I recently signed up to an online boot making class and whilst watching all the boot making videos I realised there was one thing I needed before I got started – an apron! Now I probably could’ve just bought one for a few pounds but I’m a maker at heart and that means if there’s an option to make an item over buying it, I will!

My boyfriend joked about making a hipster barista style apron – he’s a coffee nut!- but I figured why not! I had some leather strapping left over from a previous project and some hip milk boy denim from Stoff and Stil (that’s denim with a very narrow blue and white stripe) – perfect materials for what I wanted!

I decided to just draft something for myself, mostly so I didn’t have to faff about printing something off and adjusting it for size. I went with a simple design that wrapped around most of my hips and was held in place with some crossed over long leather straps. It goes on straight over the head and there’s no fussing with tying things around the waist. I really liked the clean lines of this. I added a big bisected pocket at the hip height on the print and a bib pocket too!

Here are the details on how I made my barista apron!

I used about 1m x 1m of fabric, about 1.2m narrow leather strap (mine is 1.5cm wide) and 4 screw on rivets.

I drew my design directly on to the fabric to save time/ paper. With the fabric folded in half lengthways, I marked a point 30cm down and 50cm down again. At the second point, I squared out the line to 47cm and up again by 50cm (we’ll call this point A). At the top of the fabric fold, I squared out a point 28cm across for the top of the bib (we’ll call this point B). Now I could draw a curved line between A and B to finish off my pattern.

The top edge of the bib and the side edges were folded over by 1cm and then again by another 1cm. The curved edge and the bottom hem were finished with the overlocker and then turned over by 1cm. I then topstitched all the edges into place.

With the remaining fabric I created the two pockets. Draw a rectangle of your preferred pockets size (mine is 30cm x 20cm for the larger pocket and 18cm x 18cm for the smaller) taking into account a 1cm seam allowance. I folded and pressed the seam allowances before topstitching the upper pocket opening edge. After pinning, into position I topstitched the remaining 3 edges to secure each pocket.

At the corners of the bib and the back opening, I punched a hole for the rivets through the double folded hem. I cut my leather strap into two equal pieces and punched holes at the ends of these as well before screwing the rivets into place (personally I prefer the screwed rivet look but any rivets can work or even just sewing the straps into place).

It was an easy 1 hour project that was super effective. I even managed to squeeze in one of my Change Maker labels on it! I figured it’s ever so appropriate for something I’d wear to make things in!