Tied to My Strings
May 27th, 2013. Filed under: Monday's Musings, Reruns.
First posted February 28, 2009
My apron strings that is. I’ve decided that I need some. My mother many times told me, “I can dress you up, but I can’t take you out.” What does this mean, you ask? It means that she would get me dressed up to go out and by the time she was ready those pretty dresses and pinafores were a mess. Never mind that she was already dressed, made up and ready to go before she got me dressed. It only took a moment or two. Just long enough for her to go get her purse. Why did she go through all that grief? Why not just dress me in something dark that wouldn’t show the dirt and smudges so much?
How many of you have children? I was a first child. Now think about that. Remember how the first one had to always be dressed just so? Nothing dirty or stained when you were going out and planning on showing off that little darling of yours. Nothing changes. Really. My mother wanted me to look all cute and pretty. I wanted my first one to look adorable. The children who follow don’t have the same pressure to look adorable and to be perfect. They don’t have a picture taken of them every time they get their clothes changed either. My second child spent half her childhood thinking she was adopted or something because their were tons of pictures of her brother and she was lucky to find a handful of herself. I can see you out there chuckling and nodding your heads. You know about the baby books, too, but we’re beginning to get a bit sidetracked here.
That thing about keeping my clothes clean. My mother never won that battle. I’m still fighting it. Especially when I cook. I work so hard at it. I sometimes even make it to the table before splashing, splattering or spilling something down the front of me. Like I said, I really need some aprons. I’ve worn all kinds of aprons in my life. Back in small town mid-America that’s what you did. You wore aprons. If you had a dinner party or just another couple over for dinner, you took off your kitchen apron and put on a dainty or frilly little thing. In the kitchen you had a bigger, more serviceable apron. You had a wardrobe of aprons. We didn’t toss in a load of laundry every day. We did that one day a week. You have to have figured out by now that I needed lots of aprons.
Plain aprons. Fancy aprons. Aprons with ties. Aprons with those plastic circles that you stuffed them on and clipped them around your waist. Half aprons. Full aprons. Plain ties around your waist. Ties that you crossed in back and ran through fabric loops before tying. Ties that you crossed in back and buttoned at the waist. Ties that tied around the neck.
And all the apron patterns. After awhile, aprons started going out of style and then you couldn’t find a pattern unless it was used. No, you couldn’t find one on the Internet. We are still wandering around in the dark ages before the web was something other than what you swept down if you saw one in your house. So now pattern companies are giving us apron patterns again. And now you can find patterns on the Internet. And I’m sure you can figure it out on your own. I’m going to make a couple aprons. I don’t want to keep hearing my mother say how she could dress me up, but couldn’t take me out. I’m a big girl now. I don’t want smudged and splattered clothes. I’m going to make an apron with a bib. A big bib. How difficult can that be. A big rectangle gathered onto a waistband. A couple ties at the waist. The bib sewn to the front of the apron with a couple ties to go around my neck.
Do you wear aprons? Do you need aprons? Do you make your own aprons? Do you have a favorite pattern?