Blue Willow Ware , Tea Time Tuesday

Blue Willow Ware is one of my favorite patterns of china and I have been collecting bits and pieces of it since I was in my teens. Usually I would buy a saucer or bread plate found in thrift stores and the great quantities of Willow Ware seem to vary quite a bit in quality and price. I am very pleased and thankful for the Blue Willow Ware teapot my Father-in-law gave me recently. He knows I love the pattern, thank-you Dad ! Blue is my favorite color and I never tire of blue and white on my table. Blue Danube, Blue Willow Ware,and any other pieces of blue china that find their way to my home will also be used frequently. Many of the pieces shown here are gifts given to us with love from family members. My husbands' sister Judy sent me a box of lovely blue and white plates and saucers a short while ago, some of them pictured here. I was not expecting any packages in the mail, and when I got the package home and opened the box ...oh my, a true surprise and delight to my heart ,thank-you Judy! This is a tea/coffee cup I have shown before. It is my favorite tea cup and I use it often, drinking ONLY tea from it. My sister JoAnn and I spotted this tea cup in an antique store in a mountain logging town in Oregon a few years ago as we were driving home after visiting our Grandmother. See, a favorite teacup with many fond memories attached. I googled Willow Ware in researching it for this post and google alone pulled up hundreds of thousands of articles about the pattern. The pattern is commonly believed to portray the story of two doomed Chinese lovers meeting on the bridge and after death they are turned into birds. The story on Blue Willow Ware is supposedly Chinese but Blue Willow Ware was first made in England in 1780. It is still being made today. "The pattern would prove so popular it would be copied in a dozen countries by hundreds of manufacturers. Even the Chinese copied it in their hand-painted decoration." Wayne Mattox The options for collecting Blue Willow Ware are endless, thrift stores, garage sales, and even newly produced Willow Ware are readily available. The most beautiful Willow Ware I have ever seen was a child's tea set displayed in an antique store. The little tea set was in perfect condition, and the cups and saucers were egg-shell thin. The little set took my breath away. The price was very high and of course I could not justify spending so much money on a toy tea set and if I had I know I would not actually ever use it. However, I DO use all my Blue Willow Ware, and enjoy it every time I sip tea from the cup and saucer, or eat cookies and sandwiches from the little plates. Pour yourself a cup of tea in a favorite cup and visit the ladies listed below:

• Martha at Martha's Favorites*
• Lady Katherine and Lady Katherine's Tea Parlor*
• Terri at Artful Affirmations*
• Wanda Lee at The Silken Purse*
• Pam at Breath of Fresh Air*
• Sandi at Rose Chintz Cottage*