Half Apron

I have been wanting to sew something since forever.  I want to learn to sew but I'm terrified to actually sew.  that combination doesn't really make for a lot of finished projects.  :P

Finally, I just decided to pick something, anything, and settled on a half apron.  So here it is.

(okay, no head in this pic, but you get to see my knobby knees, is that good enough?)

I found a tutorial from Craft Faves and got to it.  I had bought the cutest fat quarters from Walmart of all places (don't know what a fat quarter is? neither did I,...go here to find out) and decided to try a trendy-looking black on black.  I had my cup of tea, all of the lights in the room turned on, and I was ready.  Now I won't go over the steps here, you'll have to check out the tutorial for that, but if you're a newbie seamstress, then I'll fill you in on all the things NOT to do.

The tutorial starts with the ties.  Sounds easy.  Fold wrong sides together, sew, turn right side out.  Easy peasy.  Insert a long stupid silence here with furrowed brow and a definite 'huh?' expression.  I did okay folding, did okay sewing, but turn that narrow tube around? How the heck do you do that?

I googled.  It still sounded hard.  In the end, I got the biggest needle I have (I think it is called an upholstery needle), double threaded it, and made a stitch in one end of the fabric tube.

 Then I threaded the fabric tube onto a knitting needle.

Once the knitting needle was inserted, I snaked the upholstery needle through until it came out the other side, taking care not to actually poke through the fabric at any point.  I pulled out the knitting needle and went to the back end of the tube, where the stitch was (NOT where the needle now was).

I pushed the fabric at the back end in a bit with the knitting needle.  After that I helped it along by pushing with the knitting needle while I pulled on the upholstery needle from the other side.  Sound confusing? Yeah, it took some finesse.  Eventually I got it and the second one went more easily along (isn't that always the way).

The other spot that got me was the pocket.  To this moment, I still do not know what I was supposed to do with that pocket::  turn this way, then turn that way. ???????  In the end I just folded each side under twice so the fabric wouldn't unravel, and sewed the pocket to the apron.  It wasn't exactly the way it was supposed to go, but it did the trick.

In the end, I was pretty pleased with my first attempt.  I have another version with ric rac for embellishment in the works.  I think the endorphins at the end are addictive.  :)

I was a bit limited by the fat quarter so I believe I will get more fabric for my next project to open up my options a bit.