Aprons Now and Then

THE APRON A FOREVER CLASSIC!

I received  an interesting email on aprons a few days ago that started me thinking about the vintage aprons I have stored away. It was fun to look at them again. I was sad to see that a couple of them have some of those brown age spots, not sure if those can be removed or not. Guess they are just like us when we get older. Not sure why that happens but I could use a few of those erased as well. 

Back in the 50's and 60's when I was growing up, housewives wore aprons as an accessory as much as for protecting their clothing. Holiday homemade aprons were popular and often times very elaborate. A typical housewife took her aprons seriously and not only had a few seasonal one but several in a variety of colors to match her outfits. 

That's my mom and my grandmother on a picnic away from the kitchen and their aprons.

This is  one of my grandmother's aprons. It pinned at the shoulders and was trimmed with little blue rickrack. My grandmother was a great seamstress, mom, not so much. Mom preferred to do the little fancy work, like smocking. She said she did not know how to thread a sewing machine so she used a needle and thread and always a thimble. 

 

This is a really cute apron my mom embroidered with cross stitch for Christmas, with little reindeer leaping across it.  Cooks have used aprons for many years for work and decorative reasons. My mom probably would have been more in the decorative reasons she made and wore aprons.

 

I decided to wash and iron this one and display in my kitchen this Chirstmas. I was really impressed with the attention to details it has. Even the tails of the band are embroidered.

 I think that pink and black one is my favorite. The stitch work actually is applied over the rick rack.

I gave a couple of aprons to friends last year for Christmas and they were so well received that this year Carmen and I made and sold several aprons through Present Grace.
Pink and black are popular today and aprons are having a come back I think. Here's a couple of our pink and  black ones.

 
That's my kitchen, and that is my friend Michelle. She is not only showing off our aprons very nicely but she is standing in front of  my new cook top. I love that it is white like my countertops but not so sure about cooking on it.

Aprons have been cooks companions for hundreds of years. Worn by men and women for many tasks. But I think it was in the 1950's when they became kind of a status symbol of the perfect housewife. Maybe its that nostalgia that makes them so much fun.

Some might say today's aprons are a bit more stylish. But they can't beat the details of  handwork that our mothers and grandmothers put into theirs. Maybe we just don't find the time or energy to do such tedious work. All those machines and gadgets that are suppose to save us time seem to eat it up. Irene, my embroidery machine, does great work, still it is not the same as the time and skill of work done by hand.

I  might wear a new one but I will always cherish the old ones.

This is the email I received  this week about aprons, that got  me to thinking about them. So I thought I would share it with you as well.

The principal use of Grandma's apron was to protect the dress underneath because she only had a few.  It was easier to wash aprons than dresses and they used less material, but along with that, it served as a potholder for removing hot pans from the oven.

It was wonderful for drying children's tears, and on occasion was even used for cleaning out dirty ears.  From the chicken coop, the apron was used for carrying eggs, fussy chicks, and sometimes half-hatched eggs to be finished in the warming oven.

When company came, those aprons were ideal hiding places for shy kids. And when the weather was cold, grandma wrapped it around her arms.  Chips and kindling wood were brought into the kitchen in that apron.  Those big old aprons wiped many a perspiring brow, bent over the hot wood stove.

From the garden, it carried all sorts of vegetables. After the peas had been shelled, it carried out the hulls.  In the fall, the apron was used to bring in apples that had fallen from the trees.

When unexpected company drove up the road, it was surprising how much furniture that old apron could dust in a matter of seconds.  When dinner was ready, Grandma walked out onto the porch, waved her apron, and the men knew it was time to come in from the fields to dinner.

People would go crazy now trying to figure out how many germs were on that apron.  But you know what?  I don't think I ever caught anything from an apron.

It will be a long time before someone invents something that will replace that ' old-time apron' that served so many purposes.