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    The Apron Book: Making, Wearing, and Sharing a Bit of Cloth and Comfort
    The Apron Book: Making, Wearing, and Sharing a Bit of Cloth and Comfort
    The Apron Book: Making, Wearing, and Sharing a Bit of Cloth and Comfort
    Ebook214 pages1 hour

    The Apron Book: Making, Wearing, and Sharing a Bit of Cloth and Comfort

    By EllynAnne Geisel

    4/5

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    About this ebook

    The Apron Book showcases full-color photos of new and vintage aprons from Geisel's vast collection, patterns for four basic apron styles and myriad variations, recipes, tips on collecting and preserving vintage aprons, and heart-tugging stories from the traveling apron exhibit. The book also explores the history and heyday of aprons and looks at the various roles aprons still play when worn in the kitchen, around the house, by the backyard grill, on the job, or for a special occasion.
     

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherAndrews McMeel Publishing
    Release dateNov 7, 2017
    ISBN9781449493615
    The Apron Book: Making, Wearing, and Sharing a Bit of Cloth and Comfort

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    Reviews for The Apron Book

    4/5

    33 ratings5 reviews

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    • 4/5
      Love this book. It is a great combination of anecdotes, history and instruction. I've made one apron so far. Fun!
    • 4/5
      I was hoping this book would go in depth on apron history but it's more of a high level view. Great pictures of some vintage aprons throughout although I was hoping for more of those too. I did enjoy the little bios of people and their aprons, and was pleasantly surprised to find actual patterns included in the book.
    • 3/5
      I enjoyed the patterns and the historical information in this book, but the author's tone was very off-putting. So much seemed to be in a smug tone of voice that it destroyed my enjoyment in the book.
    • 4/5
      I enjoyed this unique book. I love collecting aprons, so it was fun to read more about them. It was nice to have some actual patterns included so readers can make their own aprons.
    • 5/5
      A lovely book that takes one along the history both societal and of individuals with lightheartedness and joy. Really appreciated the diversions into recipes and little suggestions like what to do with hardened brown sugar. A really joyful reading and several ideas for making, not just looking at, these daily companions. I have one apron I adore, more than twenty years old, with an overall cartoon-like pattern of a white sheep and a black wolf in the middle.

    Book preview

    The Apron Book - EllynAnne Geisel

    INTRODUCTION

    HARRIET NELSON was my idol when I was growing up. She was everything I wanted to become—a wife, a mother, and a homemaker. I watched The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet every week on television, reverently noting Harriet’s clever way with her husband and sons, her calm demeanor, how she dressed up each day to stay at home taking care of her family. I loved how they worshipped her. And I coveted her apron.

    My own mother was an amazing woman; long before it was the norm, she had a college degree, worked full time, and raised six children. She enjoyed her career and was successful at it, but as far as I was concerned, the job I wanted was Harriet’s.

    In 1966, I entered the University of Southern Hospitality with the goal of acquiring my Mrs. Degree. I got a tad sidetracked by bell-bottoms and rock-and-roll in the ’60s, but deep down I remained committed to finding my Ozzie and becoming a full-time homemaker and mother. Married in 1975 and soon after the mother of two boys, I was blissfully living my girlhood dream.

    For twenty-four years, I happily performed the domestic routines of old-fashioned housewifery. In 1999, when I sent my youngest son off to college, I turned my attention to the freelance writing career I had in mind for my empty-nest self. My first article was to be about a long-forgotten bit of vintage clothing—the apron.

    I visited several thrift stores and picked up an assortment of stained, tattered aprons, some of them still quite beautiful, many of them examples of masterful sewing or embroidery. By the time I’d gathered a laundry basket full of aprons, I knew I was holding something extraordinary—a basket full of stories. From the intricately embroidered pink organza waist apron from the 1920s to the full body flour-sack apron from the 1940s to the Sloppy Joe barbecue apron from the 1950s, every apron spoke worlds of the heart and character of the people who had sewn and worn them.

    Oh, I fell hard. Every apron I discovered I loved like a child, and every one of them wanted to tell me its story. And I was all ears! I wanted to know everything about the aprons I was collecting. I tended them, I studied them, I took them with me hither and yon and showed them off to everyone and anyone. And what I learned is that everybody has an apron story to share. So I gathered their stories and showcased their aprons in a traveling museum exhibit called Apron Chronicles. And then I started designing and making aprons myself. Suddenly, I was an artist with an amazing palette—the combinations of styles, fabrics, and adornments were infinite. My company, Apron Memories, is an outlet for all this creativity, and even though now I’ve become a working woman like my own mother, I still get to have that apron.

    The publication of The Apron Book in 2006 began a worldwide, grassroots movement of apron love. For decades, the apron has been seen only as a symbol of drudgery and an obstacle to women’s success. But in recent years, people have been rediscovering the symbolism of the apron in a new and modern context: as a canvas of expression, a conduit of storytelling, and a spearhead for a domestic arts revival. I am personally in love with aprons, so I’m giddy with delight that so many people are finding inspiration in this unassuming accessory.

    Twelve years ago, Andrews McMeel trail-blazed a nonexistent landscape with The Apron Book. To see The Apron Book newly released as a beautiful and ever-so-handy paperback volume is joyful confirmation of the apron’s continued relevance in our daily lives.

    Thank you, dear reader, for joining the journey and tying one on . . . an apron, of course!

    During the Depression, homemakers unraveled the string stitching of feed and flour sacks and converted the bags to free yardage, which they used to make clothing, quilts, and other household items, like this slim-fitted feedsack apron.

    chapter 1

    APRONS: AN ODYSSEY

    HOW DID aprons go from being an indispensable part of a woman’s workaday wardrobe to an American icon to a sweet scrap of collectible nostalgia to one of the hottest sew-crafting trends going? The short answer is that unlike other clothing trends, the apron has always had a basic job to do. No amount of progress or technological advancement or fickle fashion tastes can change the fact that an apron has always been the best, most commonsensical means of covering up and protecting our clothes from grime.

    The first reference to the apron is found in the Bible, no less. As the story goes, after Adam and Eve ate the fruit of the forbidden tree in the Garden of Eden, Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves aprons. (Genesis 3:7) Yikes. That would be an emergency apron! Well, there are plenty of people who feel naked without an apron on, and I’m one of them.

    Fast forward several millennia to the wave of settlers and then immigrants who brought their sturdy aprons to America; they were simply styled, usually ankle-length, and made of rugged cloth. With clothing limited to a few pieces and washing such an arduous task, the long apron protected the dress underneath, allowing a dress to be worn several times before needing to be laundered. Flipping the apron from the soiled side to the clean was a good trick to extend the wear of the apron, too.

    Worn by pioneers on the westward trail, these aprons were front and center for all the high drama and hard work it took to invent this country. Homesteading alongside the men, women tucked their dresses into apron waistbands to clear and plow the fields, then unfurled the aprons to carry grain to the chickens, gather eggs, and harvest vegetables from the garden. The apron was wrapped around the hands to remove a pan of hot biscuits from the oven, it shooed flies from the table, and waved from the porch to signal that dinner was ready. On a single day, an apron might wipe a child’s tears, the sweat off a brow, and flour from the hands, plus ward off a chill and hide a rifle. Now that’s multitasking!

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