Aprons for Christmas?

I am a recent lover of aprons. Perhaps because in the past few years, they have become beautiful and things that you would feel wonderful wearing – versus the ugly utilitarian things of days gone by. I think the love of all things retro has had a very positive effect on the apron business.

There was a woman selling wonderful ones at One of a Kind. And the ones at Anthropologie are incredible. But a beautiful apron comes with a price tag, so I decided to make some instead, after finding a pattern called Emmeline at Sew Liberated (an online site with beautiful patterns).

It’s a very feminine reversible apron that really appealed to me and I immediately thought of my daughter who is just learning to cook. How wonderful to put on a lovely apron and create things in her freshly painted yellow kitchen. (The bright yellow, blue and purple one with the striped reverse is for her.)

When I went looking for her fabric, other combinations kept leaping out at me, which is how I ended up doing three (or 6 when you count both sides of each apron). I spent a good deal of this past weekend cutting them out and sewing them. But at the end of the effort, I think they are really beautiful.

Living in a house with two men folk doesn’t bode well for the construction of aprons as Christmas gifts. They just kept saying Aprons???? Incredulously, which nearly made me second guess myself. And they did beg the question, is an apron the sign of oppression, which I’m sure the feminists would support, or are they a practical item that can also be beautiful?

Like every gift I give, the acid test is whether or not I would like to receive on as a gift. And the answer is a resounding “YES”. Now having made three, I know the pattern by heart. I have visions of all my leftover fabrics being put to good use in 2010. I can see these becoming a staple in my life.