Yay! This York Pinafore from Helen’s Closet worked out as I hoped. The fabric is linen canvas Ruby Star from http://www.craftystudio.ie I have made the York quite a few times so I didn’t need to look at the instructions. This for me is real Zen-zone sewing, when I can just get into the flow.
Because I thought this substantial fabric could take it, I serged on the pink gingham binding on the first pass. I don’t fold bias binding before applying, but I iron the folds in after under-stitching it.

After serging on the binding, I under-stitched it on the sewing machine, then top-stitched it. I put the binding on the neck in the round, but I did each underarm in one long strip, before sewing the side seams. I find that easier and neater. I then sewed down the seam allowance at the top of the seams using a very short stitch to make these few stitches less visible.

For the hem, I first sewed one side seam, then sewed bias binding onto the back and front hems and side under-stitched it, but didn’t fold it over or top-stitch yet. Then when sewing the side seam I treated the binding as part of the side seam. This gives a nice clean finish when you fold it over later.

I neatened the top edges of the pockets using hidden bias binding too.
I did the top stitching on my old sewing machine using two reels of thread going through the needle. This gives a nice stitch.

I didn’t notice when cutting out the fabric that the logo was on the selvage, but I decided to treat it as a design element and you can see it clearly on both side seams near the bottom.

I’m very happy with this. I had wanted a York to muck around in during the summer and it can be layered up or down.