Cobbler Aprons in the Making

I like to follow-up on requests so I've been searching for a good cobbler apron pattern. There are several versions of a cobbler apron: some open in the front, some the back, some are open on the sides and just go over your head, but the one I'm thinking about is a button down the front in a wide variety of sizes. Voila, there's a pattern for that one, a republished 1977 version:

Simplicity 8152

Sizes ranged from extra small to large but what about even bigger? As it turns out, you can cleverly increase the size of a pattern incrementally and get a fairly accurate resizing. I went ahead and tried it out and came up with an extra large and even 2XL size. Diving right in, I made one of each size, learning along the way:

X-small to 2XL

Adding all that bias tape was going to be a challenge so by number four I figured out I needed to add the bias tape to the wrong side, stitch to the front side of the fabric, and sew up the side seams last. As always, you get better with practice so by the time I had one in each size they were looking pretty good. I asked my friend, Anne, who has a food truck business, if she would be my test pilot for this item. She agreed and we settled on a blue fabric with pink trim. It turned out to be a custom size with a tad more room in the hip and an adjusted neckline. She liked it!

Anne's cobbler apron

Which sewing machine did I use? I tried a variety of bias tape feet with different machines only to find it was easier to use the two step process. Since I could use any straight stitch machine I used the Bernina 217. I know, I know, I'm pretty sold on this machine and you are probably getting tired of hearing me sing its praises but for this type of work it's great. For the buttonholes, I used a Kenmore 158-1980 because it was the one I was testing out but they weren't the best quality of buttonholes. For Anne's I used a buttonhole attachment on a Singer 201 and liked the outcome much better. See, you need more than one sewing machine, just for the quality of all the various features. Just keep telling yourself this and you might end up with more machines than you can store!