Ginkgo Among The Maples
Three kinds of leaf are printed rather than one shape repeated: maple with its points, oak with lobed edges, and ginkgo fans that most fall prints leave out. Scattered over the brown ground they look collected rather than designed. The result reads rustic next to wooden bowls and pewter, and it does not fight a centerpiece of real branches cut from the yard.
Thick Enough To Sit Flat
Thin runners creep toward one end of the table as people reach across them. This fabric has enough weight to stay where it is put and to lie flat from the first minute, with no steaming to get the fold lines out. The print resists fading, so the brown stays brown through several autumns of afternoon light on a table near a window.
Wiped Between Courses
Stain resistance is the practical half of a fall runner, since the meal involves gravy, cranberry and a lot of passing. A damp cloth handles most of what lands during dinner, and the whole thing can go through the machine once the guests have gone. The leaf print comes back out of the wash as sharp as it went in, ready for the next weekend.
Kitchen Counter In October
Dining tables sit unused most of the year in houses that eat in the kitchen, so the runner tends to end up on the counter instead, under the bread board and the bowl of apples. Coffee tables, buffet cabinets and kitchen islands take the same strip. On a dry day it goes outside for a porch meal, which is the one place the brown ground matches the actual leaves.
