Vintage French Aprons - or are they?

Yesterday I found two vintage pinafore aprons - not at all in French style!

Frip' Relais, one of the two charity shops to the north of Toulouse, is holding a kind of retro-themed month, with lots and lots of 1970s stuff (much of it great fun, and with clothes in realistic sizes) out, in fun displays. I picked up the pink apron, and when I came to the till the woman there asked if I'd seen the second apron - well, I snapped that up too!

You can see that this pink one is much earlier than the 1970s. It reminded me instantly of feedsack aprons, made from the American grain and flour sacks which were printed with the most wonderful patterns from the 1930s to 1950s. There's a great article about feedsack dresses here on Etsy. This article gives some clues about how to check if your fabric really comes from a feedsack, and mine doesn't seem to be the 'real thing', but I still feel that the apron is so unlike the typical French style (either a butcher's apron like the one with red initials seen in my first photo, or a granny-jacket thing) that I feel there's at least some American influence here:

Terrible shot, but you can at least see how it looks when on. It fits perfectly!

The second one is red gingham, if it's American, or Vichy, if it's French! Cute but not a lot of coverage...

They are both hanging up in the kitchen with the French-initialed apron and a pretty blue and white half-apron that I was given in a blog swap several years ago. I don't think I'll wear them, as I rely on plasticised aprons with lots of coverage to keep me clean and dry!

A Pause in Lent 2014 - better late than never!

It was a lovely weekend, full of gardening, plant-buying, archery and fish and chips (an unusual find in France...) and I never got round to writing my Pause in Lent - sorry! But here is a really truthful picture for you, from the Facebook page of someone I'm very happy to have found over the last week or two:

Kim Verrier is a Speaker and Encourager (a very worthwhile occupation!) who is the friend of a friend. I followed my friend's link to Kim's Facebook page and found her words very helpful - and in the case of the picture above, very relevant! Do pop over and visit her if you are on Facebook.