DIY Christmas; Apron edition

I've never been big on all of the gifting of Christmas. Maybe it just was the way I was raised or how ridiculous society becomes around the holidays. Whats even more ironic that less than a month after we discuss how thankful were are, everyone begins a pissing contest to see how many presents little Suzie can get. Every year needs to be bigger and better than the last and more expensive. Meanwhile, people are starving in countries and you just bought your five year old 500 dollars worth of Christmas gifts that she will grow out of, not appreciate, and not remember in less than 5 hours. Furthermore she will be more impressed with the box that her easy bake came out of than the oven itself.....I digress.

I am not the Christmas Grinch nor am I to frown upon buying your loved ones something, I just think that there needs to be some thought in it. And sometimes the most thoughtful and appreciated gift, is something that you can make.

I have an apron that I made 4 years ago that I just adore. So much that I haven't worn it while cooking because I am too afraid it will get dirty; yes I'm one of those people. There are a few loved ones in my life who love to cook and love my apron so I decided this year that I few aprons were in order. This is a very easy DIY. Anyone who can sew a straight line can do this. And my words of wisdom are this: "Just use the damn iron!". I spent years fighting using the iron, why I don't really know. I always thought it takes to long to heat up (it doesn't), I'll burn myself (you might), It's not going to make that much difference (it will).

As you might of already figured out by now I do everything by the seat of my pants. I don't really follow directions well and sometimes I just make them up. Because of that my instructions aren't as good as they could be, because sometime I don't even know what I did. As I learned from my dad; just eyeball it. That ensures everything is unique.

I bought 2/3's of a yd from Joann's in a lovely elephant motif. I know elephants don't really scream cooking, however if you knew my friend you would know how much she loves them. I also bought a coordinating purple tie dye fat quarter to make the band.

In order to determine the length and width of the apron I just put the fabric around my waist and 'eyeballed' it. I cut the fabric into in rectangle. Afterwards I ironed 1/4 of and inch around the edges twice, except for the top, I left it raw. That way the fabric cannot fray at all on the bottom or sides. I then sewed the rolled edges. Then I cut the 3 strips of the purple band 6 inches wide. I sewed them together, in order to make one long strip. Iron the seams flat, then roll all of the edges 1/4 and then another 1/4. Iron the purple fabric so it is a 'hotdog' down the center, this will make it easy to sew. Next I measured the center of my elephant fabric, it was 12 inches. Then I pinned the center of the purple fabric onto the 12 mark. The purple fabric is 'holding' the elephant fabric. In other words the top of the elephant fabric is inside of the purple fabric creating a band. Pin then sew.

Wrap in a pretty package and your're done! All for under 10 dollars and about an hour of time.

The heart on the blue and yellow apron was done using reverse applique. I drew a heart on the back  of the red fabric. Pinned it on the back of the blue fabric (red right side pinned to blue 'wrong' side), I sewed the heart. Then cut the heart out on the front of the blue fabric, to allow the red to show through. Let me know if you want a tutorial. :)