o+s bias trimmed apron

I finally (FINALLY!) got my sewing machine back from the shop this past weekend, so I'm back in business! I could rant and rave about the awful customer service experience I had at this store, but I'll just say that if you live in the northwest Ohio area I can tell you where NOT to buy a sewing machine. The End.

Now, on to happier things!



I finished my oliver +s Little Things to Sew apron this weekend– the October project of the LTTS Sew Along hosted by A Little Gray. I decided this project would be the perfect time to try out sewing with laminated cotton. What's better for an apron than a fabric that can just be wiped off?

There are lots of things to consider when using laminated cotton. Here are my observations from working with laminate:

• Pin holes will stay in the fabric, so if you're going to pin, make sure those holes are in the seam allowance. I actually used double-sided tape to hold my pieces together whenever possible. It stuck really well on the coated-side of the fabric, not so much on the wrong side.


• I was a bit of a wuss when ironing this stuff. I feared for the safety of my iron and ironing board (and my pattern pieces- I had no fabric to spare!). I gradually increased the heat to the highest temp I felt comfortable using on the laminate, but I still wasn't able to get a very good crease in the fabric. I guess that's just the nature of the material. I was most bothered by this was when making the plackets on the back panels of the apron. I ended up ironing the best I could and then stacking some heavy books on top of the panels for a while before stitching down. I think it helped.


• I did not encounter as much trouble actually sewing the fabric as I would have expected. My first few trial runs with scraps went through my machine without any special intervention. However, the more layers I had to sew through the harder it became to feed through the machine (those darn double-folded plackets ;).
  
  
  
  I put scotch tape on the underside of my presser foot and that helped enough to slide the fabric through (I came across that tip here). The above photo was taken after I was done sewing and you can see that it has some wear, so I guess that means it was doin' something. I feel like if I had done this project in the heat of the summer I would have had a lot more trouble with the laminate sticking in the machine. One more reason to like fall!

I got some good practice applying bias binding with this project! I don't think I've ever made bias binding before. I've always just made straight of grain binding for my quilts (gasp!). I followed this tutorial for making continuous bias binding.



At one point, you have this crazy tube of confusion going on, but in the end you have lots and lots of binding. Which has to be ironed. Sigh.



I made the medium size apron, which is a little big on my 2.5 year old but that's okay. Kids grow, right?



Love those pockets on the sides!