Welcome, everyone! Photos and stories are coming in, one atop the other. If you haven’t sent yet, feel free to add narration when you do. It will be fun to hear about your tea and how it may have been inspired by Emilie Loring.
I’ll add and re-post all day today and tomorrow–as long as you send, I’ll add! Keep checking back!
If you didn’t have tea, join us anyway in the comments below! Or send your favorite tea quotes from Emilie’s novels. There’s room for everyone, and we’d love to hear from you!
Peggy’s Elegant Tea
Peggy took her inspiration from To Love and to Honor and Where Beauty Dwells, but her elegant tea would have pleased any of the hostesses in Emilie Loring’s novels!
“charming place you have made here between the ells. . .” To Love and to Honor
…she walked slowly along the graveled drive, bordered with towering spikes of delphinium, Madonna lilies, clumps of pink poppies and shafts of lavender, yellow and rosy columbine. She drew a deep breath of the clean, salt smell of kelp. It helped clear her brain. Where Beauty Dwells
She seated herself at a table equipped with choice old Georgian silver, pale yellow china of paper-thin delicacy, and a tall frosted-glass pitcher and glasses. I Hear Adventure Calling
A Loring Family Tea
The young women in this photo are Emilie Loring’s great-granddaughters. The children are Emilie’s great-great-grandchildren–enjoying an afternoon tea!
Vicki’s Southern Tea
“It was 94 degrees and sunny at 4:00 today. Crepe myrtles are growing next to the deck.
“I do think that [Emilie Loring] would have liked the Bombay teapot and china.”
Amanda’s picnic in the park
Lakeside tea in Wisconsin: Patti
For sixty years, my family has gathered in the summer at our lakeside cottage in Wisconsin. My grandma used to have tea with her bridge ladies, but it had been a long time since the last one. I think her cups were happy to be out! This is my favorite.
The way we honored Emilie Loring was simply by having tea. It didn’t matter to her where one had tea, as long as one had it.
“If this house were to float down river in a flood your mother would manage a tea party on the roof.”
Sitting outside on the deck felt like a good choice. It was a hot day, but there was a breeze, and I brewed the tea nice and hot.
“Hot, thank you. Somewhere I read that the hotter the day the hotter the tea should be for refreshment.” I Hear Adventure Calling
(Note: There is no elegant way to wrap a tablecloth around an umbrella pole stub.)
Treats today were courtesy of the local Piggly Wiggly grocery store and the Union Star Dairy. Jelly-rolls remind me of childhood, and yes, those are cheese curds. We are in Wisconsin, after all!
Tea tastes even better outdoors, I think, a contrast of rusticity and refinement.
Mom enjoyed her cup. She had her 90th birthday in January, and that’s reason for continued celebration all year!
Heide’s sweet bungalow tea
Heide created an inviting, Emilie Loring-inspired tea on her bungalow’s sunny porch. You may remember Heide from her guest post, “A Cheerful Print Frock and Emilie Loring,” and she’s written a new post about her Emilie Loring tea for her Apron History blog. I’ll quote a bit from it, but go and see the full post here; you won’t want to miss out on her recipes!
“Since it was July and a lovely warm day, I choose strawberry lemonade instead of hot tea, with an assortment of sandwiches and cakes… I think Emilie would have approved!”
“Aunt Ellen, Phil and I are famished for our tea. I’ve just come from a day in Camp….” She ignored her Aunt’s annoyed frown and smiled at Maury when he set tea and a plate of sandwiches on the white wicker stand she had drawn in front of her chair….” Rainbow at Dusk
“If you have read any of Emilie’s books you will know she loved tea. Elegant teas with silver, tea in the garden, tea on the terrace, tea in cabins and castles, formal high tea to cozy fireside tea and toast; she wrote about them all.”
“Thank you for joining me for tea, do drop in again!”
In the city: Patricia
So many ways to stop for a cup, even on a busy day in the city. 🙂 
When tea is something else: Ramona
English pub fare is a whole different experience, but Ramona shows us that Emilie Loring can still come along.
Ellen’s Emilie Loring Tea Party
We’ve been waiting for this one. Our Emilie Loring garden tea was Ellen’s idea, and I think you’ll agree that hers was a true event! If she has another, I’m thinking, “Road trip!”
First came her Emilie Loring garden with ornaments and signs inspired by the novels.
And the garden grew and grew…
Then came fashions:
“Clothes go to my head like laughing gas.”
A menu and preparations:
Please take an extra moment to appreciate these fetching little sugar cubes decorated with Royal icing:
Finally, all was ready.
Guests arrived–eighteen of them! Look at the fun they had!
Emilie Loring was present in many details! Look at this wonderful vignette: 
It was as though Emilie Loring could sit right down to type a new story. Oh! That happened!
A paperback copy of Fair Tomorrow, provided by Emilie’s granddaughter Eve, was presented to the person who came the longest distance.
Goodness! What a day! Thanks for sharing it with us, Ellen! (I’ll look to see if I’ve missed any photos… if so, I’ll add!)
An unconventional tea: Stephanie
“I couldn’t have the tea party that I would like as I was at work so my coworker and I made mint tea and I brought lemon cake with jam, pistachios and beans on toast as we enjoyed parts of We Ride the Gale in the garden on the roof of the third floor at work. Might not have been a traditional tea, but we had a good time.”
For All Your Life: Helen
Isn’t it so fun to see people’s gardens and tea settings? I had forgotten the cover of For All Your Life. Yes, she’s holding a tea cup! Good catch, Helen!
What kind of cake do you suppose this is?
I love the addition of nasturtiums! Emilie planted them in her window boxes at Stone House in Blue Hill.
She spread a cloth gay with printed nasturtiums, placed cups and saucers, silver teaspoons, sugar, crackers, jam and cookies slowly, … “ Beckoning Trails
Tea for Two: Patti and Pat
My husband planted “Orange King” calendulas from seed this year, and they bloomed just in time for our “tea for two” in Colorado.
He followed the woman who was hurrying toward the boat landing along the path bordered with Orange King and Lemon Queen calendulas, which glowed like two rows of footlights against a background of dusky purple petunias. Where Beauty Dwells
My husband so wanted to wear white gloves and serve for me, like we saw on Downton Abbey, but as he was my date for this affair, we gave up on gloves and simply enjoyed our tea.
“It’s swank to wear a string of pearls even with shorts and tailored shirts on the Lido, I hear.” Hilltops Clear
The Emilie Loring Collection 
Wow! What creative beautiful ànd delicious variety of tea parties!! It’s a joy just to see the pictures from fellow EL readers. You got the book cover exactly right. .Exciting!
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Yesterday we visited a most beautiful friend who recently moved to retirement
home. She presented me with the most exquisite teacup and saucer to add to
to my collection. It would be lovely someday to do a post about a favorite teacup
that has such a special place in our hearts. I remember Patti, you mentioned your
grandmother’s special teacup in an earlier post.
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You have such lovely ideas, Ellen! Yes, let’s do it! Maybe November is a good time. We have snow today, and cozying up with a lovely cup of tea sounds heavenly.
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All of the teas look like they were fun. It was such a nice idea. I wish that all of us could have had our tea together.
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What a nice idea! I fantasize about doing an “Emilie Loring tour of New England” as a group, somehow, and meeting up for tea each afternoon to talk over our discoveries.
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This is just fabulous!! So much fun all over the place and all for a shared love of Emilie. I was not sure what I was going to do because I live in a small duplex with no garden/yard/etc to speak of. I had an epiphany that here at the University of Oklahoma (where I work as an accountant) we have a gorgeous garden with fountains and walking paths and flowers and trellis and all kinds of lovelies on the roof of the second floor so it’s part of the third. I walk through it every day on the way to my office and realized it was a *perfect* garden spot maintained by someone else like a real society lady. 😉 Many cheers to those gardens represented, just so beautiful!! Thank you Ellen for your suggestion, this was fun.
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Thank you for sharing. It’s nice to see places with new eyes, isn’t it? We’ll have to do this again sometime–too fun not to!
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Love them all! Such a variety!
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Yes! I imagine each one as just right for a particular mood…
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