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Show Woman's World Imagination Is Key to Simple r r But Effective Table Settings "H, HOW I wish I were artis- tic and could do interesting things with my table settings," is a frequent cry heard when women gather. It happens especially when someone has put forth some thought in her table setting. Well, you can all relax, that is, all of you who don't think you have artistic ability. If you know anything any-thing about color, and add to that your common sense, you can do something out of the ordinary. Have you a red and white checked cloth? This is very seasonal currently cur-rently and can be used for a baked bean and cider supper. Use some x charming pottery plates for the dinner, din-ner, brown mugs and a centerpiece of glowing red Indian corn arranged with dark green leaves in a polished pol-ished wood salad bowl. Is there anything simpler? What about using a gourd or a hollowed out squash for the centerpiece, center-piece, with bittersweet or leaves or any array of fall fruit spilling out of it? This is very effective when the tablecloth is a mustard shade of yellow, a dark chartreuse green or a glowing tangerine color. You don't have a cloth in any of those colors? Fix one out of a worn sheet, some flour or sugar sacks, dyed to one of the shades just mentioned. men-tioned. If the sheet needs stiffening, run it through a light starch after the last rinse so it will be crisp and new-looking. It takes but a little imagination, as you can readily see, to make effective table settings. Informal Settings Are Easily Made For breakfast, lunch and family dinner or supper you can use all manner of simple fabrics to create Select table trimmings . , , the background of a meal. In fact the materials for many of these may be in the scrap bag right at this moment. Old pillow cases and sheets are excellent if they have enough material mate-rial in them worth saving. Cut these into the proper sizes either for I cloth or mats, with napkins to match if you like. Finish off the edges simply by hemming, then dye them in shades you will want. Old tablecloths which are worn and frayed can be cut down for mats, the size for which is 11 by 17 , With an eye for color. inches. Luncheon napkins are 17 inche square, dinner napkins are 19 inches square, and tea or bridge napkin is usually 11 inches square. Good colors to use are red pepper, chili green, made by using a jade green shade in the dye, or a patio fuschia, made by using four parts wine with one-half pint of purple. A siesta violet is made from three parts purple with two parts orchid dye. Dusty pink is made from three parts peach dye with two parts pink dye. Bittersweet uses three parts orange with one-half part scarlet. Instant In-stant dyes are used in all of the above suggestions. Another easy finish Is fringing. You) can easily do this in the evening for a set of mats and napkins. If Yon Want Linen, Use Toweling An easy way to make mats and napkins for table use is with Irish linen toweling. This trick frequently is used by women when they want the crisp, nicely washable finish of linen economically. Both mats and napkins can be made from the toweling, and you'll find that being able to buy the material mate-rial by the yard has the added advantage ad-vantage of giving longer lengths when you want to make runners. Plaid and crossbarred linen toweling towel-ing are good choices for casual and informal tablecloths or mat and napkin sets. If you are making these mainly to brighten up the kitchen or dining surroundings, you might even consider buying enough toweling to add simple drapes for the windows. Stripes in linen toweling are also good choices to use for curtain and place mat ensembles. Their gay colors make them a pleasant back-, ground for any of the popular styles of casual dinnerware. For the more formal luncheons and dinners, you might like to choose a grill-like scroll print done in white on both pastel and bright colored backgrounds. Scroll prints will be nice with better dishes. The lovely powder blue shade, for example, would be very effective with dinnerware which has touches of yellow in it. Use yellow chrysanthemums as the flower. Other Fabrics Give Many Possibilities Coarse textured rayons, dyed if they are not a suitable shade, will make exceUent tablecloth and mat sets. If you dye them in one of the gala Mexican shades, they can be used with fiesta ware, with a centerpiece center-piece arrangement of grapes. Many scorched or worn tablecloths can be used as source material. If damask has lost its crisp finish and high luster, it can make handsome hand-some settings for more formal dining. din-ing. Dye it a deep rich green, peach, pastel pink or soft yellow. Color heigthens the pattern of the damask. dam-ask. A centerpiece of polished fruits and glossy leaves in a square white pottery dish will be effective. For informal entertaining there's nothing lovelier than braided mats which can be made from pieces out of the scrap bag. Dye these to work out attractive colors. The monotone or solid colored mat is best for plain dishes, but occasionally occa-sionally it's possible to work out attractive mats with white and a color. These mats should be made slightly larger than 11 by 17, the size for regular placements. Use mugs with mats to make a thoroughly thor-oughly attractive setting, and a matching pottery bowl filled with gourds as the centerpiece. Plain white rrtts made out of almost al-most any material can be brightened bright-ened by use of wide, colorful borders bor-ders or various edgings, such as lace, braid, rick-rack or decorative borders. Buy borders already made or use cast-off pieces of materials, either in their original sharies or dyed, whichever offers the most effective treatment. |