As you may already know, I am a hoarder of vintage tablecloths.
This is ironic in a couple of ways.
Firstly, because I only ever have one tablecloth on my own table.
I made it from some American vintage fabric:
It’s very nice, despite being now more than a little stained (which is all our own fault).
I can’t bear for any more beautiful fabric to meet the same stainy fate.
Secondly, we have a very l-o-n-g kitchen table.
It’s an extending Ercol Windsor table, and we leave it extended all the time.
Any tablecloth up to the job has to be two-and-a-half metres long to cover it – and there aren’t many of those around.
But still I hanker for and hoard vintage tablecloths, of both embroidered and printed varieties.
I sometimes cut up and sew with printed ones.
When they’re a bit stained I don’t feel so guilty about hacking them.
The tablecloths in the pictures in this post aren’t mine (other than the one I said was mine). I only actually have one vaguely similar to these.
They’re just cloths I spotted online and rather liked the look of.
If you click on the pictures it will take you to the places where I found them.
I think they’re all perfect for a Sunday afternoon teatime.
So get your teapot out, slice yourself some cake (or break out the biscuits if you’re more that way inclined) and put your feet up.
It’s tablecloth time. ♥
I dearly love a nice tablecloth. I have two everyday ones, and I alternate between them. One is blue with a Provencal print of cicadas and olive wreaths, with matching napkins. It has some sort of water resistant coating which comes in very handy when Mr & Mrs Klutz are having tea. The other I made myself, and is pale coffee colour with white, cream and brown butterflies printed on it, and I made napkins to match in a large coffee and cream check. Our dining table is never, ahem, bare…
Neither is ours! This is partly because a previous owner once thought it good idea to get the table re-varnished – not all of it, just the bits you see when it’s not extended. So it has orange shiny ends. My partner wants me to get it renovated so we can see the wood, but I have resisted so that I still have an excuse to have a tablecloth.
my heart bursts to see such lovely table linen – truly gorgeous. I have a variety of tables, some of which will accommodate a pretty little vintage number. I am instantly going to check out the lovelies in the pictures
it’s a shame folk don’t do afternoon tea the way it used to be done . . Sunday afternoon at my Nan’s was always tea at the table with a pretty cloth :0)
So true. I think Sunday tea is definitely overdue for a revival, just not with tinned salmon sandwiches (with malt vinegar) like at our house when I was a child!
My Nan liked a tinned salmon sandwich too . . but she mashed it up with butter to make a paste :0)