Cool 1920's apron

LOOK! at the very cool apron I just got in the mail! My sister Theresa LaQuey made it for me as a late Christmas gift. Actually late gifts are kind of fun, because they are totally unexpected.

I love making gifts for people and receiving them is even more fun. It's great when you come from a family of sewers.  Remember the pajamas I made for Theresa last year?

I've told you all before that Theresa has an amazing and huge collection of vintage sewing patterns.  She sent me images of the front and back envelope for this 1920's pattern she used to make this apron.  Simplicity was founded in 1927 and this pattern is #29. I'm guessing it's the 29th pattern they published.  From what I can gather by reading the envelope, the pattern pieces were all on one large sheet kind of like what our patterns are like today.  They weren't printed, but there were holes punched everywhere to show where notches and darts went, also each piece would have an alphabet letter punched in with little holes to label it.

Unprinted pattern pieces were usually all cut out like this. But this apron pattern Theresa used seems to have been all on one sheet with lines of punched holes to show where to cut. Simplicity was trying to be simple, I guess. You could just spread out your fabric and lay this one sheet on top, providing you were using 36" wide fabric or material as people called fabric until about 30 or 40 years ago. I called it material as a kid.  When DID that change?

BUT, this is the main reason I wanted to write about this apron. We all love to complain about the instructions that come with sewing patterns these days ... well ... look at what people were dealing with 90 years ago. There was no guide sheet. All the instructions, what there were of them, were printed on the back! That's it. That's all they got.

I asked Theresa if I could blog about it. She said "blog away" and then added these comments.

The thing was very poorly patterned.  I mean, I walked the seams to see how true they were and the upper to lower apron seam, the zig zagged one was off by 5/8"!!!!!  No pocket placement lines!  And then the whole trouble of getting the binding to be pointy.

And then she sent me a follow up email with this final comment.

Oh, and I forgot.  What about those useless pockets.  I mean, what do you do?  Keep a dime in them to pay the iceman? A hankie for the time you find out your husband was cheating with his secretary?  I dunno.

She's got a point. Those pockets are really small, but cute!

I love my apron!