Local creates vintage aprons for kids and adults
In a small office not much bigger than some closets, a worn
frame hangs on one wall filled with dried flowers and a metal box
made of bottle caps sits on a shelf. Another shelf is piled high
with fabric. They are just the type of items one would expect to
find in the studio of a vintage apron designer.
Local creates vintage aprons for kids and adults
In a small office not much bigger than some closets, a worn frame hangs on one wall filled with dried flowers and a metal box made of bottle caps sits on a shelf. Another shelf is piled high with fabric. They are just the type of items one would expect to find in the studio of a vintage apron designer.
Heidi Jumper rents the small space on San Benito Street where she keeps a sewing machine and supplies to create aprons for sale on the Web site for her business, Gagie Pagie Pudding Pie.
Jumper started out making vintage aprons for fun when she was a young mother. She hosted craft days for the moms and kids she knew while her family lived in Arizona. She made pint-sized aprons with fabric cupcake pockets made of leftover scraps of material or old tablecloths from the 1940s and ’50s.
The aprons hanging in her shop are of all sorts of colors and patterns – some pinks, some greens and some with star designs. Jumper creates her own patterns for the aprons, and they often have a vintage button sewn on as a detail.
“I use old, salvaged buttons,” she said. “I love buttons and I’ve collected them forever. And there are a lot of linens I’ve been trekking around. My husband was in the military and we had to move around a lot and those were little things we could take.”
Jumper said she has always been drawn to vintage things. She grew up in San Jose and recalls trips to Santa Cruz and San Francisco, especially the Haight Ashbury area where she remembers seeing such items as angora-beaded sweaters. She owned a vintage clothing store in Santa Cruz while she was in college and it was there she learned how to sew.
“I had a vintage sewing machine in the office and I thought I could mend the items that had little tears,” she said. “My husband taught me how to sew. He’s a manly man with tattoos all over but he showed me how to thread a needle. Then I taught myself the rest.”
She first decided to create a Web site to sell her items a year ago and she found a forum that caters to sellers who make handmade crafts called Etsy.
“You come up high in the search engines,” she said.
Jumper, who worked as a buyer for children’s clothing, decided to focus on aprons for children. She rented a space so that she could take a couple days a week to work on her projects without interruptions from her children, who are ages 3 and 5. She has also made a pact to be more diligent about updating her online store. She adds new items every day. Since then, Jumper has been contacted by several wholesalers interested in her kids’ aprons, including a New York children’s museum with which she has an order to fulfill. Others have been children’s boutiques in the South.
“The goal was to come here two days a week, but I think it will need to be 20 hours a week,” she said. “The goal was to cover my rent and not be losing any money.”
When she is not making aprons for sale, Jumper makes them to donate. She donated some to Ronald McDonald House, a nonprofit that works with ill children. She also sent some aprons to Camp Pendleton, where baby showers are thrown for pregnant women whose husbands are overseas on duty.
While her recent focus has been on the children’s aprons, Jumper does make adult-size aprons, too. She recently saw “Revolutionary Road,” a movie set in the 1950s.
“She [Kate Winslet] wore these little, sheer aprons that probably weren’t very practical,” she said. “And I want to see if I can make them.”
For more information or to place an order, visit www.gagiepagiepuddingpie.etsy.com or e-mail [email protected].
