Blue & White Stuff!

I'm a sucker for blue & white stuff. I love it!

Blue has always been my favourite colour. When my sister & I were little she got the pink dresses & I got blue, my choice!

I use white crockery for everyday but my best stuff is blue & white willow pattern. I used to use that every day until Wedgewood in their wisdom stopped producing and I couldn't replace it.

Blue doesn't seem to be very fashionable & it's often difficult to buy things for the house. I struggled to replace my blue carpets a few years ago, I could get a hideous bright blue synthetic one but wool was difficult. I eventually ended up with a medium grey, not as nice as my previous airforce blue one but OK.
Blue has a reputation for being cold yet I find it very relaxing & fresh. It hasn't been in fashion for clothes though for  years, well other than denim which seems timeless. Odd but navy was out of fashion for donkeys years, I couldn't buy navy shoes, coats, jackets or dresses until a couple of years ago & I never wear black so it was a nightmare.

I can never buy light blue jumpers or T shirts and it's not easy to buy blue fabric. Luckily blue wool is easier to buy and so is light blue cotton yarn, I've had some stored away for a few years. I had intended to make a couple of jumpers but never got around to it. A few months ago a lady from our charity knitting group gave me some white cotton but I had lots of other things on the needles so never did anything with it.

Last week I decided to get cracking on making this. (It's a blanket not a cloak just in case you were wondering!).

Well an easier version of it just using a single square to get it finished quicker.

I've made twenty squares now so more than half way, I need at least 36 if I have enough balls of white cotton but I think I fancy joining the squares in light blue.

Hope I don't get distracted and start something else before I get it finished! I'm a terror for doing that. 

I've just finished crocheting a shawl for a friend & a knitted chick to hold a Cadbury's cream egg.

• Currently I have a lace shawl on the go which I have been knitting for over a year now. It's been pulled out at least 3 times but I can't seem to accept that I can't finish it for some reason. 

• I am also making another crocheted blanket made up of tiny little squares, that's an ongoing activity which could take years!

That's not a photograph of my squares, it's the gorgeous picture from Annies Place Blog which got me interested in making little squares. (There are lots of great crochet ideas there.)

• I have two advent calendars half made which didn't get finished at Christmas as I was in hospital and a large Christmas stocking cut out. They can wait until next autumn.

• I have three replacement cushion covers for my dining room chairs to finish and at least four cushions for the living room cut out and ready to sew.

Think I had better stop it's getting too depressing!

Willow Pattern

I have lots of Willow pattern stuff, I’m a sucker for it!

I can’t remember the first time I saw the design but I remember the first time I saw a Welsh dresser with the Willow pattern crockery on it. My aunt and uncle got a new council house way back in the ‘fifties and the first time I went to see it, I fell in love with their Welsh dresser.

When we bought our first home I knew I had to have one and had to collect the Willow pattern crockery to go with it. The first time my mother in law saw the dresser she said, “It’s old and looks second hand. Why didn’t you buy teak?” In the ‘sixties teak, chrome and glass were the latest trends. Everyone had them but I really disliked them! So trying to be polite I told her I preferred old fashioned furniture and that teak wasn’t my cup of tea. I’ve never regretted it, it’s still there, looking a little bit the worse for wear after nearly forty years. Just wish I could have bought the Ercol dresser but it was too big for the dining room we had then and much too expensive.

I looked at the different dinner services available to go with the dresser and there were two I liked, both in the traditional blue and white. Spode's Blue Italian was lovely and so was Wedgewood’s Willow. I decided on the Wedgewood, I preferred the Willow design, it was better known and I thought would be available to buy for years to come. They advertised that all their dinner services would be produced for fifteen years.

I gradually bought the Wedgewood Willow dinner service and decided that I wanted the pleasure of using it everyday. My Mam always had china she didn’t use. I suppose they didn’t have much before and after the War so they had to be very careful about their possessions. They never knew if they could replace them. She died before she was fifty and never had the pleasure of using it. So we used our Willow for about five years. Then, in their wisdom Wedgewood withdrew the design. Apart from the dinner plates (which I had lots of) I stopped using the service as I knew I wouldn’t be able to replace anything I broke.

Well it’s been sitting on and in the dresser for years and I think it’s time I started to use it again. My daughter and daughter in law don’t like traditional stuff so no point in keeping it for them. I might as well get the pleasure out of using it even if I break something. There’s always eBay!

I love the story of the Willow Pattern and I found a poem about it:

The Willow Pattern Poem

My Willow ware plate has a story,
Pictorial, painted in blue
From the land of tea and the tea plant

And the little brown man with a queue.

Whatever the food you serve, daughter

Romance enters into the feast,
If you only pay heed to the legend,

On the old china plate from the East.

Koong Shee was a mandarin’s daughter
And Chang was her lover, ah me,

or surely her father’s accountant

Might never wed pretty Koong Shee.

So Chang was expelled from the compound,

The lover’s alliance to break,

And pretty Koong Shee was imprisoned

In a little blue house by the lake.

The Doughty old mandarin reasoned

It was time that his daughter should wed,

And the groom of his choosing should banish,

That silly romance from her head.

In symbols the dress she should wear,

Her headband of scarlet lay waiting,

She should ride in a gold wedding chair.

He was busily plotting and planning,

When a message was brought him one day,

Young Chang had invaded the palace,

And taken his sweetheart away.

They were over the bridge when he saw them,

They were passing the big willow tree,

And a boat at the edge of the water,

Stood waiting for Chang and Koong Shee.

The furious mandarin followed,

The groom with revenge in his eyes,

But the little boat danced on the water

And travelled away with the prize.

But vengeance pursued to their shelter

And burned the pagoda, they say

From out of the flames rose the lovers

A pair of doves winging away.

They flew toward the western heaven

The pretty Koong Shee and her Chang

Or so says the famous old legend

From the land of the Yangtze Kiang.

I wouldn’t be one to deny it,

For the little blue dove and her mate

Forever are flying together

Across my Willow ware plate.