Aprons Gone Wild

Camouflage...
Sometimes I think I am a master of camouflage. Maybe it's the result of living in an old house. Too often, there is no electrical outlet anywhere in sight near the spot where I want to place a lamp. It requires imagination to come up with ideas on how to hide the cord. Or there might be an oddity in the "old house" plaster where the horsehair or the crushed shells in the mix bump out. Usually, I just hang something pretty over it! Crooked walls and windows require custom curtains...something I actually enjoy making. Furniture placement in our house involves covering up bad spots or patches in the old wood floors. I often wonder about the people who made those patches...how they spent their days and how they lived their lives. We have patches in our old floorboards that my husband refers to as "Dutchmen." Little pieces of wood cut to fit the shape of a hole that was perhaps worn through by a chair leg. We've put a "Dutchman" here and there ourselves. Often it's to fill a hole left by a huge knot that has fallen out of an old pine floor board. Some of those old boards are twenty one inches wide or more. As we've been remodeling the house, we've saved the widest boards with thoughts of using them to make tables or benches. But back to my camouflage talent. I've grown so accustomed to covering up the oddities in our house that I'm having trouble adjusting to our new kitchen. There's nothing that needs covering up! Everything is in the right place! There are so many electrical outlets that I never see a cord anywhere. There is even a proper spot for each of my appliances.

So...it's on to the bedroom I guess, where the camouflage is overwhelming. Hide the old shower, make the cranky old windows look pretty, cover up the ugly armoire that stands duty as our closet. Sometimes I think about all this while I'm sewing aprons. It's one reason why I double stitch the seams and hems. It's why I take the extra time to reinforce the pocket corners and the neck and waist ties. I want them to last for a long time. Since I have no control over the wearing out of the fabric, I guess I hope each one of them will be kept around long enough to need a "Dutchman" (of sorts) of their own. There's nothing wrong with a good patch...or I guess I should say...a good camouflage job.


Today's apron is called Baby-Doll Brown. It's our newest baby-doll design with soft shirring at the bib for a traditonal baby-doll look. The soft, dark brown percale fabric is trimmed with a contrasting Jade green print on the bib and pocket edges. Check it out at http://www.apronsgonewild.etsy.com/
or email me at www.apronsgonewild@yahoo.com