The Infinitely Ruffled 1780s Apron

I began this apron – the Infinitely Ruffled 1780s Apron – all the way back in 2018.  It was my second project out of the American Duchess dressmaking book. I had made aprons, but at that point I hadn’t much experience with hand rolling hems, and this apron – well, this apron had a lot of rolled hem. There were 3 yards in the apron body, 6 yards up one side of the ruffle  and 6 back down the other one.  At my slow, painstaking rate of rolled hemmery, 15 yards of hem felt like 15 miles.

I started with optimism – mostly at night, in front of the television, where I didn’t have to think of the miles and miles and MILES of hem (my estimate grew, exponentially, with every stitch) and I worked on it on and off, and on and off,  and on, and on, and ON – I came to think of it as the Infinite Apron : when I was feeling down and like life had no meaning, I’d pull out this horrible apron and confirm that I was right.

Then 2020 happened.  Circumstances saw me stuck outside of Chile for 18 months, where I sewed – and hemmed – other things.  Uncertain, unmoored, waiting for vaccines and badly missing Mr Tabubil, I sewed for my sanity’s sake: caps, fichus, mantelets, wrapping gowns, petticoats – I seamed, I gathered, I whipped, and I hemmed. Practice brought experience, and eventually a little expertise, and somewhere in the middle of it all, rolling hems changed from proof of the dreary infinite to something that was fun.

When I finally made it home to Chile in 2021, I pulled out the horrible infinite apron and found that as a project, it had lost its terror. It had become something almost small. So I finished it. I took that heap of half-hemmed voile, I unpicked all the whip-gathers holding it the ruffle to the apron, and then I sat back, cracked an anticipatory grin –

And I re-whipped my ruffles. I tacked them down. I stroke-gathered the waist to a band, and then I stopped, and looked for a bit and I took some serious pleasure in the formal, measured beauty of the strokes. 

This infinitely ruffled apron had become metaphorical as hell.  I was feeling existential whiplash with every step.

There it was – the infinitely ruffled 1780s apron.  In fact, I liked it so much, I made another one.

Here’s an apron. Take two. I can HEM, you see. I hemmed around the world and back.  Sometimes, looking at those lonely, drifting 18 months, I feel like I hemmed all my way home.