Baldur

I had hoped for a single large tablecloth of 60" by 104" but that was not to be, that was out of stock. Son instead I purchased 2 60" by 84" cloths and will overlap them. This has the advantage that each smaller cloth can also be used when the table is not fully extended with the spare leaves.
Baldur also purchased 16 matching napkins.

Then I looked at glassware.
Our everyday glassware is glorious but clashes with our wineglasses, so Chez Baldur needed water goblets just for special occasions.
They had very simple thin glass footed goblets very cheaply, and again ay 50% off.
Baldur purchased 12
I will keep the original boxes and after the holiday pack them away in storage downstairs with the wineglasses.
Poor Robert, this whole thing was rather traumatic for him.

Baldur

Son -n =So

ay -y +t =at

Baldur

This has caused somewhat of a congestion problem in my linen cubby.
Supposedly it is a linen closet, but labeling it such is hardly fair as it is of a woefully inadequate size.
It holds our bed sheets, though certainly not spare comforters and blankets.
Stashed within is also our burgeoning table linen collection.
Of late it has started to hold curtains and draperies and Baldur needs to addess this soon.
An alternate storage area for window treatments needs to be found.
Indeed the ideal place would be the armoire in the master bedroom.
The top half houses the Spode, the bottom is a repository for the overflow from Baldur's library.
The books must move, possibly as soon as tomorrow.

Baldur

Pain me as it does, I must get rid of books.
A great quantity of books.
Those most likely in danger of removal are mostly fiction.
Certainly I cannot part with my early 20th century design books, or those dealing with the Arts & Craft movement.
Neither can I part with the myriad of 'American Bungalow', 'Victoria', 'Style 1900' or 'Arts & Crafts Homes & the Revival' magazines.
What to do?

sheftali52

It is great to hear that Baldur found the perfect tablecloths and other dining accessories on his shopping trip. Sheftali sympathizes with having room to store one's treasures. However, it would be unthinkable to give up any of your favorite books. Surely Baldur will find a solution.

Baldur

Well they would not be my favorite books, but still wonderful nonetheless.

sheftali52

Sheftali has a hard time giving up books, too. Books are good friends, often full of adventure, and a window to the world. Computers and surfing the net are great, but nothing will satisfy more than sitting down to read a good book!

Baldur

Baldur must amble off to bed, it's been a busy day.
Goodnight everyone.

'All Baldur, All the Time'

Baldur

This morning I went thropugh my bookcases and the bottom section of my armoire and culled 5 shopping bags of books from my collection.
Certainly a daunting task.
When removing books from the bookcase, I refilled the holes with those books from the armoire that Baldur could not part with.
In the end the bottom shelf was completely cleared and I was able to transfer what curtains and draperies I could find to that location.
But where Robert has stashed the others remain a mystery.

Baldur

Once the window treatments were removed from the linen cubby there was plenty of room for the recently purcgased tablecloths and napkins.
There are many table linens Baldur would happily part with creating even more space but they belong to Robert and must stay (for the time being).

Baldur

thropugh -o =through

Baldur

purcgased -g +h =purchased

marius

Apologies, apparently the Wedgewood has been sold off ebay.

Robindcr8l

Was reading my December copy of Reader's Digest last night, and stumbled on this article about what you Department store Santa won't tell you, but wishes you knew. Thought of Baldur, who moonlights as Santa, so thought he might enjoy their wisdom, although I am sure he already knows all of it, and has a few of his own to add! Here's the link:
http://www.rd.com/advice-and-know-how/13-things-your-mall-santa-wont-tell-you/article168529.ht ml

Dragon

Had to laugh at marius' description of cat proofing the table. I remember when I was young we had the dining room table all set and beautiful for guests coming for Thanksgiving dinner. My mom had gotten everything on the table ahead of time so it would be ready when people showed up. Shortly before guests started arriving we went in to the dining room only to find our cat KC happily perched in the middle of the table helping herself to the butter. Thankfully no one had arrived yet and we were able to trim the licked bits of the stick of butter.

Baldur

Baldur was able to type in Wedgwood Ventnor in the eBay search window and find other examples. It's very nice but falls squarely into what I call the 'old lady china' category, Please do not tell your spouse's family this LOL.
The Vileroy-Boch stuff is wonderful.
Baldur can just imagine what he would go through collecting that as it is really 4 different patterns that one assembles into place settings.
I would need multiple pieces in each variant. Heavens.

I have a scant few pieces of a third Spode pattern. This one remains an enigma as I do not even have a name for this one. That makes searching for it online rather difficult.
The design is from the Aesthetic Period and has little sprigs of branches with might be lemons, or possibly olives around the edge forming a border.
Then there are bands of geometric shapes and odd floral clusters.
Sometimes the decorations are varying shades of mustards, golds and faded oranges with black, other times the floral areas are done in blue while the branches stick to the gold tones.

Baldur found the Santa hints and can certainly add another.
If your kid has the flu keep him/her home.
If Santa catches the flu nobody gets gifts, period.

Baldur

Baldur sets the table just before the guests arrive.
Everything will be washed, polished, ironed and stacked in the wings, ready for the last moment flourish of activity.

Baldur

My issues of 'Ideal Home's 2009 Complete Guide to Christmas' has a recipe for mincemeat squares that Baldur must try, perhaps they go on my Thanksgiving dessert buffet.
They have a layer of shortbread dough pressed into the baking pan, a layer of mincemeat spread over that, followed by shortbread crumbles.
They look marvelous.
They had another interesting dessert which was a pannacotta topped by a molded dome of vanilla jelly (Britspeak for molded gelatin dessert i.e. Jello).
There are flakes of coconut suspended in the jelly giving it a snowglobe effect.

Baldur

they +'ll =they'll

marius

Vote is with Sheftali on books. Have heard there is a new rage for reading books on-line. That will not work for me. I like the feel of the book in the hands, the way the pages look and smell ... plus how could I put my bookmark collection to use via computer?

Knew Baldur would find the correct linens, but sounds like he got the "perfect" ones! And ... now sounds like he's found the needed storage room! Wondering, will Baldur set the table the night before, the morning of ...? I ask because it always cracks me up that for dinner parties, spouse sets the table mostly, or almost entirely, the night before. Then he covers it with an old, gigantic, lightweight cotton tablecloth. This prevents cats from leaving their hairs and whatnot on dinner dishes. For whatever reason, the cats do not like getting on the table with things under a tablecloth so spouse's method works.

Baldur, your descriptions of setting the table, acquiring linens, ordering Spode made me think of sister-in-laws. We used to travel to St. Louis, there and back in ONE day for Holiday with spouse's sisters, their spouses and spouse's Mom. It made for 4.5 hours driving, four hours eating and talking, 4.5 hours driving home ... and it was TOO much.

One might think we would spend the night, but no room in that house, plus his sisters do not like company over-night. We have stayed in hotels, but it is all a long story and exhausting any way it was done, splitting the driving into two days or doing it all on one day. So, marius is sneaky. She kept asking spouse how he felt about driving that far, that long, what HE wanted for holidays. This questioning eventually put an end to these ridiculous St. Louis trips. It's not that the sister's aren't pleasant to see ... it just wasn't, um, equitable, for us to do all the driving, and that's why we now meet halfway in Columbia and eat at a restaurant.

A funny part of the old tradition was that sister-in-law's husband, George, collects antiques. They always set a gorgeous table, which, seemed to be rather in the style of Baldur. Everything on the table was antique, (hehehe - and now that we're aging - everyone at the table is antique, or nearly antique, too!) But, each year there was a sort of "fuss" at the end of dinner because George did not want just any old person removing, stacking, cleaning the antique ware. I was under the impression that dinner plates cost $100 each, or maybe $1,000, so it scared me to help clean up, but I always did.

After reading about Baldur's Spode, asked the in-laws what kind of dinner ware they have. See below. Personally, I think I prefer Baldur's spode for Holidays, although I do like their "Everyday Stuff" which we've never seen as we were only there on Holidays.

They use Wedgewood (Ventnor pattern) for Holidays:
http://cgi.ebay.com/9-Wedgewood-Ventnor-Dinner-Plates-Blue-Fruit-Swags-Urns_W0QQitemZ360209021 880QQcmdZViewItemQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_0?hash=item53de217bb8

Everyday stuff (Villeroy and Boch).
http://eshop.villeroy-boch.com/us/shopping/tableware-audun-ferme/show_101067