Have you worn your kitchen armor lately?
Spring Fashion
Written by cjhammon in Books | Music | Art | Culture, Style
Let’s just suppose that you’re trying to do about 50 things at once. Say you’ve just come home from an appointment and you’re still wearing one of your favorite summer dresses. You dash through your kitchen and throw together a big pot of soup, congratulating yourself for getting an early start on a dinner. Yeah! While you’re working away in your home-based office, your dinner will be simmering on the stove, ready to eat whenever your family arrives home for the day. What a good, good girl you are! Managing all of this in a dress and heels.
“Probably should have worn an apron,” you think to yourself. Oh, well. There isn’t even a dribble on your dress as you head down the hall toward your office. Invincible, aren’t you? As an afterthought, you return the kitchen and reach for a big spoon to crush the whole tomatoes that are floating in the broth. And that’s when it happens. Splat! Your favorite summer dress, ruined in a flash of stupidity.
I have a drawer full of pretty aprons. Why didn’t it occur to me to tie one around my neck last Thursday before I divided myself between Crystal The Hurried Homemaker and Crystal The Home-Based Employee? It’s a habit I’ve never fully adopted, mainly because I seldom cook in good clothes.
And partly, it’s a family thing. Until recently, my mother never wore an apron, but she’s getting more careful now that she is a senior citizen. Sometimes she’ll hand one to me when I’m working in her kitchen. My mother-in-law is nearly a decade older than Mom and she is almost never without an apron. Is it a generational thing or a trend that goes in and out of style?
I dearly love the idea of an apron. Today, these trusty protective garments, especially the vintage variety, seem to be hot, hot, hot. And sewing your own is one of the most popular crafting projects around. (May I add that one of my most recent sewing catastrophes was an apron?) I know of two books that are wonderful resources for apron lovers.
Did you know, for example, that the first known reference to an apron was in the Bible? See Genesis 3:7. “Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves aprons.” Oh, dear.
This is one of the many gems shared in EllynAnne Geisel’s book, The Apron Book: Making, Wearing and Sharing a Bit of Cloth and Comfort. Geisel acquired her first apron in 1999 when she purchased one as inspiration for an article about this old-fashioned symbol. Her passion eventually carried forth in this book, which is peppered with instructions, photographs, illustrations and even a few cooking tips. I savored one of the book’s recurring features, Every Apron Tells a Story, where someone shares a memory of a particular apron. I so love that idea because it’s exactly what we love about this blog space—sharing the meaning and memories that fashion stirs inside all of us.
If you love coffee table books, you might also enjoy Aprons: Icons of the American Home, by Joyce Cheney. It’s a nostalgic look at a surprisingly complex symbol that can be so remarkably crafted and beautiful. You may think you know aprons, but you may never have seen them quite like this. Such artful objects! The photographs are accompanied by assorted quotes like this one by Emily Bronte’s Ellen in Wuthering Heights:
For those of you who don’t want to make your own aprons or search for the handmade or vintage variety, FlirtyAprons.com has three of their most popular styles on sale for 50 percent off, now through Thursday while supplies last. I can’t decide which is my favorite, Sugar ‘n Spice, Sassy Black, or Original Frosted Cupcake.
What’s your favorite apron story? Stay tuned. Tomorrow, we’ll announce the latest giveaway winner!
7 comments
Rachel said:
July 10, 2012 at 6:04 pm
I nearly always wear an apron, though I prefer a plain-and-simple variety. Mine is just a basic tan. The one task I would never undertake without an apron: pitting cherries!
cjhammon said:
July 10, 2012 at 9:14 pm
Rachel, I have never pitted cherries, but if it’s half as messy as a squirting tomato, I can imagine that I wouldn’t care whether my apron was plain or fancy! Hurray for common sense, right? Thanks for commenting!
Lori L said:
July 10, 2012 at 8:10 pm
My family didn’t wear aprons much as I was growing up but I married into a southern family in which the men wore aprons around their neck for Sunday-after-church meals to protect their good clothes. I now wear a monogramed apron I made for my husband back in 1981 before we started dating and treasure a little green and white apron my mom made for me in the sixties that matches my Susie Homemaker oven. Also, I still have my first 4-H sewing project-an apron. It was one of the first of many blue ribbon projects for me. So, I guess we have become a family with several “storied” aprons. Thanks for the chance to share memories.
cjhammon said:
July 10, 2012 at 9:22 pm
Lori, I love the idea of all the men in your family wearing aprons. That’s a good image! Evidently, you’re better at sewing than you let on at last Saturday’s tea! Otherwise you couldn’t have made an award winning apron. So you had an apron as a little girl? Maybe that’s what’s wrong with me…I didn’t receive an apron as a child. Oh, the scars of a deprived childhood :0 (Just joking…I was an indulged child, as you probably already know!) Watch your mailbox. I have a note coming your way.
C…
Melanie Bingham said:
July 11, 2012 at 10:16 am
Hello, Friend.
I, too, love the idea of aprons. I do wear them, especially on Sundays, when I get in from church and hurry to the stove before changing. (And I also like everyone to keep their dress clothes on for Sunday dinner, so I have to play along.) When all the children were still home, I often didn’t take time to tie one on in the day-to-day run of things, but I did take care to wear them on Sunday, Thanksgiving, and Christmas; I now let the apron charm lead me to the apron drawer much more often.
I have aprons from my mother and grandmother, which I treasure. My mom’s old ones I can’t button at the waist, so I keep them for the memories and fold them tenderly as I go through the apron/tablecloth drawer. My mom and Mamaw many times came up behind me in their Benton kitchen and tied an apron around me when I was there to help and hadn’t done my apron duty. I can almost feel them behind me when I tie one on today.
I have an apron which my husband gave me before we were married (or even engaged); it’s quite stained, but precious. (It has pigs across the front because we’d played a pig game on one of our first dates!)
I have a brown print apron which my college roommate’s mother made for me as a wedding gift. It brings back so many happy memories of college days and this roomie’s sweet family. Her mom always worked in a fabric store.
I have a very old stained one that Mark’s grandmother made for me before she died – as a wedding gift. She made it out of plain muslin she had on hand – a no-frills apron, just the kind she wore. She was rarely EVER seen without an apron – or a bonnet. I have a precious picture of her and me at a cemetery (she went along with us to show us Grandpa Bingham’s grave), and she has on the apron – which covered the entire front of her dress – right in the middle of the cemetery. She died six months later – before our next visit.
I have only one daughter, but we had two boys marry last year (one son was already married), so last Christmas I made aprons for four wonderful girls at Christmas. I also have a granddaughter (who was 15 months in Dec.), and I made a toddler apron, too. That project was very special to me – partly because I now had four daughters, and partly because I had just inherited my mother’s aprons after her death last year, and I knew that these aprons might go on through generations. (I’ll see if I can send you a picture.) My goal was to take a piece of each girl’s fabric and make an apron for myself out of the assortment – showing that each of them is now a part of me. I ran out of time before Christmas (one of the weddings was Christmas week!), but maybe your prod here will inspire me to finish the job.
Much love to my stylish friend. (My only style is in my apron.)
Melanie
cjhammon said:
July 11, 2012 at 10:49 am
Melanie, I knew there must be so many precious stories out there linked memories of aprons. You have proven that in spades. Thanks for sharing this here. I love your girls, all outfitted in their handmade aprons. I happen to know what a fabulous seamstress your grandmother was, having seen you and Michelle in her creations when we were kids. How proud she would be that you are keeping up the tradition!
Melanie Bingham said:
July 11, 2012 at 10:24 am
Don’t know if I can send this picture, but trying. If it doesn’t work, just delete, of course! : )
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=2655765028008&set=t.1072306508&type=3
/Users/binghamm/Pictures/iPhoto Library/Originals/2009/Dec 31, 2009/386585_2869881824411_1180819606_3143700_1857180857_n.jpg