Tutorial: Making an Apron From a Cloth Napkin

Well I am a few days late on my promise but here is the Tutorial on making a cloth napkin into an apron. I have googled "cloth napkin apron" and found a few results but none are the same type as the one I made, so as far as I know this is an original "pattern". Some of the other patterns were really cool: one was from a dollar store website, another made from two fabric napkins, and here are some aprons I found that are really inspiring.

Materials Needed For Lauren's Cloth Napkin Apron:

1 Cloth Napkin ( I found mine at Reny's for 99 cents.)

1 Cloth dish rag. (this is optional, but it's a great addition, you'll see. I also got this at Reny's for 99 cents.)

3/4 of a yard of matching fabric cut into 5 strips 4 inches in width. (I got my fabric at a specialty store for like $8 a yard, I'm kind of silly that way.)
1. Take 3 strips and sew them into a long strip. This will make the "flounce". Depending on how frilly you want the apron to look you can cut the strips down a little. For a really frilly flounce use 3 whole strips, for a sort of frilly one use a little more than 2 strips, you decide. I used 2 and a half on mine.

2. Sew a hem stitch down one whole side of the long strip:

3. Adjust the setting on the machine to make a large/long stitch about 1/4-1/2 inch from the edge of the fabric. Do so down the entire other length of the strip. Be sure to leave long thread on the ends.

- So just to check at this stage you have a long strip made up of 3 (or 2.5) strips with one length that has been hemmed and on the other long side a large stitch.
4. Take hold of the long edges of the large stitched side and pull. Pull the thread, but don't break it. Pulling the thread will make the fabric bunch up, like so:

5. Now undo the seam from around the entire cloth napkin and iron it down, this gives you more fabric to work with, and gets that pesky fold out of the way. Next mark and cut a rounded edge on the 2 bottom corners of the cloth napkin. I used a plate, I am sure there is some scientific way of doing this, but a plate and a sharpie work great for me.

6. Take the bunched up "flounce" and pin it to three edges of the napkin. This takes some time and requires a lot of pins. Be liberal with the pins. Sew the flounce to the napkin. Be sure you pin and sew the flounce around the 2 rounded edges. I don't have a good picture of that stage, sorry. But this picture shows the bunch flounce pinned to the napkin:

7. Take the dish rag, if you want to include it, and I made a box pleat to make it smaller. I sewed the box pleat on both the top and bottom. Then pin the rag where you want it to go at the top of the apron and sew it in place.
9. Now sew the remaining two strips together, short side together to make a long strip. Take the strip and pin it with the middle seam at about the middle of the top of the apron. Then sew. (See how the seam of the strip is kind of in the middle of the apron? That's what I mean...This leaves a long portion of the strip hanging off on both sides.)
10. Iron over the two edges of the long excess (these will be the ties.) On the top of the strip that is sewn to the apron fold over the top edge.

11. Fold over the two ends, like this:

12. Now fold the strips in half and pin them (seriously, you need to pin) and then sew. You'll need to fold and sew the strip in half over the apron portion as well, just fold it in half and then pin and sew, so you can do all the sewing from one edge to the other.
And then you're done. Tie the apron around your waist and wait for your boyfriend to get home and make diner while you post about how to make an apron on your blog. TA DA:
I find that when I am cooking (ha) more like baking (if that) I don't want to wipe my hand on the apron, so I have to keep finding the dish cloth. Now, problem solved, add a dish rag to a apron and you'll be able to wipe your hands at any moment. I thought that the dish rag was kind of drab compared to the rest of the pretty pretty apron, so I added a heart out of the pretty flounce left overs.

I hope this tutorial makes sense, if you are confused post a confusion comment or email me. If you make the apron following this pattern please give credit where credit is due, and post a link or send me a picture of your creations!

Happy Sewing!

Lauren