Art Smock

Over Christmas while digging through the final couple of boxes of "stuff" I have stored at my mom's house, I came across my childhood art smock.  Neither Mom or I can recall the origins but the story that it was made by me (possibly during the 4-H sewing class I took) seems to make the most sense.  Especially when you factor in that one tie was longer than the other! ha!

The smock had seen better days.  A few of the stitches were coming undone.  It had a number of stains.  But, it was mine and I still loved it.

Then I had a thought - what if I could update it a bit and turn it into an art smock for Dylan?  We're always getting into crafty projects and he could use one.  Truthfully, the only real improvements needed were new bias tape at the top (the stitches were coming undone and pink does scream "girl") and new stitches for the pockets (seriously, I must not have been so stuck on evenness back then as the 3 pockets were all a different width).

Dylan and I made a trip to the fabric store with the art smock in hand to pick the bias tape.  The first color that jumped out at me was a light yellow.  It paired well with the existing blue fabric and original stitches plus was much more gender neutral than the pink.  Perfect.

This was a very simple project.  I ripped out the old stitches in the pocket area that were coming undone.  Resewed using a similar zigzag stitch and made sure all 3 pockets were equal size (yes, it really drove me crazy now - blame the architecture training!).  I used the measurements of the original bias tape and added a few inches as I based the tie length on the longer of the two ties (still laughing over those being different lengths!) to determine the length of the new yellow bias tape.

Here I made one change and used a straight stitch to attach it versus the zigzag of the original.  I just liked the look better.  Then I tied knots in both ends and one at the back of the neck to tighten it up just a bit.

We haven't had time to try it out for its intended purpose yet, but Dylan did have fun just wearing it around the kitchen last night:

And thanks to Allison for sharing her Roaring Art Smock on her blog this week.  This project has been on my to-do list for a while and her post gave me the kick to get it done.  :)