Out With The Old

When Tony and I got married more than 30 years ago, our dish pattern was a very simple Wedgwood stoneware called Blue Pacific; a greyish-cream background, with a blue band around the rim.  I eventually had a service for 8 (dinner plates, salad plates, soup bowls, bread and butter plates, coffee cups, and saucers) along with serving bowls and platters.

We used the pieces everyday.  As you might expect, along the way some things got broken, but it didn't matter; there was still more than enough for our family of five.  However, somewhere in the late 90s I tried to get some replacement plates, only to find out the pattern had been discontinued.  I bought a set of 5 blue-and-white ironstone plates and kept going.

I really like the Wedgwood, and there's a lot of good memories associated with it.  I've investigated options for filling in the gaps in the set.  The dishes I needed were pretty pricy on the online sites, and I could never find another pattern that had the right shape and color.  Last year we were down to five salad plates (which I tend to use instead of the larger dinner plates) and four cereal bowls, one of which was starting to crack.

For Christmas Tony and I received a joint present from Son Brian and Daughter-In-Law Nicole: a huge box filled with eight smaller boxes, each containing a place setting of Fiestaware in Cobalt Blue.  I loved the dark blue color, but wondered if it wasn't time to start fresh, so with Nicole's permission I exchanged six of the boxes for two of each of three other colors.  Now my cabinet is a riot of Cobalt, Scarlet, Lemongrass, and Sunflower:

That shelf needs a dusting, doesn't it?

I boxed up the old vintage dishes to make room for the new ones. I'm going to look into selling them to a china replacement store. Maybe I'll get enough to replace the serving dishes, too, and my discards will make someone else's day.