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Warmer weather brings out the desire for lighter dishes and interesting flavors for meals. I love Asian influences in food and tablescapes, and today I’ll share a new table along with some of my original recipes for the food. This would be so fun to share with friends! A few years ago, I did an entire month of Japanese inspired posts, and I’ll link a few of those here today, along with a brand new tablescape. From time to time, I am contacted by companies to see if I would like to try their products. Sometimes I say ...

I have a couple of days to sew this week, and I am looking forward to Virtual Retreat on Friday as a sew day too! I have started a secret project, and all I can show you for now is this. It is going to be so fun! More details later when I can reveal it. But, it will have embroidery as you can see. It is National Embroidery month, see the bottom of this post for a special sale at Sulky on all your embroidery needs. This is a great time to get that stabilizer!

The mail has been ...

This week, I planned to have a couple of friends over for a day of sewing and chatting, and maybe just a touch of stitch-and-bitch. My Sweet Babboo always calls this a Hen Party, so I got out my chicken table topper for a nice tablescape for lunch.

I put my gold chargers at the places, topped with white plates and rooster bowls.

The chickens on the bowls are similar to the ones on the table topper.

Gold napkins are held with rooster napkin rings.

In the center of the table, a chicken trivet will be used to hold a ...

I’ve been collecting pieces for this Christmas dish set for a few years now. Each year I seem to find another piece, one more mug, a serving piece, or something. It is stoneware, and we use it almost every day through December. However, I have been making an effort to donate or sell a lot of stuff. My set of Noritake china, white on white floral with platinum rims (92 pieces!) is currently on Craigslist, although I doubt it will sell. But I want you to know, I resisted the urge to buy a pitcher listed on eBay that ...

Setting a lovely table in anticipation of an upcoming holiday is always a fun activity. While football games were on the TV last Sunday, My Sweet Babboo brought up the heavy turkey bin and special Thanksgiving linens and I had a playful time arranging the pub table for the holiday. I try to make this holiday table just a little different every year, but still utilizing what I already have.

This year, I wanted the table to be full of color. So, I began by spreading out my deep red tablecloth, and put the Turkey Talk placemats on top with ...

Fall Fortnight means it is time to get my fall things to set a seasonal table, especially with the wonderful cooler temperatures this week. I got out my favorite pumpkin bowls, the copper color chargers and the leaf plates and began to play with putting things together. First, a plate stack is done, adding my white stoneware dinner plates.

The pumpkin bowls are added to the left side, ready to hold a hot bowl of soup. Gold color flatware comes out in the fall as its warm tones go well with the fall colors. The napkins are a nutmeg spice ...

It is Apple Festival weekend with a street fair, air show, classic car shows and lots more. There is so much to do all over town as downtown is closed to traffic, and all the area orchards are open with activities and apples for sale. Local groups do pancake breakfasts and other activities to raise money for charity. The main stage has the apple cooking contest on Friday morning, and then different bands playing all through the weekend.

If you are interested in more on the annual festival, click on Apple Festival to see my posts from previous years covering ...

This past weekend, we had good friends over for happy hour and a meal. It is so fun to be able to entertain again, and it gives me a chance to not only set a pretty table, but also to show off my cooking a bit. My friend is a great cook herself, so she got to shine for dessert. But first, a pretty table is essential. It lets our guests know they are special.

My Colors of August placemats and table topper are placed on the table first. That post will tell you my idea of the colors for ...

This weekend, we pause to count our blessings and remember those who have made the ultimate sacrifice to protect our freedom. To help you celebrate, here are a few of my posts with patriotic theme projects, food and tablescapes.

I made this Patriotic Table Runner some time ago, and it is the foundation of most of my patriotic tablescapes.  The complete tutorial on how to make the tri-rec star blocks and put it together including putting borders on points, and binding non-90-degree angles HERE.  It is easy and fast, you could have one made in time for the July 4th ...

Warmer days mean having meals on the veranda. Last week we had friends over for a meal, so I had to set a nice table for them. After washing the pollen off the table, I set it with white placemats, spring green chargers, white dinner plates and pink floral salad plates.

Spring green napkins are held with plastic crystal design rings, with everyday flatware. I didn’t put the drink glasses on the table, as I had several sizes for our guests to choose depending on what they wanted to drink. I put one set of salt and pepper shakers ...

Finally, the weather seems to be warming up and I hope it stays that way. I need to get some plants for the veranda and move the ones from the Carolina room to the front. I am in a mood for fresh lemons both in cooking and in decorating. So, let’s take a stroll through some past posts to bring together springtime and lemons! First up, a Lemon Tablescape. I still have the lemon salad plates, and the melamine platter, but the little lemon bread plates and yellow cutwork chargers have been donated back to the thrift store. See ...

Now that I finished the little table topper in yellow and grey, I wanted to set a pretty springtime table with it. I pulled out yellow chargers and my favorite yellow salad plates. They are called Chloe, and I got them from Pier 1 years ago.

I start with putting the table topper at an angle on top of a white tablecloth, with the points toward the places.

I have two of these adorable ducklings with eggs, with green hats and big orange feet. Pulling out my yellow ceramic basket, I filled it with faux spring tulips and hibiscus, along ...

I invited a couple of friends to come over for lunch this past week, so of course that meant setting a nice table. I piddled around with a lot of ideas, but nothing seemed quite right. It was way past Gal-entines day, too early for spring, pastels and flower baskets just didn’t seem right. I wanted to use my pretty Japanese bowls for the soup I planned to serve, but nothing went with them. I got out my bowls with the roosters on them, and decided to go with that color scheme. The red was just more appropriate for ...

When I saw that the Chinese New Year would be the Year of the Dragon, I just had to get my little dragon out and put him center stage on a table. I got this little guy for our MINIs on the Dragon event a few years ago.I got a long blonde wig and had him on my shoulder like Daenerys Targaryen from Game of Thrones while I worked registration. Since then, he has been used for not only those events, but he was also a photo scavenger hunt item on a picnic event last year. I put him ...

Setting a festive table early in the month for everyday use brings more cheer to meals in December. I’ve been collecting these dishes for some time now, finding a mug here, and a bowl there. I’ve added three serving pieces found online, but there is no room for them on the pub table we use for everyday meals. There is barely enough for the large place settings, but it is so much fun to use the dishes as much as possible this month.

The set is called Vintage Christmas designed by Susan Winget. I just love her designs ...

It’s turkey time! My favorite day of the year is Thanksgiving. I love the food, the holiday spirit, the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, the football, making calls to friends, and all the anticipation of the holidays to come. Central to our celebration is a good meal, served with gratitude for all we have. Setting a beautiful festive table is part of the fun. This year, my Turkey Time Tablescape has 24 turkeys!

During my annual October event, Autumn Jubilee, we made some fun placemats using a fabric that featured large turkeys. See that post on Turkey Talk Placemats ...

Finally we get to the Autumn Jubilee tablescape, now that we’ve made some of the things we’ll be using. This table is anchored with our Harvest Festival quilt from the quilt along.

The place settings have rust color chargers with white dinner plates topped with my favorite fall salad plates. The set is discontinued from Pier 1, and is called Asheville Leaves. I set my pumpkin bowls to the upper left for salad or soup. Individual salt and pepper shakers are at each place setting.

I pull out my gold tone flatware for fall, the warm gold goes ...

When I saw the fabulous turkey prints in the Benartex Harvest Festival line, my mind immediately went to fussy cutting the turkeys. I knew I wanted a project to showcase those turkeys, along with the feather prints. Placemats for the Autumn table that would work all the way to Thanksgiving seemed like a good plan.

I began with my 6-1/2-inch square ruler to figure out which turkeys I could get in their entirety with the half-yard of fabric I had.

I made a gaggle of flying geese from the dark feather print so I could set the turkeys on ...

The summer flowering season continues, and the veranda pots have not been adversly affected by the heat. At least not yet. This lobelia is such an intense blue-purple, with the blooms cascading down the side of the ceramic pot. I love it.

The white begonia is so prolifically blooming, it has been going for weeks and weeks.

The darker leaf white begonias in the table pots are also happy.

The summer garden seems to be very late this year. By now I usually have a lot of tomatoes, but this year they are slow to ripen. It seems like these ...

Has it gotten hot where you are? This weekend we hit 90 for the first time this summer, way too hot for me! Still, it is better than some in the heartland and southwest are enduring. Lucky for us, the mountains do cool off at night, so the mornings are quite comfortable, as are the late evenings when the sun is going down. It is going to be a scorcher today, at least by our standards, so I set a table inside for our holiday meal. We’ll still cookout, but eat inside where it is less humid. I pulled ...