McCall 1090- Ladies' and Misses' Victory Apron

1943.

So that you don't have to find your reading glasses, here is the verse on the envelope front:

Tie this apron round your waist
And join the Victory war-on-waste,
Plan your meals for zest and vim
And don't forget Ye Vitamine!
Remember that the right nutrition
Is Uncle Sam's best ammunition!

I'm guessing that this was written by that nice Mr. Murple up in McCall's Accounting department - who knew he was so talented.

This is a lovely apron pattern - easy enough to be made by girls in home ec. classes as well as by ladies' groups.  Imagine refreshments tables at dances with all the attendants in their victory aprons worn over white dresses.  The rick-rack braid stars are very clever.

In my family we have a cookbook which we refer to as the Women's Victory Cookbook.  The correct name is the Victory Binding of the American Woman's Cookbook, an enormously popular cookbook of the mid-twentieth century.  The Victory binding edition provides a small appendix on wartime cookery, which includes such contemporary-sounding advice as eating more fish and whole grains and retaining the vitamins in vegetables by not boiling them to death.

Happy Memorial Day, everybody.

Simplicity 4683 - Men's, Boys' and Women's Apron

Mid 1940s.

This unprinted pattern dates to before 1946, as this is apparently when Simplicity started printing their patterns.

A nice, straightforward apron for the Gentleman and his Missus, who has also made Buddy a spiffy apron for his first Industrial Arts class.  Why the illustrator chose to show the Gentleman wearing a shop apron but gearing up for kitchen duty is a bit of mystery.  And that tiny little cookbook he's holding seems to be awfully entertaining.

Your fifteen cents really bought you a good, thoughtful design.  Note that the Men's and Boys apron is darted at the sides.  This will make the apron set close through the hips, which will probably make it safer by making it less likely to snag, and should also make it more efficient at keeping the wearer clean.

The handling of the shoulder straps and ties is clever.  The straps will adjust to almost any size or shape and don't require any hardware to fasten:

Note that the topstitching around the pockets and the edges make this a very sturdy garment.

No fabric recommendations are given, but the aprons in the illustration surely look like chambray.  Denim would also have been popular, and frequently came in the 35" width called out in the yardage requirements.

Here is the men's apron made up in denim:

Here are the side darts from the inside:

And here they are from the outside:

The instructions call for a small patch of fabric to be sewn in as a backing for the button holes on the sides.  You can see that I've sewn down the patch and stitched a rectangle to outline the buttonhole.  The button holes were worked by hand.

And in the event this apron ever wanders away, I've "branded" it.

In the future, I'd probably use a good-quality twill tape for the straps, rather than making them myself, since folding those narrow strips of denim resulted in a certain amount of questionable language as I repeatedly steamed my fingers.

This denim is wonderful to work with.  Made under the SAFEDenim brand, it's made entirely in the United States by farmers who are trying to produce a sustainable product.  Cotton is demanding of the soil and can require enormous amounts of pesticides, so producing this denim requires a lot of commitment from the farmers.  I don't know where you can buy yard goods, but if you're willing to commit to a 30 yard bolt, you can buy it from the web site.

You can get a free pattern for a very similar apron from the James Thompson web site, makers of my preferred pillow ticking.  (This apron would also look great made up in ticking.)

Originally posted on June 8, 2011.  Additional material added to show the men's apron made up.

Women's Day 5024 - Two-Piece Apron-Dress

January 1952

There is a lot of common sense in this ensemble designed for housework.  Both the skirt and the tunic wrap to the back - the skirt ties and the tunic is closed with snaps, so no need to work button holes.  Wrap garments are handy because they open flat for easy ironing.  Having a separate tunic and skirt allows the maker to make up enough multiples so that she can more easily put together two clean pieces when either the tunic or the skirt becomes soiled.  Both the skirt and the tunic have good, deep pockets.

In some cases Woman's Day patterns were co-branded with Advance, and the layout sheet for this one looks like Advance's work to me.

I didn't realize until I saw this pattern that Woman's Day was the house magazine for A&P stores.  A&P  apparently sold the magazine in 1958.  I have fond memories of A&P; I recall that they smelled of laundry detergent and freshly ground coffee from the coffee grinders at the ends of the check-out lanes (When I was a very small child I found the grinders a little frightening - there was no telling when they might unmoor themselves, run amok, and attempt to eat small children.)

This unprinted pattern has been used.

Pictorial Review 3160 - Ladies and Misses' Apron, Cap, and Cuffs

Mid 1920s.

Suitable for both nursing and general household service.  In some cases pattern companies showed maid's uniforms in their catalogs, usually toward the back of the publication, after the night clothes and under things.  It's a little startling to spend time poring over illustrations for patterns of elegant tea gowns and just a few pages later to find yourself in the territory of bungalow aprons, step-ins, and maid's uniforms.

A few years earlier in 1916, the publication Journal of Home Economics published an article entitled "Costume in the Cookery Lab," which documented the results of a 1915 survey of clothing or uniform requirements for students at colleges offering Home Economics programs.  At that time some departments recommended specific commercial patterns that their students (all young women, one imagines) could use.  Further research may reveal that nursing schools made the same sort of recommendations.  The Journal indicates that at two institutions, their students made aprons in their sewing classes.  While the students may have made their own, they may also have purchased the pattern, fabric, and findings and had their clothing made by a family member or a local dressmaker.

Pictorial patterns are wonderful quality. They come pre-cut, printed, and perforated, making them very efficient to use.  This pattern has been used.

New Idea 8607 - Ladies' Bungalow Apron

One of the pattern pieces on this one has been stamped with a date of February 15, 1918, during a period when every middle-class family aspired to own a bungalow - perhaps one of those packaged by Sears, so the term Bungalow Apron is a bit of a marketing job.

For a stated bust measurement of 40", the actual flat measurement at the bottom of the arm scyes is about 50".

Yes, it looks like a dress, and by the 1920's, the Women's Institute book Aprons and Caps acknowledges that on particularly hot days a woman may choose not to wear a dress underneath her voluminous cover-all apron (She'll still be wearing the full set of the undergarments of the day, and possibly a petticoat in the same material as the apron.)  A cousin to the bungalow apron, the "porch dress" seems to show up in the 1920s.  Since the one porch dress pattern I've seen called for a large amount of beautiful embroidery, I tend to think of it as slightly more dressy (informal afternoon wear) than the bungalow apron (worn when doing the morning's housework.)

To test the bungalow apron pattern, I made it up in an inexpensive cotton print fabric.   The only instructions given are on the back of the envelope:

You get a total of seven sentences of guidance on construction.  You're expected to know how to cut and apply your own facings, decide where to place your button holes, and, if you want to emulate the model on the left, know how to apply piping.

The original center back length would have been about 55" before hemming.  Notice that you're offered the option of facing the bottom of the apron.  You could either cut facing from the apron fabric or use some other fabric that you'd thriftily pulled from your scrap bag. Given the curvature of the bottom, I'd probably cut a fairly narrow facing on the bias. I cut my apron 6 inches shorter than the original and finished it with a 2" turned up hem, for a finished center back length of 47".

The layout doesn't indicate that the yoke is faced, so I didn't face mine, although if I were to make this up again I probably would.  A yoke facing makes for a slightly heavier garment, but I think it's also stronger, and of course, the inside finish is nicer.  Note that the layout does show you that piecing will be required.  My fabric was 45" wide, and I had to piece both the front and the back.  This is how the front looked once I pieced in the side gore.  I flat felled this seam for strength.

Here you can see the yoke and the front laid out, preparatory to the front being gathered and sewn to the yoke.

I decided to make the short sleeved version.  I thought the cuffs seemed to need a little embellishment, so I decided to finish both the cuffs and the neckline with piping, rickrack, and a bias band for the neckline, following an approach recommended by the Women's Institute in their book, Aprons and Caps.

This is a good technique. It can be done entirely by machine (except for the basting, which is really necessary) and gives a clean finish to the inside of the garment.  I seem to have missed the detail that the mitered corners of the bias band are actually cut and sewn.  I just left mine folded.  I suppose I could slip stitch them now.  I had a little trouble getting the piping as narrow as I wanted it, I think because I didn't trim it down - it was just a bit too wide to behave correctly, even though I basted it in place first.

The rickrack is from a box of trims that a neighbor of mine bought at an auction in southern Oregon.  Most of the materials were in their original packages, but a few unpicked lengths were wrapped around old postcards dating to the 19-teens, so the rick-rack and the pattern are about the same age.  All machine sewing is done on a model 201-K Singer treadle machine built in Scotland around June 5, 1945.

Here's the edge of the cuff:

The pattern offers no guidance on button placement.  I ended up with a rather idiosyncratic placement.  If  I were to make this up again, I'd probably leave off that second button hole in the middle of the yoke.  The buttons are vintage.  I use a fairly large size button for these back-fastening aprons so that I can actually do them up.  The button holes are worked by hand.

As it happens, it's entirely possible to slip into this apron without having to undo the buttons.  If I make this up again, I may simply sew up the back seam and save myself the work of making the facing and the  button holes.

Here you can see the piecing on both the front (the larger gore) and the back (the smaller gore.)  The side and sleeve seems were flat felled for strength.

A feature that should be remembered about aprons and house dresses is that they are easy to launder; there are no fiddly bits to get torn in the washing and they lay flat for fast ironing. In a world before wash-and-wear fabrics, this is not a trivial thing.

This bungalow apron has no pockets, which doesn't seem to be uncommon for these coverall/dress aprons.  Here's a pocket-less kimono "apron" (no sleeve seam) from Aprons and Caps that's very similar to the New Idea bungalow apron.

My mother has observed that her mother always wore an apron (with pockets) over her house dress.

If you're completely taken with this design, you can get your very own copy through Past Patterns. This is a tracing of an original, so comes only in that one size, but the beauty of these is that they're easy to re-size.

The pattern went together accurately, any misalignments you observe are generally the result of my getting lazy about basting.

Wrapper from the rick rack that I used

Part of the original concept for Unsung Sewing Patterns was that garments would eventually be released into the wild so that they can gain the experience (and hard knocks) that we observe on vintage clothing. This will probably be the year that I'll start doing this, so it seemed like a good idea to get some labels made up:

Originally posted on July 27, 2008.  Re-posted on February 15, 2011 with revised and new content.

Butterick 1847 - Women's and Misses' Coverall, and Leggings

Mid 1940s (World War II.)

Here's the description from the back of the envelope:

A Jumper Style Coverall, designed to give the full skirt protection that much farm work and gardening requires.  Roomy pockets are conveniently placed.  The front opening makes it easy to put on and take off. Knee-length leggings are included.

One of the problems that the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) had to contend with during both world wars was a shortage of agricultural labor.  Men who didn't enlist were recruited to work in industries supporting the war effort, making them unavailable to work their own farms or to work as hired hands.  Women stepped up to fill the short fall, sometimes by enlisting in the Women's Land Army, often by taking on more responsibilities on their family's or local farms.

Overalls for women started to be marketed during World War I,  and women had started wearing trousers in public in the 1930s, generally as sporty wear, so by the start of WWII the idea of women in trousers wasn't entirely new. Yet the USDA seems to have felt there was a need to offer some support for women who needed to do dirty agricultural work but weren't ready to wear trousers or overalls.  A sturdy apron and leggings were apparently seen to be a workable solution.  Here's a terrific image of women at the USDA designing work clothes for women at this period.

Many thanks to Jim Christensen for pointing out that this very ensemble was described and illustrated in Clarice Louisba Scott's book Work Clothes for Women, issued by the USDA in June, 1942.

By WWII "coverall" is a fairly common term for this type of apron.  ("Overall" seems to have been used in Great Britain.) Patterns for leggings for girls show up throughout the '30s and '40s, usually as part of a winter ensemble including a coat and hat.  This is the first time I've seen a leggings pattern for women.  The option to use 1/2" studs (snap fasteners) is uncommon.

This is an unprinted pattern and does not appear to have been used.

Originally published on 21 January 2011, updated with additional documentary evidence on 23 January, 2011.

McCall 2062 - Family Aprons and Bib - with Gingerbread Appliques

1952.

If two points describe a line, then two aprons featuring dogs describe a trend, and McCall seems to be blazing the trail.  You'll recall their his-and-hers "in the dog house" aprons from 1942.

Ten years later, that happy couple have produced the lovely family you see here.  The menfolk wear straightforward butcher's aprons while Mother and Sissy sport bouffant numbers.  Notice that even their gingerbread gals wear skirts.  And I just don't know what to make of the pooch's bib.  They can't be serious.  But the bib does have a gingerbread dog on it.

Merry Christmas, everybody!

McCall 957 - Mr. and Mrs. Aprons

1942.

Until now the aprons featured here have been more or less functional and strictly female, so it's nice to take a walk on the frivolous side with this one.  We saw our first unisex pattern with a 1934 smock pattern, also by McCall.

Mr. D. House wears a straightforward butcher's style apron, while Mrs. House's apron features a feminine gathered waist.  The dog is actually a pot holder that slips into the front of the lined pocket.

Note that the fabrics recommended for the gentleman's apron are denim, percale, or unbleached muslin, while the lady has the additional choices of gingham, chintz, and chambray.  I would have thought chambray would be suitable for both.  The recommendation of unbleached muslin, an inexpensive and not terribly sturdy fabric, is a clue that these aprons weren't intended to be taken very seriously - perhaps they were used as humorous wedding or shower gifts.

This pattern has never been used.

McCall 2243 - Misses' Casual Tunic or Cobbler Apron

1958

By the 1950s cobbler aprons were very popular.  With its bust darts, curved sides, and pocket detailing, Cardin's interpretation for McCall's is a little tonier than the completely unstructured tabard-style aprons offered by most pattern companies at this time.

Pierre Cardin was trained as a tailor and worked at Paquin, Schiaparelli, and Dior before setting out on his own and showing his first couture collection in 1953.  He would release his first ready-to-wear collection in 1959, but in 1958 he enters American popular culture with a series of patterns for McCall.  The elegant little suits and cocktail dresses one understands, but the thinking behind the apron and "casual tunic" is a bit mysterious; can you imagine a Calvin Klein apron pattern, for example - or better yet - Karl Lagerfeld?

But compare the tunic to Cardin's "Cosmos" dress from 1967.  The evolution is very clear.

Victoria and Albert Museum

The perky little bows provide a rather strange counterpoint to Cardin's generally very clean design aesthetic.

McCall 8629 - Ladies One-Piece Seamless Apron

Late nineteen-teens to about 1920.

Although this apron is seamless, you're still going to have to piece the fabric if you're using narrow fabric, but otherwise, this is a very simple pattern, and probably very popular.

Although there is a certain satisfaction in purchasing a pristine, unused pattern, patterns that have seen some use have stories to tell us.  This pattern is well-used, with multiple tears in the pattern tissue and one small torn-off piece that was carefully pinned back on.  If the pattern pieces could speak, I'd love to know how many times this apron pattern was made up.

The maker has penciled in a shorter cutting line, as well as the line along the side where the apron will need to be pieced.

It's a little hard to see but you can just see that the artist has indicated rick-rack trim on the short version:

Rick-rack seems to have been a very common trimming for aprons.  Nu-fashond rick-rack was a common brand in the 1920s.  Sewing patterns from this period seldom mention notions and trimming, but sewing books of the period frequently mention trimming house or bungalow aprons with rick-rack.

6/18/2010 - Update.  I had a free Saturday so I took the time to make this up in a very cheery remnant I found last year.  Fortunately, because the print is so incredibly busy, you don't really notice that I didn't have enough material to match the side pieces or the pockets (if you look closely, though, you can see where the trelliswork doesn't exactly match.)  Unfortunately, I see now that the print wasn't precisely centered on the fabric, so the design is about 3 inches off center, darn it.  This fabric was 45 inches wide, so I had to piece the sides.  I finished these seams with a flat fell.

The approximate circumference at the bottom of the armholes is 36 inches.  

The very brief instructions indicate that if preferred, you may underface the edges, so I think the expectation would be that you would bind them.  I decided to underface with lavender gingham bias that I'd cut for the purpose.  Here you can see that I've pinned the folded bias on, but basted it through the deep front curve, since I think that gives me more control as I'm sewing.