China Patterns

I can't resist Kelly's Life series this week - china patterns. Eek! Kitchen paraphenalia of any kind is very exciting to me, and I love to mix and match old with new. This is making me realize how much I miss having my own kitchen!

When we were engaged and registering for our dishes, we decided against a china pattern. Neither of us thought we would get much use out of them, and we were more focused on getting things that we needed for our home, rather than on things that would be mere pleasantries. We both fell in love with the Noritake Colorwave collection in chocolate. They were our everyday dishes and even though they've been in storage for the past year, I can tell you we certainly enjoyed them while we were living in our own house. They were classic yet elegant, and when we had company for dinner I would dress up the table with the napkins and placemats to get a splash of color. We also registered for the additional flowered plates that you see in the picture. Those were such a great accent piece and I loved using them at each place setting.

As I said, we were not going to register for formal china at all - but my bridesmaids surprised me at my shower with a starter set of Royal Albert English Rose bone china. Lord have mercy did I fall in love with those dishes! They are gorgeous and I soon was finding any reason under the sun to use that china. They, too, are packed in storage right now and I must admit that I miss looking at those dishes. I'm always on the look-out for a piece to add to our collection at a good price, as Royal Albert can be rather expensive (but it is so worth it).

At my parent's house we use my mother's favorite place setting - Pfaltzgraff in the Village pattern. It has been discontinued for a number of years but a while back I happened upon a great deal at a local consignment shop and purchased it right away. It contained about 15 plates and a number of other items that had been broken or missing from my Mom's original set. The sweet old man who was working wrapped every single piece for me and helped carry them all to my car. It took at least a half an hour to get it all wrapped and packed safely into my car! Now we have plenty of place settings to use everyday, considering most nights there at least 6 of us for dinner if not more.