Memom's Apron

My mother was a seamstress through most of my life, and in addition, she did many other things.  She baked our bread, two or three times a week, for about three years.  She made candles and soap, threw pots, decorated cakes, canned tomatoes, made strawberry jam, and cooked almost every day, if not twice daily.  She is juried in basketry, having split her own reed and hewed it, drawing it to the desired thickness, and weaving all sorts of baskets.  She's dyed reed, soaked it, given lessons, and produced some of the most amazing baskets over the years.

In all those activities, the only time mom did not wear an apron was when she was sewing.  Often she wore a full, white cotton/linen bibbed apron, like a baker, butcher, and in her case candlestick-maker would wear.  She would wear the apron to protect her clothes and her self from flour clouds, sticky dough, sugary icing, hot wax, dye stains, thick slurry clay, and foods that splatter.  Mom was not always found in an apron, but she favored them often.

So with her 60th birthday coming up next month, I have been pondering for months now, what to do, what to do.  I have considered many projects, but not one was exactly the sort of thing that screamed, i'm it, i'm it.  Til the other day, I came across a perfect pattern for the perfect project.

See, mom hasn't really worn an apron much here lately, but it's because her old ones have finally all been made into rags.  So I am crocheting her a bibbed apron, out of yellow/white variegated cotton yarn.  I quickly shared with a few folks who all stared at me blankly.  One even said to me that she thought my mother would resent an apron because it would symbolize domestic housewife duties.  I could be wrong, but I don't think an apron symbolizes her "place", rather aprons protect her clothes when she engages in those activities that she loves, namely crafting with glue guns, making wreaths and center-pieces, dying and working with soaked reed, and baking bread.  Those are activities that she enjoys.

at least i think so.