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Die-Cutter Aprons: Part 1

This past week I was eager to use my die-cutter machine to make something. This did sidetrack me from working more on my swimsuit but It was just a fun quick side project. Lately, an email ad from Redbubble reminded me of the aprons I was looking at. Of course it was Demon Slayer related, how could it not be? But I did not feel like purchasing one when I could make one. The Cricut kit I purchased came with 4 sheets of glitter iron-on vinyl sheets. (Also known as Heat Transfer Vinyl or HTV.) That's when things started. 

Pattern Hunt

First, I wanted to find a pattern for the apron. I knew I wanted something with good real estate for placing iron on images and something with a pocket or pockets. Lately, vintage recreation patterns have been my jam and after a lengthy search, I ended up finding a pattern I liked. 
Simplicity S9311. I picked the Yellow Apron.
I liked the heart pocketed and slightly French maid looking apron. Went ahead and purchased a yard and a half of Poly Cotton Broadcloth in white and black.  

Vinyl Research

Since I only had 4 sheets of HTV on hand, I knew I couldn't mess things up so I was very thorough in my research on how to apply Glitter HTV. The Cricut kit came with some PDF books that walk through different products. I also read the official site's step-by-step instructions. 

Iron on things are finicky at best. I remember ages ago trying to iron on a stretchy t-shirt and the image just peeled off. So, this time I made sure that the fabric for the apron was the appropriate kind. I also pre-washed the fabric (which I pretty much NEVER do usually). 
For washing out chemicals.
I did eventually do some testing with scrap vinyl and fabric. Thankfully, that worked so I knew I could follow the instructions on the Cricut website and get a good result. 

Apron Design Ideas


My original idea was to make two aprons that featured this chibi Kyojuro Rengoku stencil by Longquang. I had already cut out two iron on samples in red and in silver. However, I didn't have a design for the apron yet, nor did I have the pattern dimensions. So unfortunately, both of the HTV transfers were the wrong dimensions for this project. (It did give me a LOT of practice weeding the image.) As I was looking at my leftover HTV colors and rethinking my design, I thought that since I was getting both white and black fabric, I could make one apron look like a Demon Slayer uniform. I could cut the buttons from gold, the bars and Kanji in silver, and trim everything with white ribbon. I could even make the waistband white to really be reminiscent of the uniform. So I decided that the black apron would be that and the white apron would be my Rengoku apron. However, in addition to the chibi stencil, I was going to add a depiction of the flame hilt to the heart pocket. 

Project Challenges

There are three major points of challenge for this project. 
  1. Sewing gathered material to the fabric
  2. Cutting out Images correctly
  3. The Iron-on Process
Gathered fabric for trim is generally a challenge for me. I knew of a couple ways I could do it. 
I could follow the sewing instructions and just gather certain lengths of lace trim then add it to the apron pieces, but I never know how much to gather things. I could also use my serger to create a ruffle in the lace. But my old sewing machine had a ruffler foot and I wanted something similar for my current machine. So I got a gather foot which lets you gather and attach to flat fabric in one stitch. 

The other two challenges I did a lot of research for before attempting. I was really nervous because I'd only get one shot with these HTV sheets. 

My next Post will be about how I prepped the images for die-cutting. Then I'll get into the iron on process, and finally the sewing part. 
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