SEWING - masculine apron

Although I do quite a bit of the cooking, Chris also cooks often and makes excellent dishes. He does this not because he loves to cook, but because he loves to eat. :) With an interest in bread baking, last Christmas I gave him The Bread Baker's Apprentice: Mastering the Art of Extraordinary Bread, by Peter Reinhart, along with some helpful tools to get him started; a digital scale, dough scraper, and bread pan.

We've enjoyed wonderfully fluffy challah, deliciously seasoned focaccia, and have become devoted to our home-made pizza doughs. Something I didn't think to get him however, was a baker's apron. The process of baking bread is extraordinarily messy (at least in our kitchen), flour and small dollops of dough everywhere!

Therefore, this weekends project was to make him an apron, not just any apron, but a masculine apron he would actually wear. An apron which fit his cooking and baking philosophy. The "I'd Rather Be Eating" apron.

Although I have made a few aprons, and have several apron patterns, all of them are pretty girly. For a basic apron, I printed this Chef's Apron pattern from Martha Stewart's crafts online. This is a very simple pattern, a great beginnings sewing project, comprised of three sides which are sewn together. I also made basic ties rather than adjustable ones, and brought it to knee length.

After completing the sewing of the apron, I decided to use an iron-on transfer for the text. With Illustrator I arranged the text with a font and alignment he liked, and made it approximately 8" across.

Next, for the transfer paper, the text is changed to outlines and flipped. After that, its just print, trim, and transfer!

My luck with iron on transfers is very hit or miss. The text didn't completely transfer, but the somewhat distress looked turned out to be a nice effect!

Can't wait for his next creation!