It's Dishes Day!

People who know me know that I love books. I have a library in my house with shelves full of books and a sliding library ladder that allows easy access to those on the highest shelves.

But people may not know that I also love dishes—I’m talking plates and bowls, cups and saucers, teapots and pitchers.

Teapot from my sister and vintage platter

I own a lot of china, pottery, and glassware:

A white-on-white Moonspun Lenox fine china setting for eight, almost 50 years old now, made in the USA. This pattern was made by Lenox from 1968-1995.

Moonspun by Lenox

Vintage china passed down from my mother, or given to me by friends from their mothers and grandmothers.  

Vintage china and stoneware

There are beautiful plates with sky blue rims and 24 karat gold borders around a floral bouquet, passed down from my mother who received them as wedding gifts.  My sisters and I each have two plates to display in our homes.

Vintage plate, made in the USA, passed down from my mom

I have fine bone china from several English companies, a plate from Germany perfect for serving cookies, china from Japan, old stoneware, and other plates from US china makers. The place of origin and the marks on the bottom tell a story about each piece.

China cabinet in dining room

I love all this sweet vintage china.

The 50^th anniversary gold-plated coffee set, with a mark that says Winterling Bavaria Germany that belonged to Ricky’s grandparents. 

A glimpse of the gold plated china and the demitasse cup 

A collection of demitasse cups from Ricky’s mother, some plain white, others decorated with pink roses or butterflies, and one advertising the May 12, 1937 coronation of Prince Edward VIII.

Cut glass pieces inherited from my parents and Ricky’s aunt and uncle. 

 Detail of cut glass reflected in mirrored walls of china cabinet

Our everyday Botanic Garden BritishPortmeirion dishes featuring different flowers with their common and scientific names.  

Everyday dishes of British Portmeirion stored in butler's pantry

The Pyrex (which turned 100 in 2015) and Fire King mid-century modern glassware that my estate-sale-going friend Rebecca passes on to me.

Miscellaneous glassware in butler's pantry

A Somayaki Japanese tea service Ricky brought home from Vietnam. The Somayaki pottery is unique because of its double wall construction, which keeps the hot liquids hot while the outer layer remains cool to the touch. Unfortunately, the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Japan, and subsequent nuclear disaster at the Fukushima nuclear facility, resulted in the mandated abandonment of the village where Somayaki pottery was made. Local rocks that were responsible for the unique glaze are now contaminated. Some young artisans around Japan are trying to keep the tradition of Somayaki pottery alive with mixed results. 

Japanese Soma-yaki tea set

A set of heavy-duty Iron Mountain stoneware dishes, the Blue Ridge pattern, manufactured in East Tennessee from 1965-1992 not far from my Southwest Virginia hometown. I acquired mine in the early 1970’s, and many are from the “seconds store.” 

New Lenox Christmas china, now manufactured in capital “C” China, with green holly leaves and red berries on each piece. These were gifted to me over several Christmases from our friends in New Orleans whom we met as a result of Hurricane Katrina. Admittedly, Christmas dishes are a big weakness of mine.  

Christmas dishes displayed in butler's pantry

More Christmas dishes

 My favorite Christmas mugs

There are more treasures that I didn’t mention. I know owning all these dishes may seem excessive in this time of minimalism of belongings, but what can I say—I‘m a collector!

Luckily, we have sufficient storage for my dishes and china collection. We have a large formal china cabinet in the dining room passed down from Ricky’s grandparents 

Ricky's grandparents on their 50th wedding anniversary

A corner china cabinet in the dining room just for cut glass, a butler’s pantry hutch (now part of the kitchen) for storage of less formal dishes and serving pieces, plus another old china cabinet in the guest cottage. We also have regular kitchen cabinets where daily use dishes are stored.

Portmeirion tea set

The obvious question becomes why do I keep all these dishes? 

To me, their beauty and uniqueness are sufficient reasons for owning them. I also enjoy creating displays with the dishes. It’s both a form of play therapy and a creative outlet. I love the stories attached to each piece—sometimes a personal recollection of how I acquired the item; and sometimes it’s the story of the manufacture of the pieces and the history behind them. Many of the companies that created the china, glassware, and pottery are no longer in business because of the changes in cultural practices, the surfeit of cheap items from China, or misfortune befalling the manufacturer. 

I think the beauty and diversity in our world is diminished as these companies and their wares disappear.

P. S. I'm not the only person who loves vintage dishes. View Susan Branch's blog here to see and read about her collection of vintage dishes.

Nesting for the Holidays

My holiday season in 2016 was dominated with preparations for a second knee joint replacement surgery.  My preparations are peculiar to my personality.  First, I’m a real “nester.”  I want my surroundings to be fun and upbeat.  For me, fall means decorating for specific holidays!  This was going to be more difficult this year because I wanted all Christmas decorations to be completed before my November 30 surgery, but I didn’t want to ignore Thanksgiving.  My turkey collection makes me smile.

Dining Room Table ready for Thanksgiving

I also had cooking I wanted to do before my surgery.  We had homegrown produce I wanted to use.  Our Meyer lemon tree, still potted in a half barrel container, yielded about a dozen lemons, and my friend gave me more from her huge lemon tree.  I wanted to use my lemons, so I opted  to make lemon blueberry muffins.  I was able freeze muffins to eat for breakfast after my surgery.  

Lemon Blueberry Muffin

We had an abundance of bell peppers late in the season.  I was determined to use them, too.  I made several  dishes of stuffed peppers, some vegetarian and some stuffed with ground turkey.  I froze small casseroles of stuffed peppers for post-surgery meals, then cut up the rest of the peppers to freeze and use for gumbo.

Pepper Preparation

My most time-consuming and important task was insuring that my downstairs recovery space was to my liking.  We don’t have a downstairs bedroom in our old house, so again we made up the sofa bed in the music/living room, complete with memory foam mattress.  

Treble quickly embraced the idea of nesting in the living room bed.  We watched a lot of football during the first month of my recovery (when I wasn't doing my physical therapy exercises).

 

 My husband, my personal nurse since his retirement, even served me Continental breakfast in bed.

 

Friends and neighbors were incredibly generous in providing meals.  One neighbor delivered a beautiful gift bag full of food--four individual casseroles of homemade shepherd's pie, makings for a fresh fruit salad, homemade cookies, and the December issue of Good Housekeeping magazine.

Another friend and his wife prepared a Louisiana favorite of fried shrimp, fries, garlic bread and salad.  And these were the meals I remembered to document with photos.  For two weeks, Ricky and I didn't lift a finger in the kitchen.

I was able to enjoy my recuperation during the holidays because I surrounded myself with a few-- okay, a lot, of my favorite things.  On the music room mantle, I displayed four Wood World Santas made in a cottage industry during the 1970's and 1980's in my hometown of Marion, Virginia, along with many other Santa Claus figures I've collected over the years.

I hung copies of vintage postcards on an inexpensive tree, added red ornaments and some hand crocheted snow flakes from my hometown.  This provided me with a lovely recovery room Christmas tree.

My friend Elizabeth in New Orleans decided I needed a big singing Santa and a dog like Treble, so one day these arrived in the mail and were added to the fireplace scene.

After the music/living room was complete, I moved on to decorate the foyer, dining room, and my library because these would be the other downstairs spaces I would inhabit during the early weeks of my recovery.  And when I say decorate, I mean I created my own Christmas world.  

Every year I question my sanity but each year my inner child takes over and tells the adult to hush and just go with it.  So I do.  

My House as a Collage of Memories

I’m not an insomniac but I do resist going to bed at night, a throw-back from childhood.  It was late the other night when I started playing with a photo app on my IPhone.  I kept layering effects on top of other effects and combining frames on photos to make an artistic image.  I was photographing the mantle in our dining room because I had added a few treasures brought from my mother’s house, and I wanted to show my sisters.  It was similar to assembling a collage, and I was thoroughly enjoying the process.

As I studied the photo I had taken, I realized that my house is comprised of layer upon layer of memories, and I am now adding another layer after the death of my mother.  I’m incorporating artifacts from my parents’ marriage and from my childhood into my present life and home.

What I display in our home depicts different segments of my life and that of my husband’s.  I add layers as I acquire items from various sources.  On our dining room mantle, I have old books with gold lettering on the spines that I got from my grandmother’s.  My grandmother and I often sat in her room that doubled as her office/library.  While she had a kitchen table and a formal dining table in other parts of her house, a table in her office was positioned in front of a large picture window that looked out on the street in front of her house. 

 

My grandmother and I would sit there and eat our meals and talk about the neighborhood goings-on, surrounded by glass enclosed book cases filled with old books.  I was able to take several volumes of books from those shelves when my grandmother died in 1964.  I first took them to my bedroom at my childhood home, and years later when I moved into my own apartment, I carried them with me.  I’ve picked up other, similar volumes through the years.  Some of these books now adorn the mantle.  Two gold-plated china bud vases from Ricky’s grandparents’ 50^th wedding anniversary celebration are also on display.  In the middle of the mantle is an old clock, accented with gold, which came from Ricky’s father who collected and repaired clocks. 

 

A bowl with an Asian motif gold design sits on a stack of books. The bowl was a gift from two of my Early Head Start staff and represents another part of my past. 

 

After Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, we assisted a family from New Orleans who moved into our guest cottage. They became like family to us even after they returned to New Orleans.  For a recent birthday, they presented me with a burgundy rose that had been preserved and lacquered, the rose and leaves tipped with 24K gold, while the stem is gilded in gold.  This unusual rose fits perfectly in one of the tall gold bud vases on the mantle.  Its mate, a pink rose also gilded with gold, is in our friends’ home in New Orleans.

The most recent mantle additions include a blush-colored candy dish from my parents’ house.   My parents received it as a wedding gift in 1947.  Next to the candy dish, but elevated on a stack of books is another vase, similar in color, that Ricky’s mother gave me one year for Christmas.  I stand back studying my tableau, and then add other meaningful items—several birds from Mother’s bird figurine collection. 

 

I carefully assemble my collage, moving everything around, stopping periodically to scrutinize my results.  I arrange layer upon layer of memories in my house for no reason other than it pleases me.  I look around and I smile.