Apron Ties

Packed away in the box of doll clothes from childhood, a wad of taffeta, unwrapped to reveal a child-size apron, poinsettias and holly printed on a white background. It was a companion to the holiday apron my mother wore when it was time to celebrate the holiday season. That special scrap of 1950s rayon was the first of a long line of aprons tied around my waist.

My Grandma Heimel favored the cobbler apron. She told me that when she presented me with her shower gift, complete with tiny hand-stitched buttonholes with their companion shirt buttons that must have come from her button jar. The lime green paisley print was appropriate for a young bride setting up housekeeping in the 1970s. Generously cut, it served me through two pregnancies and still hangs in the pantry, though threadbare and thinned from nearly fifty years of use.

When we moved into this old farmhouse, home to the Metzger/Matteson family for three generations before us, I inherited a stash of the kinds of aprons favored by farm wives. And, of course, the aprons were starched, ironed and carefully folded.

The aprons were all constructed from the same pattern with bias tape binding matching the main fabric.  Those aprons, too, were generously cut to fit the tall woman who wore them. The fabrics were mostly small prints in faded pinks, greens and lavender. One, obviously added to the collection in the 1960s, featured a brown background, sprinkled with larger flowers, piped in vivid orange.

All the old aprons are now threadbare and faded. Just last summer, my mother extended the life of one with some creative patching but it was short-lived as the thinned fabric raveled in a new place.

These days, I slip an apron over my head and loop its softened ties around my waist nearly every day as I move through the kitchen that Grandma Metzger wouldn't recognize in her old house. On laundry day, the load of kitchen towels and dish cloths includes the week's aprons. And when it comes time to pull them from dryer, I hang them back on their hook in the pantry, without a thought of the ironing board.