Fabulous Friday Yakabout: Apron Strings

Have you ever had the “If my house were burning, I would save ______” conversation? Sure you have. One of the first things that comes to my mind (and out of my mouth) is a treasure from my grandmother.

My grandmother, whom we called “Grama”, was the personification of humility. She had no jewelry except a wedding band, a mother’s ring, and some lovely brooches. I call them that. Grama didn’t. She was so simple and plain that she wore “pins”.

When Grama died too many years ago, my grandfather asked me if there was something that I wanted to keep from her jewelry box. I responded that instead, I would love to have this:

A worn out old apron.

And it’s the subject of my show and tell this Friday.

Grama was of the dress wearing generation. Only one time in my life (hers too, I think) did she try to don a pair of slacks. It was back in the ‘70s when the “pant suit” was in vogue. Remember those hideous things? Her daughters, knowing best as daughters think they do, thought that “Mother” ought to try a pant suit to cover her legs during the cold winters. They bought her a navy pant and vest set a la Maude with a matching striped blouse. Grama wore it exactly one time before she proclaimed it foolishness and banished it to a drawer. Grama put her foot down about very few things. Wearing a pant suit was one of them.

Because Grama wore dresses.

And sensible shoes.

And always, always, wore an apron.

Because of Grama, and because I am a left handed butterfingers, I wear an apron too. I have several; one even has the Trading Spaces logo emblazoned across the front. It was given to me during the years that I suffered from that particular addiction. I have pretty aprons. I have quirky aprons given to me by former students. I have this Christmas apron which was made for me by an invisible friend who lives in my computer.

I love it.

Oddly, the apron that I most commonly wear is actually not my prettiest.

 It’s this one.

Yes, that's livestock marching across the top.

 It was purchased at a craft fair long enough ago to have a matching one for a little daughter.

Does that qualify it as vintage?

Please say no.

I even used my legendary sewing skills to make one for my favorite Newlywed Niece.

 Hers is reversible…

See?

I traced a pattern from my favorite one, and the rest was easy peasie. I think it makes a sweet linen shower gift for a new Mrs., don't you?
 Just doing my part to pass along the apron gene to the next generation.

But of all my aprons, this threadbare old piece of pink and blue is my treasure.

I love the worn old pockets.

I love that the bodice is yellowed, and I'm pretty sure that more than a bit of that stain came from peanut butter and jelly hugs.

It’s my inheritance from a woman like whom I most want to be. For a while after she died, I tried to wear her apron, as if somehow it would be her arms, and not her apron strings which wrapped around me. Soon, though, I realized my treasure was too well worn to risk daily use. So I boxed it away with other treasures which live in a special box in my eaves.

The eaves off of my bedroom.
The ones with the little Polish doorway.
The ones which were so crammed full of shoe boxes and wicker baskets that I couldn’t have possibly saved the treasure box from the flames if I tried.

Guess which meandering motormouth detoured down Memory Lane during her Great Eave Purging Adventure?