Sunday, September 30, 2012

Setting the Table

Remember a while back when I tried to make a paper napkin holder and ended up with a pattern holder instead?  Well, I finally came across another fabric "basket" tute that I thought would work for napkins if I just made it bigger.  And I had just covered some new dining room chairs we bought (which were extremely dirty as they were stored outside behind the store or something) in this paisley fabric, so I made them to match!



The basket tute was on Sew Mama Sew and mentioned this contest where you upload pics of things you made for your dinner table to enter. How perfect! I already wanted to make a table cloth for the big table as well as one for the kids' table, which we break out if we are having guests over to eat who have kids.  And I thought I may as well make some cloth napkins too...... and we ALWAYS need dish covers....so:

Two types of dish covers, mug rugs, and kids' and adults' napkins

I had been wanting to make the elasticized dish covers for some time and then I saw the square ones with the beads hanging from the corners (to weight it down) on the Sew Mama Sew list of table tutes, so I decided to make those too.  Unfortunately, I learned that these only work for tall bowls, otherwise the beads touch the table (which doesn't look so great, but is probably just as effective).  I should have taken a little more care in deciding which dishes needed covers....... I also saw the tutorial for the "mug rugs" and thought I'd make one of those for each of us too.  We used them the other day for a gelatin snack.  And, of course, I made 4 adult napkins and 4 kid napkins too. 

So, here is the table set for dinner:

That little rooster holding the toothpicks was a souvenir my husband brought me from Portugal several years ago.  And the Fiestaware I brought over from the U.S.

 And the kids' table:



I had to hand dye the lace I used to trim the edges of both table cloths.  That took two tries for each one.  It is very hard to match colors when dyeing!

And here is the table set for a cup of tea:

The green teapot with the flowers was a hand-painted gift from my cousin; and the red teapot was a gift from a friend.

So, there you have it.  Loads of linens to set our tables!  I think the colors are very cheerful and go nicely with our new chairs as well as our everyday dishes.  I think my husband thinks they are a bit loud and maybe don't go together as well as I think they do.  Ah, men! 

One special challenge I had making all of these things was the fact that our electricity supply has been particularly bad the past 2 weeks.  We have only had power in the middle of the night (if that).  And I cannot iron if we are using the generator.  This means, I had to FINGER PRESS both table cloths and all 8 napkins!  Man!  That was tedious and time consuming.  And my patchwork mug rugs aren't quite as neat as they might otherwise be.  Incidentally, we haven't had any power at all from the grid for over 48 hours now, so I guess I shouldn't have been complaining the past couple of weeks.......  Oh!  And it turns out that BOTH of our cameras are broken now, so I had to take all these photos with the video camera. *sigh*  See why we need such cheerful table linens now?


1 comment:

Susan @ MadebyMommainPA.Blogspot.Com said...

HEY!! Where have you been chicky?? We've missed your posts:)Hope your US trip went well and you'll tell us all about it soon!

I've posted something for you on my blog for you, I hope it will help get you jump started on posting again!

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