I love these old Herrschner Art Needlework catalogs from the 1920s; the aprons and children’s wear items are my favorites. The style of these aprons is appealing to me because they are simple to make, have good coverage (I am a messy cook), and the embroidered details are so sweet. For my two aprons, I cut a couple of one-yard pieces from my bolt of vintage Irish linen produced by Belfast Mills.
The first apron is a surprise for my friend, Patty (at Petalier), who loves to cook — a small token of my appreciation for all her gifts of vintage fabric and notions. Patty’s apron is embroidered with cherries and a bluebird, since they have lots of bluebirds in upstate New York where she lives. I used the pale green polkadot fabric for both the lining and the bias binding.
Even though I have some of those Clover bias tape maker thingies, I can never seem to press the tape well enough so I can top stitch it to a garment the way I do with packaged bias tape. So, for this apron the bias is applied the way I do binding on quilts — machine sewn on the front, and hand stitched on the back.
The other apron I made for myself, adding some vintage decorative bias trim (sent to me by Patty) and an old Vogart chintz appliqué. The apron is lined with a pink print that I forgot to photograph.
Because I think I can figure out how to construct most of the aprons in this catalog, next time I’m going to try a little more elaborate design, but first I have to finish hand piecing the last of the Seven Sisters quilt blocks — only 6 half blocks to go.
