30 Days 30 Aprons: Day 11 - A "Great" Grandma Apron

When I started this little endeavor, my favorite cousin Suanne sent me a copy of this:

Grandma's Apron
I don't think our kids know what an apron is.
The principal use of Grandma's apron was to protect the dress underneath, because she only had a few, it was easier to wash aprons than dresses and they used 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 never caught anything from an apron…But Love. (Author Unknown)


This is my Great Grandmother Una Thomas when she was young

My Great Grandmother was a farm girl - born and raised, married and delivered most of her children in her farm house in eastern Kansas. I've been to that house, visited the barn, wandered through the wheat fields, and saw the water pump where she accessed the well. It's a wonderful place and I LOVED being there. When I read this poem/essay/whatever, I pictured my great grandma and even her mother, in a kitchen in Kansas wearing a giant white apron. That was my inspiration for today's apron. I hope you like it!

The whole apron front - it's long and full...to cover your whole dress!

Today's apron is a big, giant, great-grandma apron! I re-purposed a beautiful white duvet cover that I bought at a yard sale awhile back (I think my grandma would approve). The lace was part of the cover, but it was in the wrong place so I had to pull it all off and reattach it. I made up this pattern based on what I thought a farm girl would have worn 150 years ago.