Country Aprons

I've loved aprons since I made my first one at about 6 years old, and I'm revisiting that love of now vintage aprons.  I inherited a number of vintage aprons owned by my mother and grandmother, including a couple I had made as a child, and the fabric stashes from several family members.  I also remember the "patternless" apron patterns, handed down from mother to daughter through the generations, where you measure out the strips for the apron body, ruffles, waistband and tie, and add a pocket if desired.  There are so many variations you can make with this "patternless" technique, and I'm once again exploring some of these options with these wonderful vintage fabrics.

I remember the wonderful pockets, hand stitched and embellished, then carefully applied to the apron.  There were birds and teddy bears, hearts trimmed in lace and squares carefully double stitched.  Some of the fabrics I remember from days gone by, like the floral polished cotton my mother carefully made into Easter dresses for my sister and I one year, or the ginghams that were used in all manner of kitchen linens, or the calicos, plain and fancy, that showcased the skill of the sewer and the style of the times. 

Ah, the style of the times.  Coming home from school to a snack of homemade cookies, simple to make, no preservatives, and still warm out of the oven, chocolate chip, peanut butter, oatmeal, maybe even sugar cookies with colored sugar sprinkled on top.  Meals that came partially from the garden in the back yard.  Getting together with the extended family to reduce a small orchard's worth of apples into all manner of wonderful things for the winter, apple butter and apple pies, apple sauce and apples for fritters, all the women with their aprons, some downstairs peeling and coring the apples, slicing them, rolling out the pie dough and putting the layers of apples carefully into the pie pans before hiding the wonderful contents in another layer of dough, talking happily amongst themselves and occasionally minding the kids running in and out endlessly.  Some upstairs in the kitchen taking pans full of peeled apples and reducing them down to apple butter or apple sauce and canning them, again with more aprons and again with wonderful cheerful conversations.  The men?  They were all out in the garage, drinking beers and talking about cars lol.  They would want no part of the aprons, the cooking or the conversation until it was time for them to make dinner on the grill, and oh, what a dinner it would be, steaks and hot dogs or hamburgers for the kids, a mountain of potato chips, and all the apple desserts anyone could eat.  Everyone would go home tired, full of good food, with their trunks full of wonderful treats for their deep freezers to tide them through the winter to come.

And these are the memories I comtimplate as I work these wonderful old fabrics into the aprons of old.  I wonder what the ladies would think of them.  :)