I am about halfway through constructing Anya’s art smock using the pattern I found on thediymommy.com.  I had quite a bit of the laminated fabric from making her backpack, and searched for something that would use it. We happened across this smock and it looked like it would use almost all of the remaining fabric. (Wasn’t wrong – from the one yard of fabric, I have a 16″square).

Other than my inability to machine-stitch bias tape, this is a really quick project. Couple hours – even with a tiny helper. I find it easier to cut fabric to a pattern if the paper pattern isn’t cut right along the line, so I leave a half inch overhang around the pattern. It works just as well, though, to have overhang that continually varies from 1/8″ up to an inch. And Anya loves that she can do some of the cutting for our crafts.

Once we printed and cut the paper pattern, I cut the two pieces of laminated cotton. Sewed the two pieces together at the shoulder – since laminate does not seem fray, I used a simple straight stitch instead of the serger. I had cut quite a lot of bias strips to make piping for the bag. Double folded the strips to create bias tape for the edging and started pinning it in place.

The front of the bias tape is stitched on, and now I’m hand-stitching the back of the bias tape. Some day I’ll learn this “stitch in the ditch” technique 🙂