Making Space - week 6

Inspired this week by a post Cheryl wrote at Thinking About Home, I decided to make some changes in my china cabinet.  For a while now I've had a pretty rose-patterned china set displayed there - china that was inherited from my husband's paternal grandmother when she passed years ago.   

In the past, I've switched out the china for our wedding dishes (which is Noritake - Pleasure pattern) on a somewhat seasonal basis, but I hadn't done this in a couple of years, I'm thinking.  Anyway, Cheryl's post this week got me to thinking about a set of Currier & Ives stoneware (Old Grist Mill pattern) I brought home from my mother-in-law's this summer and I thought now would be a great time to swap out the china for these dishes.

Since my Noritake stoneware also has blue in it, I tried mixing the dishes and I found I really liked the effect.  I also have some brown (and earthy-colored) Frankoma items so I added them, as well as some other old items - some I have pictured below and I will explain what they are.

It was a lot of work unpacking the Currier & Ives dishes and packing up the china, but it feels really good to have a change of scenery for the winter, and to have the Currier & Ives handy to use.  I'm going to enjoy that as these are a design of dishes I grew up with, and even though these aren't my childhood dishes, a little reminiscing sounds good about now.

Changing out the china cabinet was also good for providing me a reason to sort through more items and decide to remove some of them from our home.  A photo of those things will come at the end of this post, but let me first share a few unique items in my china cabinet.

My mother-in-law was a collector of invalid feeders.  In fact, she belonged to a national society of invalid feeder collectors and went to invalid feeder conventions.  These items ranged from plain utilitarian objects, to hand-painted works of art.  The blue and white one below is perhaps one of the prettiest in her collection and I think it looks really nice amongst the blue dishes.   The glass candle holder on the left is one of two that I have and those are from my childhood home where they were often used for holiday dinners.

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The creamer pitchers below, I believe belonged to my maternal grandmother and I remember them always being in the china cabinet in my childhood home:

Aren't they cute?!?

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Moving on...  The little cast iron couple below used to belong to my Aunt Louise.  I was given her name as my middle name and everyone in the family evidently understood that I was her favorite (I came to discover when I was older).  She had no children of her own, and truth be told, she was my favorite aunt.  Though all of my aunts and uncles were just the best people ever.  Anyway...   

Aunt Louise bequeathed to me her piano, and when her things were sold at auction, I bought this little couple as I remembered admiring them when I was a little girl.  It's quite possible I'm the one who wore the paint off their faces - playing with them.    Aunt Louise would love knowing I have these and that they transport me back to wonderful times spent with her in her apartment when she was a single, working woman.  She worked in our family's doctor's office until she opened up a Christian book and gift store - which was a fascinating place to spend an afternoon I remember.  This was in the 1960's and early '70's.

It occurs to me that now would be a good time to mention that about 25 years ago I also bought this china cabinet which belonged to Aunt Louise.  An uncle (Aunt Louise's brother) didn't realize I was bidding on it, and in an effort to get the price up, he started bidding.  I looked over to see if he really wanted it, in which case I intended to stop bidding, but I saw my aunt (his wife) nudge him with her elbow and nod at me to let him know he was bidding against me and I realized it was just a mistake.  lol  I'm not sure how much more I paid than I might have otherwise, but seeing as my aunt had given me her piano, it sure didn't bother me any.  

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Next up...  While it isn't old (like most everything else in the china cabinet), I've enjoyed using this sweet cake stand I probably found a decade or so ago at TJ Max:

And I like to serve large salads in the cut glass bowls that sit atop the stand.  These bowls came from my childhood home, and I'm pretty sure they originally belonged to my maternal grandmother.  She died when I was a little thing - not quite 5 years old.

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And finally, below is a plate that has an image of the church my husband and I were married in 40 years ago, and the little bride and groom figurine sat atop my MIL's and FIL's wedding cake in 1952.

We were going to use this figure as our cake topper in 1980, but because of miscommunications, the little couple didn't make to the church (on time, or otherwise).  Fortunately, the florist had delivered extra flowers, so we made quick work of putting some fresh flowers where the figurine was supposed to go.  It was a happy solution for our wedding day, but I was thrilled to have found these little people amongst my MIL's things and be able to bring them home.  They've been in a box for the past 40 years (and many years before that).  I am so happy to display them, and don't they just look perfect with this plate?

Even though the groom has a slightly misshapen head and neither look too happy, I think they are wonderful.

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And that, friends, is a quick tour of the interesting things in my china cabinet as it looks today.  

Less interesting is a collection of items (pictured below) that I am sending out into the world.  The painted yellow pitcher has sat atop my refrigerator for years.  I think I bought it at a Goodwill store, so it will go back and maybe someone else will enjoy finding it again.  Or maybe it's not even something anyone would want anymore.  I don't know.  I'm just happy to let it go along with a few serving dishes, a lonely candle holder, a solitary punch cup, a glass dome that has no base to sit on, a creamer and sugar bowl that has lost its lid, and a stack of dessert plates we do not need.

Counting the stack of plates as one item, that's 10 more things leaving.

Week 6:  128 things gone