Toddler Kitchen Apron

For Mattimeo's second birthday, I made hand-sewed him a "Brown Bear, Brown Bear" kitchen apron using fabric we had at his first birthday party. I thought I'd write a quick post explaining how I made it. First off, here is a couple pictures of Meo wearing his apron:

To make the apron, first I took a few measurements from Meo. I wanted to make sure it would be something that would fit him for a couple years so I made it wide and long. I took three measurements:

1: Length from where I wanted the apron to start on his chest to where I wanted it to end just past his knees
2: Width across his body for how wide I wanted the apron to be (I allowed it to wrap around his back a bit)
3. Length that the strap needed to go around his neck, beginning from chest height

Using a larger ruler, and a triangle, I cut out a basic apron shape, making it about two inches longer and two inches wider than I wanted it to allow for a inch wide hem. As you can see, I tapered the apron towards his neck about 2/3 of the way up the apron. Once the apron was cut, I pinned down the inch wide hem.

Hem pinned down- front view

Hem pinned down- sewing side

Next, I sewed the hem. To make sure the apron would be durable for my active little toddler I stiched first very close to the outside border, then again around the inside border.

Outside border

Inside border

Next, I made the pieces I would be attaching to the apron. I wanted a nice, deep pocket where he could store his little utensils, so I cut a rectangular piece of fabric as large as I wanted the pocket to be, adding an extra couple inches for the hem. Then I sewed a hem on the top of the pocket just like I did for the base of the apron (an outside and inside border hem).

Hem along the top of the pocket

To attach the pocket, I laid the fabric down where I wanted it to fall on the apron. I made a couple marks with pencil where the bottom should start. Then I took the pocket off, flipped it upside down, and pinned the bottom along those guide-marks, making sure to leave a little room along the edge so that you don't see the rough edge of the pocket when you're done. Then I stitched along the pins.

To fasten on the sides of the pockets, I flipped the pocket up. Then I turned the edges over so that they had a clean look, and pinned the now double thick edges down to the apron. I then stitched along the pins.

To make the straps, including the neck strap, I cut out long strips of fabric a little more than twice as wide as I ultimately wanted them to be. For the neck strap, I actually made it several inches longer than it needed to be because I wanted it to be able to stretch around his head (with the aid of an elastic).

I sewed the nice sides together (wrong side facing out) than flipped it inside out so that the nice side was facing out and you could no longer see the seem.

Sewing with the wrong sides facing out

For the two straps, I next ironed them flat.

Then I neatly sewed one of the ends closed. To do this, I folded the end over a tiny bit, then folded it again and stitched across several layers. This made it so the rough edges were hidden.

For the neck strap, I put a flat elastic strip inside the neck piece. That elastic strip was as long as I wanted the actual neck strap to be. I sewed it securely into the neck piece on both ends, so that the excess fabric bunched around the elastic. This allowed the next strap to be pulled to a much longer length, but then fall back in place, making it easy to pull over his head.

Finally, I securely sewed on all the straps onto the base of the apron, making sure to tuck in any rough edges so that the final product looked clean and wouldn't have runs later on. I ironed the apron as a final touch.

We have found that having the elastic neck strap is wonderful because it make it simple for my son to put the apron on and off himself. My personal kitchen apron has a ring fastener, but that would much to complicated for a toddler to figure out. The apron itself is very durable, and has been placed in the washer and dryer on numerous occasions without any fraying (he wears it when we actually cook together in addition to play cooking). We are very happy with the design and function of the apron!