August Apron Tutorial - Paint Smock

Teaser!!!
I finished uploading all the photos but have to run out the door to work for a couple of hours. I will finish posting the tutorial then. Hee Hee It is too much fun. Can you see the Kindergarten excitement on her face!

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Ok I am Back from work now and can post away. If you couldn't tell, the Apron for August is a paint smock. This is a pattern my mom made almost 30 years ago when my little brother Jonny went to Kindergarten. I was so jealous and thought it was the coolest thing ever. I loved the fabric border.

On with the tute....

Supplies:

1 yard heavy fabric (denim, canvas or a heavy twill)

narrow double fold bias binding

3/4" elastic

Thread

1. Cut out your fabric 42" by 30" (or the width of the fabric by 30")

(yes I know the photo say 46" that is ok too.)

2. Hem up the sides first you can make this any measurement just fold it under at least 1/2" and then again so that the finished width of the smock is about 38 to 40 inches.

3. Now you need to hem the top and bottom. The top is very important. This is the casing for the neck elastic. I folded mine down 1/2" inch and pressed it very hard.

Then I folded in under 1" to 1 1/4". I also pressed this very hard with the iron. This really helped when I went to sew such heavy fabric. Top stitch this casing.

Hem up the bottom in a similar fashion so that the finished length of the smock is about 25".

4. Now you are ready to make the arm holes.

Fold the smock in half from side to side. Measure down from the top 5" and in from the center fold, 6 1/2". Make a little mark.  Measure over from this dot about 5 1/2" inches (away from the center fold and also 5" down from the top). These are the two ending marks for the arm hole curve.

Now here comes in the technical tool time. Hee Hee. Get a largish cereal bowl. I use a glass bowl I found.

Connect the dots on the smock with the curve of the bowl and use a rotary cutter to cut the curve (or draw it with a pencil and cut with scissors). Make sure you go through both layers.

Now bind off the arm holes with the narrow bias binding tape. I just started in the center of the bottom of the hole and used a zig zag stitch to secure it. It was a little tricky at the corners but if you go slow it is ok.

Oops! I almost for got the elastic. Cut a piece of 3/4" elastic, 19"long. Thread it through the casing at the top. Secure the ends by overlaping and tacking down with thread.

Now you are done!!

Too Cute!

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Now for personalizing your own Smock.

On the original smock there was a pieced border. Of course I had to do the same. I took scraps of my hand dyed fabrics and made some smocking funnesss. One of these is for Hannah, One for Ana and the rest are going into my etsy and hyena cart stores. If you are interested take a look!

Here is the parade of Smocks

The backs of the smocks. It was too fun not to post.