Tablecloth

My book club meets once a month with each of us taking turns as host. Tonight was my turn, and the first time in a few years that it landed on a warm, August night. Awesome! I couldn’t wait to play host in the garden.

I spent part of the morning shopping for food, sweeping and washing the patio and then I went really crazy and took out the iron! I don’t know what came over me. Probably that ironing post on Boomdeeada. I ironed the cloth napkins, a fabric remnant for the sideboard, and the tablecloth.

Tie-dyed tablecloth compliments the garden flowers

The tablecloth wasn’t a tablecloth at all before today, but a piece of muslin, recently tie-dyed purple and originally intended to re-cover a folding screen. That’s a long story for another post, but now it’s a tablecloth. As my head filled with details of candles, flowers and other little niceties that make hosting fun, it occurred to me that I might have enough fabric left over from recovering my swing in early May to repair the screen. The remnants were for making swing cushion covers, but covering the screen would be more interesting. Would I have enough?

Amazingly, I had exactly what I needed with just a small square of fabric left over. I used fabric trim to cover the side board, a splashy pink against the subtle green. Really, I should have my head examined for tackling this project today. What was the rush?

Leftover pink trim makes the perfect sideboard cover

Three smashed bottles of tacky-glue later, the screen was 90% complete. I’ll post pictures tomorrow.

I rolled up the used newspaper, put away my tools, vacuumed the rug and jumped into the shower with 40 minutes to spare.

The evening came together nicely. It’s great seeing friends and discussing books. Our pick this month was The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver, described as

“a story about love and friendship, abandonment and belonging, and the discovery of surprising resources in apparently empty places.”

Thumbs up for the book! Thumbs up for the Bookettes, too. Thumbs down for the crazy gardener who still thinks she can do it all.

The Bookettes

In need of some TLC

My readers know how I love my swing. Sadly, it took a tumble in a wind storm, flipping heals over casters into the rock wall. The lower frame is sound, but that brief flight and subsequent landing tore one inch gashes into the canopy frame.

Before dismantling the canopy frame this winter, I thought it was simply bent and needed straightening. Now that we’ve taken it apart, the mechanical fix is more complex.

The no-cost fix is simple: we’ve relocated the swing to the shady part of the garden, where it now rests under the orange tree. Who needs an artificial canopy when nature has provided one in my backyard.

The seat cushions are a different story: they need a good overhaul. I used an old, flocked table-cloth to cover the cushions off-season and it worked well. Then spring rolled around and the neighborhood squirrels decided it would make excellent nesting material. They had that cloth de-flocked in two days! I get lazy in the colder months so between the unceremonious toss of the swing and the table-cloth dismemberment, I simply turned a blind eye. Last summer I put a towel over the cushions, and made do with the bent top. Neither one had any affect on my impromptu nap schedule.

Now that the yard is spruced up, my swing looks neglected. It resembles a dorm room couch, minus the cookie crumbs, but with plenty of mold to give one pause.

Time to call on my sewing skills. I’ll let you know how it goes.