sarah in nyc

Today is hot and sticky. And it isn't even noon yet. Realizing that the day that the day would only get worse, I decided to deal with the growing mountain or ironing even before I showered today. Today's stack of table cloths, from top to bottom : White linen cloth embroidered by my cousin's mother in law. I love the basket of fruit embroidery. the crocheted edging in multicolored cotton yarn, less so.I also love how well the cloth takes to ironing. Just below that, Ikea upholstery cotton that I made into a table cloth a few winters back. Then a pink linen that came from my mother's stash.I hate ironing that cloth It's just hard to get a nice press on that one. We stopped using that cloth when I was five or so. Nostalgia is the only reason I use the cloth. It reminds me of our then pink kitchen and the Formica table with it's matching wire chairs. My mother is big on setting an elegant table.I tend to set a funky table. I don't have elegant dishes. mine a...

 Last night I finished darning the cloth. It was much improved. I then began to tackle the stains. As I was washing up last night, getting ready for bed, I noticed the bottle of  Peroxide. I remembered from my endless reading of helpful hints, that peroxide is a good stain remover. This morning, I dabbed the stains with the peroxide and they were much lighter. I rinsed the peroxided cloth. Then, I soaked the cloth in a weak Borax solution and rinsed it well.  I hung the cloth to dry over my shower curtain rod with a towel beneath. I thought that I would send the cloth to the dry cleaner to get it pressed. The cloth, after several hours was nearly dry. I thought that I would press it dry and then bring it to the cleaner's. I used the kitchen table as my pressing surface. There is a cotton cloth on the table. When I was nearly done I noticed, to my horror, teeny spots of ink on the cloth. I used every trick in the book and lightened the ink to a re...

This morning I ironed another batch of table cloths. They are from top to bottom, a vintage (I think 1960's) cotton Indian and block print purchased at B.Altman's. It belonged to my friend Alan's mother. I got it when they closed up his mother's apartment a few years ago.and moved her to an assisted living in the neighborhood. She died a few weeks ago. I love that cloth. Next is a hand loomed cotton plaid that used to be my mother's. I remember using this cloth for meat meals while I was in high school. It shrank and no longer fit her table. We used to use heavy hand loomed table cloths for weekday meals and a more refined white cloth for Shabbat. My mother gave this cloth to me several years ago. On the bottom is a 1940's cotton print cloth that had been my mother in law's. It is one of the many things that made it to our apartment as my husband has had the difficult task of cleaning out his parents' home. This cloth has not just strawberries, a '4...