Look familiar? October 9, 2008

I’ve never thought much about Matt’s dishes, other than that they aren’t exactly my style (“my style” being, in this case, floral, colorful, heavily decorated.)  But he said he thought they were his parents’ dishes that they got for their wedding, and family dishes are my style.  So I did a little research…

Yes, this pattern: Village, by Pfaltzgraff.  Turns out, Pfaltzgraff started making it in the 1970s; Replacements.com says that it went out of production in 1976, but the Pfaltzgraff website carries tons of it, in every imaginable plate, serving piece, teapot, or snowglobe.  Yes, snowglobe.

I’ve always wanted to be able to say, “Oh these?  These have been in the family for years.”  So, it looks like we’ll be keeping Matt’s dishes.  It won’t match all of our Bodanna china (that we’ll register for), but I think it will look great with the brown pieces.

  

Ooooh: I can’t wait to do a brown and cream theme for Thanksgiving, or for an autumnal dinner party…  Yay, china patterns!

Bodanna, definitely. And Corelle as well? May 25, 2008

We’ve long decided on what kind of dishes/china we’d want.  There’s an amazing ceramics studio in town, called Bodanna–all of the pieces are made by NYC Public School students, as part of an apprenticeship program.  100% of the profits go back the the program, and the students.  It’s pretty amazing, especially when you see just how beautiful the pieces are.  We love the idea of students having made our dishes, and all of the profits going back into the program.  We also like that the style of the pottery goes along with the mugs and wine glasses Matt already has from Canada.

I have been thinking about plain white dishes, though.  I like old dishes, the kind you see in stacks in antique stores.  I like mismatched patterns, flowers, castles, maps of states.  Having a small set of plain white dishes would allow me to play with table settings, and mix and match to my heart’s content.

After some research, I’ve found that good old Corellereally is known as the most unbreakable.  It’s interesting to read the history of Corelle on their website.  It’s not “good” china, and I’ve never seen it in a department store, but it seems like many of the real women I’ve known growing up actually had it.  I’ve seen polls on bridal websites, asking brides which china their aunts, mothers, and grandmothers had, that has lasted the longest, and it’s often Corelle–which is nice, because Corelle is always marketed as an “everyday” china option.

They certainly do have nice, crisp, plain white dishes.  But of course my little eye is drawn immediately to the patterns, and to the “Hearthstone” line, which has designs that again match the dishes we like at Bodanna, and the Candian style of hand-thrown pottery.  So maybe I don’t need white dishes.  Or maybe I need white, and all of the ones I’ve already mentioned.  I think the next step would be to look at shelving options to hold all the china I think I need.