Aprons and New Shop Announcement!

The Story of 'APRONS'

The principal use of Grandma's apron was to protect the dress underneath

because she only had a few and because it was easier to wash aprons than dresses

and aprons required 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.
Those big old aprons wiped many a perspiring brow,

bent over the hot wood stove.
Chips and kindling wood were brought into the kitchen in that apron.

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 folk knew it was time to come in from the fields to dinner.

It will be a long time

before someone invents something that will replace that 'old-time apron'

that served so many purposes.

REMEMBER:
Grandma used to set her hot baked apple pies on the window sill to cool.

Her granddaughters set theirs on the window sill to thaw.

They would go crazy now trying to figure out how many germs were on that apron.

I don't think I ever caught anything from an apron -

but love...

Above are some of the small aprons I have sewn and listed in my new shop. I shared some of my grandmother's handmade aprons in a previous post. I seem to like things small or over sized and decided there was room in this world for some retro looking aprons that are smaller and fun to decorate with. These work wonderfully as a window valance such as that shown at the top of my post. Just hang them onto either ribbon, jute or a rod with clothespins which are readily available. My window is 38" across and as you can see, four aprons fit nicely. The aprons also pin easily to the wall (using T-pins) as decoration or for a banner; tie or clip onto the backs of chairs for tea parties or garden parties; or maybe even over a lampshade (with a low wattage bulb). They would make great hostess gifts also. The pockets are fully functional and could be used to hold a small gift card or other small gift - or a note pad and pencil near the phone. There are lots of possibilities. My mom thought they would make cute bibs and then I was thinking they would be cute as napkins on your lap.

This is the first small cross-stitch apron I made. I was inspired by my grandma's aprons. This one took a lot of time to embroider and patience matching up the checks. It probably would go faster with practice, but I'm afraid I wouldn't get anything else done. Although I loved making it, for now I am not offering any cross-stitched aprons for sale.

I finally did it! Now I only hope I did it right. Please check my ArtFire shop out and give me your thoughts. http://www.artfire.com/users/CEOriginals Many of you have such great shops and are probably thinking I'm making a big deal out of nothing...but, remember I am not the most computer savvy person and none of this makes total sense to me ~ lol. By the way, I altered the window photo at piknic.com. Now that was both fun and easy :-)

I have some more items I will be listing in a few days, so be sure to check back. I will try to let you know about them here on my blog.