Child's Apron

I made an apron for my niece with pockets for a pencil and paper to take orders.

Here's what I did.

I used an apron I had made for my 4 year old as a pattern, but I had plenty of this material to use just one kind of fabric, and I wanted a different shape at the bottom.  I folded the doubled up fabric and the apron and stacked them.

I cut 1/2" bigger using the outside top corner, waist, and length for references, and curved in between.

See the 2 layers unfolded?

I took one layer and pinned ribbons in place for the neck (about 16") and the side ties (length depends on child, but I made mine plenty long so they can be wrapped around and tied in front).  I heat sealed my ribbon ends by melting them with a lighter--it will give the ends of the ties from becoming freyed and the insides from freying and pulling out.

Then I stacked the other layer on top, right sides together and sewed the perimeter with a 1/2" seam allowance and left about a 8" opening.  I left it open on a curve which was tricky.  If I did it over I would have left it open on the less curvy bottom.

I clipped curves and corners before I turned it right side out so it wouldn't pucker.

I top stitched around the edges (and hid my opening this way without hand stitching--I just tucked the edges in and pinned them in place.  It would have been so much easier if I had chosen a straight edge to leave open).

I chose a contrasting fabric for a rectangular pocket and long strip that I folded in half and gathered along raw edges.  I sewed the rectangle in half along open sides (leaving a whole to turn), then clipped corners, turned and top stitched one of the long sides.

Hmm...unfortunately blogger didn't rotate this picture.

Then I sewed a ribbon on the apron to make a stem, spiraled my ruffle into a flower and machine sewed it on in a somewhat wonky fashion. Last, I sewed the pocket onto the apron where the pocket wasn't top stitched and sewed along one of the stripes to make a small pocket for a pencil and a wide pocket for a notepad.