Make an upcycled vintage apron with Bloom guest Amy!

We are so excited to have Amy of Vintage Fern here today! Welcome, Amy!

Hello Bloom readers, I am excited to be with you here today! My name is Amy, and I have three beautiful girls and a crafty business that keep me busy. I love being a Mom and I love being crafty, I am addicted to thrifting and collecting fabrics whether they be new or vintage. I have waaaay too much fabric :) I was asked to share a tutorial with you today, so here we go!

I decided to do a little upcycled apron tutorial. I have so many cute vintage half aprons that I have either been given or collected, and I never use them! For me, when I am cooking, I need full coverage and a half apron just doesn't cut it for me.

Here is what I used:
a vintage half apron
1 1/2" jumbo rick rack, you will need at least 46"
a vintage napkin (mine measured about 17" square)
You could also gather some fabric scraps and bits to embellish it after it's done

The first thing you are going to want to do is measure the top front of your apron in between the ties to make sure your napkin (or you could use fabric, just make sure to hem all the edges) is the same length. I was lucky that mine were the exact same length so it fit perfect. If it doesn't you can adjust it so it does. Then you want to flip your apron so the wrong side is facing you and then lay your napkin piece (wrong side up also) how I have in the picture, I lined up the bottom of the napkin with the bottom of the waist band.

Then I pinned it.

I sewed along the bottom of the napkin first, wrong side facing up.

Then I flipped it over so it is now right side up, and sewed down the top of the waist.

So it should look something like this now.

Next, I flipped it wrong side up again and I folded in the sides to give it some shape, I don't really have a formula for this, I just held it up to me in the mirror to see what I wanted it to look like. (I hope I am making sense).

I also decided that I needed to make my top piece a little shorter, so I folded down the top a bit. Again I just eyeballed this by holding it up to me in a mirror.
Now, you want to take it to your ironing board and give it a good press.

Now you need your jumbo rick rack, cut two pieces that are 23" long. You will tuck each one underneath the folded down top and pin in place.

Now you are going to sew around the whole edge of the napkin piece, wrong side up.

I did a second top stitch just to make it look a bit more professional.
The second row of stitching, I used my first stitch line as a guide.

Now you want to stitch down the bottom of that folded over fabric.

Now it should look something like this.

Now you want to pin your ties up.

And sew them down, I tried to sew them in the same places as my top stitching.

Now all we have left is to take care of the ends of the rick rack ties, so they don't fray.

I just folded them over a couple of times and zig zag stitched them.
Now just tie the neckties and you have a cute new apron!

On mine, I added a couple cute fabric flower brooches I had to embellish the top a bit, but you could add anything to the top to make it even fancier, fabric flowers, applique, lace, buttons, it's up to you!

Now all you need to do is put it on and feel proud that you made something so cute!j

Thank you, Amy! We love it!
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