Metal Worker's Apron

[robbied]

My mentor's apron is over 20 years old, and it looks it. As I recently acquired a bulk amount of leather, I offered to make him a brand new one, based on his old one.

This pattern is the result. The print size is A3, but all the dimensions are there to mark it out full size.

Apron sized for print.pdf

[dragonhawke]

been looking for something similar to this. A few modifications I need and yes. Many thanks.

[plowboy73]

Thank you.

[johnj]

Thank you.

[Slow Learner]

Thank you!

Very professional looking pattern. What program did you do the design in, If I may ask?

[robbied]

Thank you!

Very professional looking pattern. What program did you do the design in, If I may ask?

Thanks for the compliment.

I used a free vector based drawing program called Inkscape. It's multi-platform and quite easy to use. Similar to Corel Draw and Adobe Illustrator. You can even import PDFs and make changes (as long as the pdf was saved in vector and not a bitmap).

[Slow Learner]

Thanks for the information. I use Corel Draw but no way I can do anything like that. Good work.

[robbied]

Everything starts with a box. Convert to curves. Add, subtract, shape the nodes as you need to. I've had a lot of experience, but I wouldn't say what I did was complicated. It did take a while to do though. I find the more you play, the more you learn.

[billium]

Hi robbied, thanks for the pattern! what type of leather do you use for the apron?

i have also been using inkscape to make patterns. I started with the tutorial below which describes how to trace scanned patterns and manipulate curves and margins.

do you know any good way to include marks for stiches with 3mm spacing? i tried a few times with the dotted line "stroke" function but could never get it right.

Inkscape tutorial

http://vrya.net/content.php?p=20

[robbied]

I'm going to use some soft surface chrome tanned, about 3/32 or so thick. I picked up a full hide from an estate sale.

I think the best way to do the stitching marks would be to use the custom dash pattern. You can customise the pattern using the XML editor. I haven't had much of a chance to play with it this morning, but you should be able to get exactly what you want in there.

Hope it helps.

[Nuttish]

Inkscape is unfortunately difficult to use for the patternmaking task of adding stitch marks with an appropriate allowance that you can very very easily manipulate.

I could give a tutorial for making these operations trivially easy in Illustrator, but that's not what you asked for.

If you want to take a run at Illustrator, I'd be up for doing a free basic group lesson for people from the site covering basic patternmaking.

You can get a month of Illustrator and other useful Adobe apps for $20. No, I don't get paid for shilling for Adobe.