Posts Tagged ‘easy handmade Christmas gifts’

I am happy to welcome the very talented Cindy from Skip to My Lou as a guest contributor.  I love dropping by her site for inspiration.

Today she is sharing her easy, stylish Tea Towel Apron.  This is definitely a perfect gift idea that can be accomplished in the eleventh hour.  Cindy writes:

A Tea Towel Apron is one of the quickest and simplest aprons to make!

Grab a tea towel and a half yard (or at least 16″)  X 45″ wide matching fabric and you are ready to make a great gift!

I wanted to make cute holiday aprons and found these tea towels from the Martha Stewart collection at Macy’s.

Making the waistband/sash

Cut the half yard or 16″ of fabric in half lengthwise, so you have two long pieces at least 8″ wide.

Using about 1/4″ to 1/2″ seam, sew right sides together at one end.

Press entire length of fabric in half lengthwise, wrong sides together.

Open fabric up and press each edge to the middle. Yes, it is a long piece of fabric but the pressing  is the hardest part and this makes such a nice looking waistband!

Fold in half and press again.

To finish each end, fold the fabric in half the other way and stitch 1/4″ from the edge. Repeat on other end.

Turn right side out, make sure corners are pointed and press.

Attaching the apron to the waistband/sash

Cut tea towel in half, or if you want it a bit longer, adjust accordingly.  Place left edge of towel even with the seam and insert the  cut edge of tea towel inside the long strip of waistband fabric (make sure the tea towel goes clear up to the fold). Pin.

Start at the end of the sash and edge stitch all the way around, stitching the open side (making sure edges meet)  first, then around to the top edge until you are back to where you started.

Finished!

The apron ties on the side with a bow.  The ties are long enough that the apron will fit most everyone!

Wrapping

There is half (or a little less if you made apron longer) of an apron.  This fabric could easily be used to make pockets, ruffles (or something I will show you later in the week) but this time I made matching fabric gift bags for the aprons!