed fabric you would want to fold right sides together again for this linen it doesn't really matter so again these are the 22 inch by 5 inch pieces that we cut for the shoulder straps so I'm just gonna fold mine in half and iron this part down and you'll want to do that for both pieces [Music] then what I'm gonna do is go to the machine and on this side that's not together I'm just going to sew a half inch seam right down the edge right here I will go ahead and back stitch both the top and the bottom of the strap [Music] then you want to go ahead and do the same thing for your second strap [Music] and then the next step that you'll want to do is to turn your straps inside out so there's a couple of different ways that you can turn these straps inside out I just tuck mine up in there and start pulling the fabric through [Music] once you have the first one done you want to go ahead and do the sector one these can take a little bit of time to figure out if you've never done this before but just stick with it it's pretty easy to do once you get it going [Music] once you have your straps turned inside-out you want to leave them facedown where the seam is in the middle on the back and go ahead and just iron your strap flap [Applause] once you have your straps ironed down now comes the part of putting it together on the apron so this next step can get a little bit confusing so I'll try to explain it as simple as they can so this is the top part of your apron and you're gonna turn it where it faces you and you're gonna fold it in half to find the middle part of your apron [Music] once you find the center of your apron the easiest thing to do is iron that down just a little bit so that you know exactly where the center is then go ahead and open your apron back up and the top should be facing you just as you can see here so if you remember you originally pressed it down one inch and then pressed it down another inch now we're gonna open it up so that you just have one inch press down like this this is the center of the apron and what you want to do is take your measuring tape and measure over three inches from the center then you want to take your first strap and place it three inches from the center the very edge of it should be three inches just like you see here go ahead and pin that in place and you want to make sure that you're strapped the line that's on the back is facing up and then you want to do the same on the other side you're gonna measure over three inches from the center take your strap with the line facing up and place it at three inches from the middle as well and go ahead and pin that on [Music] now here's where it can get just a little bit confusing because what you're gonna want to do is take this strap the one on this side and it crosses over to the opposite side and you want to line it up just like this and then go ahead and pin it in place then you want to take your other strap and do the same thing it'll come to the other side and you'll line it up with the seat just like I show you here [Music] and then go ahead and pin this one in place as well [Music] and then what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna go to the Machine and I'm just gonna show right along this line right here [Music] okay so once I'm at the Machine again I'm just gonna sew right down this line just a simple stitch to hold discipline [Music] [Applause] so once I have this stitch down what I'm going to do now is starting at this end I'm simply going to fold this down so that my ends line up and the strap will now be like this so it's folded down you can see right here how it's folded down but then the strap comes up and I'm gonna pin that in place and you want to make sure that these right here are even your edges those need to stay even [Music] and then just pin this in place so then working your way down just go ahead and keep folding that inch back down like you had it before [Music] [Applause] okay once I'm back at the machine what I'm gonna do is just line the edge of my foot up with this edge of the fabric right here and again don't sew over your pins you want to make sure that you remove those and here I will back fit just to hold this firmly in place [Music] so after you have sewn the bottom part down right here you're just gonna move your fabric to the top section and you're gonna sew along the edge at the top [Music] so when you're finished sewing the bottom and the top if you flip over the end look at the front of the apron this is what it should look like okay so once you have that finished you actually have the hardest part of the apron done now it's time to construct the pocket before the pockets you're gonna want to fold the top edge over one inch but I use a measuring tape sometimes just to make sure I have it right and you're gonna iron down that top 1-inch go ahead and fold it again [Music] and iron it down [Music] and then I'm gonna go to the Machine and I'm just gonna sew this edge down right here okay so I have that seam sewn down just like that and now what I'm gonna do is lay it where that's face-up and I'm going to turn these sides in half of an inch and just iron it down and you're gonna do that for all three sides of the pockets [Music] [Applause] the fun part cuz you actually get to put your apron on and decide where you want your pocket placement so the easiest way I have found to put these on is to hold it like this put your head through and then your arcs so here's the front part of the apron and then this is what the back looks like so now we'll just decide where to put the pocket for pocket placement I try to think about how far down I want my hands to go into the pockets and whether I want them kind of set off to the side whether I want them more in the middle and that's just gonna be a personal preference so for this part you may need somebody to kind of help you hold the pocket in place but what you want to do is just take the pocket and kind of decide where you want it to go so for me it's probably gonna be about right here since I'm doing this on my own I'm just gonna go ahead and take the pocket and pin it in place the best I can and I'll show you how to measure this out here in a minute so don't worry about getting it exact you just kind of want to get this one pocket where it feels comfortable okay so now that I have that pinned in I can put my hands in there and I think that's gonna be a really good location for my pocket so what I'm gonna do is take the apron off and then show you guys how to measure these so that you get both of them even on each side okay so this is the bottom of my apron and the easiest way to make sure that you get your pocket exactly where you want it is to measure over from the edge so I need my pocket about 11 inches from the edge so I just measure out and I need to move mine over just a little bit and get it to write about 11 inches and that's about right so this corner is correct and then for me I know that from my hem line I want it to be about 10 inches so I'm just gonna move it down to the top of the tape measure right here of my measuring tape and have it at about 10 inches and then I'm gonna go back to the top and I'm gonna check and make sure that I still have my top at about 11 inches and it is so I'm gonna pin this in place because I have it where I want it [Music] and then I just lay my fabric back out and I'm gonna measure this bottom corner to make sure that it's 11 inches from the edge as well and it is right there so I'm going to go ahead and pin this in place same with nip bottom measurement now I want to make sure that I'm still at about ten inches on all areas at the bottom and I am so I'm good there and I'm going to go ahead and pin the pocket the rest of the way down so I have this pocket exactly where I want it and now the next step is to go to the other side of the apron and do the same thing with that pocket it should be 11 inches from the side and 10 inches from the bottom [Music] once I'm sure that I have my 11 inches and my 10 inches here I'm gonna go ahead and pin this pocket on as well [Music] after I get the pockets pinned in place I'm going to do another Tryon to make sure that they're exactly where I want them and then I'll figure out how much of a him I need [Music] I love the pocket placement it's deep enough that I can put things in and then my hands can go down to the bottoms and get whatever I need and they look straight so I know I have them where I need them to be in order to stitch the pockets on I am just lining the foot to this edge of it up with the edge of my fabric right here and just sewing straight down until I get to the corner right here and then I will show you guys how to do that corner okay so once I come to this corner what I'm going to do is just sew down a little ways but not all the way to the corner and then I'm gonna lift my foot right here on the back [Music] and turn the fabric and what this does is gives me a sharp corner and makes it look really nice as I sew and then just put the foot back down and continue sewing to the next corner [Music] and then the same thing with this corner I won't go all the way to the edge just partly and then I'm gonna put the needle down lift to the foot and turn the fabric put the foot back down and sew to the top of the pocket and when you get to the top of the pocket right here you'll want to back stitch to securely hold on please so both of the pockets have been sewn on and the next step is to get the hem finished so what I'm gonna do is just lay my apron out facedown on the towel and I'm gonna just fold mine up about half of an inch now yours may be a little bit different if you do a Tryon and decide that you want your apron a little bit shorter but for me I'm just going half of an inch and then I'm just going to iron this down [Music] once you get that half-inch press you're just gonna come back and press it another half inch [Music] now I'm gonna finish up the apron by just taking this to the Machine and I am going to stitch the hem down and I will have a finished apron so I just finished up the hem on the apron in like a lot of the other areas I just used the machine to sew a straight line right down the edge and now that I'm finished with the apron I'm just going to go through and clip any of the loose strings that I might have and you'll want to look on the front and the back of the apron in order to get all of them all right so I just finished up the bottom him and here's a look at the final product so I hope you guys have enjoyed this video and hopefully it's easy enough that you can understand it and follow along with the directions I really enjoy wearing both of my Japanese styling for instance I've made two of them I use them in the garden and around the home as well [Music] and I will provide relief where you can actually purchase one I have also teamed up with two other fantastic bloggers Chloe over at boxwood Avenue and Sarah at she holds dearly so please take a moment to stop by these ladies blogs and their YouTube channels to see what they have created from the linen tablecloth thank you guys so much for joining me today I appreciate you guys stopping by and taking the time to watch this video don't forget to visit the blog at Rocky hedge farm comm and you can also hit subscribe below to stay up to date on all the latest happenings here at the farm have a great day guys [Music]

Channel: Rocky Hedge Farm

Views: 40,237

Rating: 4.9333334 out of 5

Keywords: linen apron, pinafore apron, cross back apron, japanese style apron

Id: TCwzmXnmLLE

Length: 32min 19sec (1939 seconds)

Published: Tue May 07 2019