Kids Apron and Chef Hat!

Little Sister finally did me a solid and put on the dang chef hat I made for her birthday!

Cute, right?  It's adjustible (velcro in the back), so it will fit for years--her four-year-old brother can wear it no problem.  So far, he has been far more willing to wear it than she has, as a matter of fact.  She's usually such a hat girl!  I don't get it!  I thought she'd be totally into the hat!  Oh well, maybe someday.

I thought that adding the chef hat took the apron gift from a fun practical item (which it still is--and she actually loves wearing the apron and "helping" me cook) to something that can also be a part of the dress-up trunk.

So she can pretend to be a fortune-telling gypsy chef, apparently.

Despite their looking more boho than kitchen professional, I did love these fabrics for this.  I actually used this same combo in one of the Phoebe bags I just posted about.  And I still have more scraps of it, so I'm sure you'll be seeing it again!

For my purposes, the apron is huge.  I followed this free tutorial from Michael Miller Fabrics. I like that it uses D-rings for the neck strap, making it adjustible, and I like the pocket on the front (although, like the last time I made this apron, I didn't follow the directions exactly for the pocket.)  In this photo (where it reaches her feet), it is folded under by about 4-5 inches in the middle.  This size would be perfect for a 5-6 year old, I think--I was thinking this would mean she would get lots of use out of it, but in retrospect I think I should have just sewn a smaller apron that she could use for the next 4 years, then make her a new one.  I suppose I should be able to manage a new apron every 4 years or so.

The Michael Miller tutorial I linked to above also has a link to a chef hat, but it wasn't working for some reason when I wanted to make mine.  So I used this free tutorial instead, and I liked it.  Especially the adjustible velcro closure (so maybe the hat will still fit her when the apron finally does!)

And just a little personalization--I'm not great at embroidery, but I still think it's fun.  I embroidered on a patch instead of directly on the apron so that I could center it without worrying about the name disappearing into the print.

If I were giving this gift to a slightly older child, it would be fun to include a kids cookbook.