Swoon Patterns Gatherer Egg Apron

A few weeks ago I spent time at a conference with a good friend. She pulled out her phone and showed me a couple of pictures of the eggs she had collected from her newly acquired chickens. It was serendipitous when about 2 days later Swoon Patterns sent out an email advertising their new apron …

Swoon Patterns Gatherer Egg Apron

This pattern is offered as a free download from Swoon’s website. Yes, it’s a pdf, but there are only about 12 pages including the instructions, and just one section is taped together.

There are options for children and adults. The child option holds 8 eggs, while the adult option holds 10. There are 3 sizes for adults (small, medium, large), and it would be easy to make larger if you want to make this for someone with a larger waist.

Sewing Notes

For my friend, I picked up a couple of quilting cottons – a yellow chicken print, and red with black polka dots. The only other requirements for this pattern are thread and fusible interfacing. Get a lightweight interfacing – you’ll be using a lot of it!

The project is easy and would be completely do-able for someone new to sewing. You need the patience to fuse interfacing to every single piece, and you need to accurately mark and fold the pockets so they can accommodate eggs. (I used my Frixion erasable gel pen for the markings, and can only hope that the chicken mama doesn’t look too closely at the apron when collecting eggs in January.) You also topstitch everything so it is helpful to either have a seam guide, a foot suitable for topstitching, or a steady hand.

As some point my needle bent (probably when sewing through 6 layers of fabric and 4 layers of interfacing) and that slowed me down, otherwise, this would have been about a 2-hour project. My suggestion? Don’t use a lightweight woven needle, use something more heavy duty.

The only challenge was sewing and stitching the waistband/tie. The entire waistband is interfaced, then you fold it in so it sandwiches the upper edge of the apron and top stitch. If I was to make this again I would only interface 1/2 of the depth of the waistband so it would be easier to stitch AND to tie. The tie is quite firm with all of that interfacing.

All in, an easy project and I’m half thinking about making up a few to send down to a craft fair in the fall. You could really have fun with these and they make a great gift. And it’s free!