How To Make Christmas Apron Ornaments

Join Tammy in our tutorial as she shows you how to create 8 memorable, mini treasures this holiday season with the Christmas Apron Ornaments Kit, designed by J. Minnis! Featuring the rich colors and timeless prints of the Star of Wonder Star of Light collection from Benartex, these little aprons are perfect for filling with candy, stocking stuffers, gift cards, and more. A fun and festive project, you'll love using or gifting these cute aprons year after year! Each apron ornament finishes at approximately 5" tall x 4.5" wide, making them the ideal size for small holiday treats. This is a delightful project to add to your holiday crafting tradition! While not required, the Christmas Apron Ornament Acrylic Template is highly recommended for quickly and easily making the ornaments.

These little patchwork aprons hang on the tree and hold a gift card, a few pieces of candy, or a folded note in the pocket on the back — which makes them equally good as ornaments and as the wrapping for a small gift. They're built from charm pack strips, quilted before they're cut to shape, and finished with bias binding around the curves.

In this video, you'll learn:

• How to turn a charm pack into randomly-pieced strip sets, then into a small quilted panel.
• Why an acrylic template beats the paper one when you're tracing the same shape eight times — and how to stop it sliding.
• The straight-cuts-then-scissors approach to cutting tight curves out of quilted patchwork.
• A fabric glue technique that holds binding exactly in place so your top stitching catches it every time.
• How to grade a very thick seam so the binding can still turn cleanly.

Check the links for everything you need.

INTRODUCTION

One kit makes eight ornaments, and includes the charm pack, fusible fleece, backing and binding fabric, and the D-rings — two per ornament, so sixteen in all. The acrylic template is a separate add-on, and it's worth considering given how many times you'll trace the same shape.

1. BUILDING THE PATCHWORK

The whole apron front is a small twenty-five patch, pieced randomly so no two ornaments match.

1. Cut your charm squares into 1.5" strips. A Creative Gris 1.5" × 6.5" #CGR1565 ruler is exactly the right size for cutting charms, since the ruler covers the square in one pass.
2. Lay all the strips out, then grab them at random and sew them into strip sets.
3. Cut those strip sets back down into 1.5" strips.
4. Lay out (5) of these, twisting and turning them however you like so the colors fall randomly, sew them together, and press the seams open.

Make a second, smaller panel three strips wide for the back pocket while you're at it.

2. QUILTING THE PANELS

These get quilted flat, as small panels, before any shaping happens.

1. Fuse the fleece to the back of each panel. Lay parchment paper over the top while you press — the fusible extends past the patchwork at the edges, and that adhesive will transfer straight onto your iron otherwise.
2. Layer with your backing fabric.
3. Mark diagonal quilting lines with a Frixion Clicker Pen against a ruler, then quilt along them. Marking first is faster than hunting for the line as you sew, and the results come out noticeably straighter.
4. Use thread that matches your backing in the bobbin. On top, anything you like — a green works well, and a metallic or sparkle thread dresses these up nicely for the tree.

3. WORKING WITH THE TEMPLATE

The pattern includes paper templates for the apron and the pocket, and there's an acrylic version available separately.

If you're using the paper templates, glue them to cardboard, heavy paper, or template plastic first and cut them out from that — you'll be tracing around them (8) times over, and plain paper won't survive it. The acrylic template arrives with brown protective paper on the back; peel that off and all the printed guides become visible: center marks at top and bottom, a back pocket placement line, and a small groove that marks where the tiny front pocket goes.

Stop the template from sliding. An acrylic template on quilted fabric skates around under your hand, which is exactly when a cut goes wrong. A few No-Slip Grip Dots by The Gypsy Quilter stuck on the back solve it completely — one at each bottom corner and one up top is plenty, and the template simply stops moving.

4. CUTTING OUT THE SHAPES

The apron shape has straight edges and some very tight curves, and those get handled separately.

1. Position the template on your quilted panel with patchwork extending past it on all sides.
2. Cut all the straight edges with a rotary cutter, ignoring the curves entirely for now. A rotating mat like the Creative Grids Self-Healing Rotating Cutting Mat 14" x 14" makes this much easier — turn the mat rather than repositioning the piece.
3. For the curves, trace them with a Frixion Clicker Pen while the template is still in place.
4. Cut the marked curves with scissors. A small Clover 28mm Rotary Cutter also works, but scissors give more control on curves this tight. Reach for a larger pair rather than your little thread snips, since quilted fabric with fusible fleece is a lot to ask of small scissors and much harder on your hands.

For the back pocket, cut a straight edge across the top first. The pocket placement line on the template represents the top of that pocket, so you need a finished straight edge to line it up against. Center it visually side to side; the placement line handles the vertical positioning for you.

5. BINDING THE TOP EDGES

Both the apron top and the back pocket top get a small strip of binding before assembly — the same way you'd finish the edge of a purse.

1. Fold your binding strip in half, lay it on the top edge, and stitch across at a quarter inch. Use a size 100 Schmetz Chrome Jeans/Denim Needle here; you're going through many layers and a standard needle struggles.
2. Press the binding up and away.
3. Run a thin line of Seam Align Glue in the seam allowance, fold the binding down over the stitch line, and set the glue with a medium iron — a wool setting is about right.
4. Stitch in the ditch from the front. Because the binding's back edge sits slightly lower than the front, that single line of stitching catches everything at once.
5. Trim the ends even.

The glue is what makes this work. Top stitching a narrow binding normally means chasing an edge that shifts underneath as you sew, catching it in some places and missing it in others. Glued and heat-set, it doesn't move, and you hit it every time. It's a washable glue, so it releases in the wash — not that these are likely to need it, being ornaments rather than laundry.

6. ADDING THE POCKETS

The tiny front pocket is a scrap-sized piece of fabric, and the back pocket is what actually holds the gift.

1. For the front pocket, start with a 4.5" × 1.5" strip — one of your leftover charm pieces is ideal. Fold it in half right sides together and stitch an eighth of an inch around three sides, leaving the bottom open for turning.
2. Clip the corners carefully without cutting your stitches, turn it right side out, and push the points out with a Clover Point 2 Point Turner. Press flat.
3. Set the template back on the apron and mark through the little groove with a Frixion Clicker Pen — that's your placement line.
4. Position the pocket about an eighth of an inch above the line, pin, and sew with an eighth-inch seam, backstitching at both ends so it can't pull loose.
5. Press the seam, flip the pocket up, press again, pin it down, and top stitch around it with matching thread.
6. For the back pocket, pin or clip it in place and stitch around with an eighth-inch seam, backstitching at the start and finish.

Watch your thread color on the back pocket. The seam that gets covered later can be sewn in any thread you like. The top stitching shows on the back of the finished ornament, so switch to a thread that matches before you sew it.

7. BINDING THE APRON

The outer binding is cut on the bias because those curves need the stretch that only true bias provides.

1. Cut your binding strip on the 45 degree angle. A long ruler lets you make the cut in a single sweep rather than repositioning a short one partway.
2. At the tail end, turn a quarter inch and press it, then press the whole strip in half lengthwise.
3. Mark a point 2" from the end, with the fold toward you. That mark is where the apron gets inserted as you sew.
4. Starting at the top with a quarter-inch seam, sew the binding as you would on a quilt. When you reach the 2" mark, bring the apron in and continue onto it.
5. Work the bias around the curves, mitering the corners exactly as you would on a quilt. Taking a small tuck or pleat at each curve is expected — it's fine, and it's how the binding lies flat.
6. At the far end, measure 5" out from the apron, turn a quarter inch, press, and sew off.

Then press the binding away from the apron all the way around, working the iron inside the curves.

8. GRADING, GLUING, AND FINISHING

That outer seam is thick. The apron, the pocket, two layers of fusible fleece, and two layers of backing all meet there.

1. Grade the seam with scissors, trimming the excess bulk out of the seam allowance. The binding needs to fold over to more than a quarter inch on the back, and it can't do that through that much thickness.
2. Glue the binding down on the back rather than clipping it. Start at a shoulder seam, work around with a thin line of glue, mitering each corner and adding a little extra glue on the folds, setting it with the iron as you go. Working at the ironing board makes this straightforward.
3. At the top, trim the point off the raw edge before folding — otherwise it pokes out past the strap. Trimmed first, the folded edge comes out clean and finished.
4. Stitch in the ditch all the way around with matching thread. Because everything is glued and set, nothing shifts while you sew.

Tuck a wrapped Shabby Fabrics Gift Card or a few pieces of candy into the back pocket, add a gift tag, and hang it on the tree.

What makes these work isn't any one step — it's that the patchwork gets quilted flat and cut to shape afterward, so all the fiddly business happens while the piece is still easy to handle. Add the glue trick for the binding and a template that won't slide, and eight of them go together far faster than the first one suggests.

Pick up a set of grip dots and any other Gypsy Quilter tools you need, browse our Creative Grids rulers for the cutting, and explore the rest of our notions to get started.

For personal use only, not for commercial production. No part of this pattern may be reproduced, shared, or distributed in any form unless given express written consent by Shabby Fabrics. Not to be used with any online classes or video tutorials other than the official Shabby Fabrics tutorial. All designs, photographs, and images are protected by federal copyright law. All rights reserved.