1664 Full coverage

Today's apron styles are so impoverished and lacking. They really don't cover much. I hang on to the aprons my mother made for me. One is actually a remake of a skirt I wore in high school and she took it apart and made it into an apron when I got married. Waste not, want not. By the time she whipped this little number up, Mom had made many formals for her three daughters, a wedding dress, attendant dresses, suits, bedspreads, tableclothes, etc., so she didn't use a pattern.

Another one sort looks like a maternity smock and covers all the way up to the neck in a teal and white gingham check and has big pockets and snaps in the back. The apron is covered with stains from pitting cherries. The clothing it protected has long since disappeared from my closet, but it remains. Stained and fragile, but ready for a day's work if needed. The pattern, which I still have (Simplicity 6809), also has a child's option. Another is reversible--from the color scheme (gold) I suspect Mom made it in the late 60s or early 70s.

I also buy old aprons at resale shops because they are so much better than anything you can purchase new today and have no quotes about the sexy cook on the front. However, most are the hostess style, and I really prefer those with a bodice, because that's where the gravy splashes. Even when I was an adult visiting my parents, my father would remind me to put on an apron if I was doing something in the kitchen.

Anyway, I've found a wonderful vintage apron pattern site. Barb, who calls her blog "Woof Nanny" because she is a pet sitter, has many interesting scanned patterns.