I made this a while ago but it never made it onto the blog. I have a collection of denim leftovers from garments I’ve made over the last few years, none of them big enough to make any sort of adult sized wearable garment, but too big to throw away. I hadn’t managed to do anything with any of them until earlier this year when my son needed a painting apron for art class. Enter the offcuts of my grey Blanca jumpsuit.

I have an adult sized apron for cooking that works well, so I took a few measurements from that and drew out a scaled down version of the shape on paper and added hem allowances on the edges. The allowance on the top edge I made much deeper than the rest, as it was on the original apron. Not sure why it’s designed that way; maybe it makes it hang better?

The apron is constructed by basting the ties to the raw edges then turning the edges under twice and topstitching, catching the ties in the stitching. Very quick and easy. The top edge has two rows of top stitching.

The fabric scrap wasn’t quite big enough so it ended up cut on the cross grain. It’s 100% cotton denim and very stable,

One unexpected problem was that the proportionally scaled down neck strap turned out be too small to easily get a head through, so I had to make it longer. Although at least I thought to check the length on the recipient before sewing it all down firmly. The longer strap means the top of the apron is a bit lower on the body than I’d like. I considered making the neck strap adjustable, but decided it was too much faff for a child to adjust.

I added the astronaut patch because it had been knocking about in my sewing box for ages and my son liked it. He also picked the rainbow tape.

I put d-rings on one of the waist ties to make those adjustable to a degree, but I also made them long enough to tie in a bow.

I was quite pleased with this when it was finished. But it’s been living at the bottom of my son’s school bag ever since and I don’t think it’s been worn even once as it’s still suspiciously spotless. Anyway, it’s one less scrap in the stash. We will not talk about the fact that I now have half a roll of leftover rainbow apron tape to find some sort of use for.