Ellyn Ann Geisel has long apron strings, and not only does she like that, she encourages it.

The Pueblo, Colo., woman, a lifelong at-home mother and homemaker by choice, has now written two books about aprons under the slightly altered nom de plume EllynAnn Geisel.

Her first book, published in 2006, "The Apron Book" (Andrews McNeel Publishing, $16.95) has just been followed by the 3-by-3 3/4-inch "Apronisms ($5.99).

		Care to make your own? Besides the patterns in EllynAnne Geisel's "The Apron Book," here are a few other sources for patterns and fabrics. • Simplicity, Butterick and McCall's pattern companies have reissues of vintage apron patterns, or updated patterns based on classics. Simplicity appears to have the best array. Go to www.simplicity.com; check out the vintage 1948 and 1952 pattern. To die for. • Designer Amy Butler (www.amybutlerdesign.com) offers hip, if not precisely retro, fabrics in fab colors. Two other fabric sites to ohhh and ooohhh over: www.sewmamasew.com and www.reprodepot.com. • If you must touch the fabrics, Jo-Ann Fabrics & Craft stores has numerous outlets in the area. • And if you don't want to make one yourself, at www.maverydesigns.com you can order a custom apron made from a selection of 20,000 fabrics. Or so the company says in a news release. $25 to $40. -- Margi Shrum

Both draw on what Ms. Geisel discovered about aprons -- that they have ties that bind.

"Aprons turn out to be a memory trigger in a way that nothing else does, for both men and women," says Ms. Geisel, a Greensboro, N.C. native who retains her Southern drawl despite many years in Colorado.

Aprons, as it turns out, are so much of a trigger that "The Apron Book" is now in its sixth printing, with 90,000 copies out.

Ms. Geisel's book began with a traveling exhibit, "Apron Chronicles," which is managed by The Woman's Museum of Dallas. The seed for that began when her youngest son went off to college in 1999, an event that "signaled the end of a career as a full-time homemaker, which I had done for 24 years.

"I thought I would write an article about a piece of clothing that symbolized what I had done with my life," says Ms. Geisel, who turns 60 this month. So she looked for an apron; ironically, she didn't have one. "I'd just wiped my hands on my clothes like everyone else," she says, laughing.

"It took me a while until I found an old apron. I brought it home and washed it, and it was while I was ironing it, this incredible energy seemed to spring from it into me. I felt a very intense closeness to this fabric, and I didn't know why.

"It occurred to me it was the closeness I was feeling to the woman who had owned it."

Ms. Geisel began to wonder about who that woman was and what her life was like. "Most of all I wondered whether she was missed in today's world, this woman whose job description was to care for her family and to daily create this cocoon of security."

Here could come tumbling in all kinds of preconceived notions, and Ms. Geisel is cognizant of that. She is quick to say that she does not judge anyone for lifestyle decisions and, in talking to her and reading her book, it's clear hers decidedly is not a political pursuit.

"I make a conscientious effort not to be judgmental, because I do not want anybody to judge my choice."

She has had firsthand experience at being judged, due to her accent and her decision to be a homemaker.

After she collected many aprons, she put them into a basket that she took everywhere, and it became a veritable soup of conversation starter that did not always go over well.

"People didn't hear me because they either heard my accent and made a judgment or they knew me and just knew me as a homemaker and thought, 'What the heck is she talking about?'"

Turns out she knew darn well. Today's booms in home decorating and cooking shows are no accident, she says. People have a natural inclination to nest and perhaps some years of shucking it have come full circle.

Whatever, her basket of aprons did its job.

"The Apron Book" is full of delightful personal anecdotes about aprons and the people who wore them, sandwiched with directions on making several types of the garment (Ms. Geisel designs them), tidbits on its function and history, and even recipes.

There's the bride of 1967, whose owl-themed kitchen, inspired by her fiance's horn-rimmed glasses, included an apron with owls on it. Her owl apron outlasted the spouse, who was jettisoned in a divorce.

There are several tales about grandmothers doing their hard work in aprons, tending gardens and cooking and cleaning, but always pausing to nurture their grandchildren.

There's multiethnic representation in the book. And several stories are told by and about men, in aprons, tending the backyard grill with pride. She includes the son of the Holocaust survivor who worked at his family's market, after tying on his work apron.

Also included is the late Julia Child's apron story, and, in the ultimate proof that aprons are very personal, the tale of the woman who likes to bake pies in a diaphanous apron. And nothing else.

"Apronisms," due out this month, is Ms. Geisel's twist on aphorisms, those little sayings that have the utility and comfort of aprons, such as, "Be a spendthrift when it comes to kindness and a miser with criticism."

As she says, "Instead of saying something from Jefferson Airplane like 'Feed your head,' I'm quoting Benjamin Franklin. But there's a reason for those sayings. Those wisdoms have stuck around. They're as good today as they were 150 years ago."

Is she Ellyn Anne or EllynAnne?

In print, she's EllynAnne Geisel, a writing name that is sort of a psychological prop.

That's something you'd think Ms. Geisel wouldn't need, since she speaks and jokes so easily and brightly on the phone. "My real name is Ellyn Anne, but that person has a very shy section in her core and could not stand up in front of hundreds of people and talk about her apron journey.

"So I removed the space and 'Ellyn-no-space-Anne' -- she does just great.

"People trust me. I'm like a guardian of artifacts and memories. ... They put these things in my care and I can't let my shyness get in the way."

Her small volume "Apronisms" bridges the writing gap for Ms. Geisel, whose next book will be about kitchen linens, as she continues to write and speak as EllynAnne.