table linens

and now i'm going to talk about placemats and tablecloths for a bit.  i'm going to go on for awhile, and i apologize in advance, because i'm fairly certain that most people are not as enthralled by this subject as i am.  but i am enthralled.

i set the table for every meal.  except for breakfast.  (i'm not really sure why i don't set the table for breakfast, but now that i've realized the error of my ways, i think i'll reform.)  place mats or a table cloth, cloth napkins, a full set of silverware.  my grandmother always set a beautiful table, my mother always set the table too, my father loved setting the table and always started a holiday meal by acknowledging his grandmother who made the tablecloth and his other grandmother who carried the candlesticks on the boat from russia, so i suppose it's in my blood.

in fact, at my grandmother's house there were no bottles or jars of any kind allowed on the table.  everything was decanted into pretty dishes - every ketchup in a pot with a special spoon, every salad dressing in a little pitcher, salt in a salt cellar, and pepper in the same.  at my mother's house, there are still no bottles allowed on the table - but instead of decanting into dishes, we just put the salad dressings and the condiments on the floor next to the table after using them!  at our house, we have a happy medium - i prefer to keep the bottles off of the table, and i have a variety of little dishes and pitchers for serving dressings and condiments, but sometimes the mustard bottles come to the table and that's ok, too.

but back to the table linens.  the bottom line is that i need some new place mats and a new tablecloth or two.  when we were married, our style was a little bit, um, italian countryside.  these were our dishes.  everything was blue and yellow - the mixer was blue.  the pots and pans were blue.  the food processor still is blue.  i'm not kidding. - and our table linens were blue and yellow too. 

but we've grown out of the italian countryside.  our kitchen - and the rest of our house - is in warm neutrals, and the blue just doesn't match anything anymore.  it turns out that i've been using one tablecloth almost exclusively (which i noticed primarily because it appears in every single one of my table shots since march).  so i'm on the prowl for a new tablecloth, and some new place mats to match the pretty napkins my wonderful friends have given me.