Men's Dress Shirt Repurposed to Apron Tutorial

Tonight, I turned this men's dress shirt......

 into this apron!

 Here's the tutorial and some helpful tips -

My sister and brother-in-law are moving to NYC, and in an effort to downsize, I inherited a large amount of dress shirts.  Remember when I made a dress for my daughter?

Well, I saw this pin on Pinterest, and was so upset that the directions were in Russian!  So, I quickly googled "Man's Dress Shirt to Apron" and found nothing I liked so I just started cutting and sewing.

Here goes....

Obviously, start with a man's shirt.  Cut off the sleeves and the back.

Cut around the collar but leave it intact.  I cut very close to the seam so that I wouldn't have to hem anything or have any raw edges.

Your shirt should look like this -

Use your rotary cutter and ruler to make a diagonal cut from the armpit to the top of the shoulder.

Make sure both sides are even.  :)

On the raw edge that you just cut, turn a hem under, concealing all raw edges, and sew it down.  Do this on both sides.

The final step is to make the apron ties.  You could use ribbon if you wanted, but I chose to cut strips of fabric on the bias to make the apron interesting.

Close all raw edges in and sew your straps on to the bottom of your diagonal cut.  Be sure to backstitch several times for reinforcement.

And you're done!

A couple of final tips-

Flip the collar up until you are completely done with the apron.  This keeps you from accidentally stitching it down and it just puts it out of the way!

Second, button the shirt all the way down at the very beginning.  This will help your fabric stay straighter.

If you have a plaid shirt, that is a good starter since you can use the stripes as your guide for keeping it straight.

Now, the only question is..... what will I tell my husband when his shirts mysteriously go missing?