Toddler Apron

A couple of weeks ago I visited a friend of mine who has a daughter who is coming up to a year old. She’s very independent and likes to try to eat all on her own; this can be a very messy experience. She won’t keep a bib on if it’s secured around her neck using velcro; she just rips it off and dumps it on the floor. They’ve tried other bibs but they sometimes have trouble getting them over her head. Don’t worry, I said, I’ll make something.

The other day I told you about the new fabric shop I had discovered. This is the first project using material that I bought that day. They had some pre-printed tabard type aprons which I have seen ready made in the shops so I bought a set of three for the bargain price of £3.50. They were slight seconds, which explained why they were so cheap, but they were good enough for a little experiment. I made the yellow one up first adding ribbon ties at the sides so she couldn’t take it off.

I was then inspired, I thought I could adapt the pattern and make her another one so that she’d have a couple to choose from. I decided to use a couple of tea-towels that I had bought in the Dunelm sale. I seem to be slightly obsessed with tea-towels at the moment, but they’re so cheap and the small amount of fabric means I haven’t got loads of odds and ends floating around the house.

You will need: 2 tea-towels made from identical fabric, cotton in a matching colour, disappearing pen

Instructions:

Fold each tea-towel in half lengthways and draw the following pattern on them (sorry, the picture’s not to scale!) and cut out. Save the hems at the sides of the tea towel.

Unfold the tea-towels and iron a seam allowance of about 0.5cm and pin as shown below. Cut the hems of the original tea-towel so that they are 20cm long and pin as shown (just noticed that I hadn’t pinned down the seam around the bottom of the neck). Sew around on the sewing machine.