In a Hot Tureen!

[rain_gryphon]

Churchill has apparently started making Blue Willow china again. At any rate, Kroger's are selling it as a loss-leader to get people to come shop there. I found out by accident earlier, poking through their kitchen wares trying to find a decent cutting board with a handle (everyone wants these weird boards without handles these days - I like to chop on my board, and then just dump it all into the pan, and you can't do that properly without a paddle-shaped board). Now my broken salad plate is replaced, and I have a new divided serving dish, the oval sort with the spoon rest in the middle. If they follow their practice of past years, they'll keep changing out the pieces available every few weeks. I'm hoping to get a soup tureen and a butter safe. The tureen is a costly piece, but I eat enough soups and stews that I'd get my money's worth from it. A shallow covered serving bowl or two would not go amiss either.

There's kind of a bitter sweetness now in adding to my china. I still picture myself and Findra sitting down to have dinner from my pretty table service, and that's not going to happen again. It's good that I'm interested in stuff like this again, though. A few months back I didn't care anymore. Taxus is interested in coming around this summer, too.

Comments

[kitten-goddess.livejournal.com]

Congratulations on your new china set!

[xolo.livejournal.com]

Thanks! I've had the set for years now, though. I'm just replacing losses and expanding a bit :)

[cathouse-blues.livejournal.com]

I had to laugh when I saw that industrial Blue Willow - it wasn't even Johnson Bros.! Blue Willow is a bit of an obsession around here. My grandmother began collecting pieces with an eye to making full settings and servers, but somehow managed to lock on to an incredibly small British house that only produced their version of the pattern in the 1920's and 1930's. I'm determinded to fill in her gaps, which has led to endless rounds of "Flip That China!" in antique stores and flea markets across the land. We've gotten very good at spotting the obvious Leaverites - the Occupied Japans, for instance, look a lot like the stuff kroger is selling. But only once have I ever actually found a piece, no matter how often we flipped; every other piece I've bought came from eBay UK.

[xolo.livejournal.com]

I thought of you, yeah! You haven't been around in ages, and I was afraid you'd gone. The Churchill is cheap, but it pleases me, and I'm poor anyway, so it works out. Will you be at the Speedway this year? I'm planning to go on Saturday, and see the old cars run.

[cathouse-blues.livejournal.com]

Oh, I'm always around...just don't have much to say anymore. But I am always reading.

We will go up on Friday (it's still weird to have to find a hotel room and a parking spot, rather than walk from our house). We got amazing seats last year in the SE Vista (Turn 2, Sec 19, Row U, seats 5 & 6), and we'll be there again this year. We've got parking reservations in a nice, shaded yard that's pretty darn close (we parked there last year), and it's pretty easy in-out. We'll be there Saturday, too; one of the things we have to do is find the brick we bought for my Dad. It's supposed to be somewhere near the museum. We put his name, his father's name, and his grandfather's name on it.

As for the Blue WIllow, the great thing about is that it's been produced by soooooo many companies over the years that as long as you don't care about being perfectly matchy-matchy (and if this wasn't my grandmother's china, I wouldn't be), you can find a TON of it in junk stores, thrift shops, antique stores, etc. (there's a Junque Shoppe in towne that has 12 8-piece place settings and every kind of serving piece you can imagine, all laid out ona dining table - and it's about 6 different makers). As long as you stay away from the better transfer ware you can get some really pretty versions for next to nothing. A lot of the Occupation Japan stuff can be really lovely. And good heavens, the variations in blues is amazing.