After an interminable time....years, in fact.....I have finished my seasonal series for my sister Lisa and photographed the results in her dining room. I started with her Kate Spade dishes with the dragonfly motif, which I like very much. I designed a table setting for each season, including the tablecloths, napkins and accessories. Some of the settings started with purchased yardage, and others involved the hand-dyed and embroidered cloths I made myself and have documented in fits and starts here on the blog.
The first setting I'll show now is Winter. I made an under cloth of gray undyed natural linen to fit Lisa's table. On top of that I laid a square made of purchased upholstery cloth (washable, of course) in a brown leafy pattern with random black marks. It reminds me of the forest floor here in winter, long after the leaves have fallen and lost their colors, but still are ankle deep on the trails. It takes all winter for them to break down and we often don't have snow to cover them up or speed up the process. The lack of color speaks of winter too...our climate is gray and the days are very short, so the dimness is more appropriate for us here in the Pacific Northwest than jolly snowmen or other usual winter motifs.
On this I set the dishes, with black napkins and taupe tumblers. For a centerpiece I used a black vase filled with thin brown branches and a wiry garland of gold stars, placed on top of a tatted doily. Gold candlesticks and gold cord on the napkins added a little more glitter to a very low key table.
I miscalculated on the proportions of the doily because I set this (and all the tables) up first on my own table which is seven inches narrower than Lisa's table. There is a little too much empty space around the very minimal centerpiece. I must admit I really like the way the lace doily shows up against the background without being too showy. It just should have been twice as large. The whole process reminded me how rusty I am with the photography and how tiring it is to set and re-set the table, but it is done and I will show you the rest of the settings in upcoming posts.