Blue Ridge to remember........

On Friday MIL Joyce & I ran out to the Brush Creek Antiques to recovering my left behind birthday gift to me salt shaker. I have since discovered that the name of my latest Blue Ridge Pottery pattern is Bittersweet according to the Blue Ridge Pottery Pattern Identification Page. Aren’t they just too cute?!



I have been reading up on Blue Ridge Pottery/China/Dinnerware by Southern Potteries. It has an interesting history. In brief Blue Ridge China Company started in 1938. The china was designed and individually hand painted by local women in Erwin Tennessee. Southern Potteries, AKA Blue Ridge, stopped producing dinnerware in 1957. I read somewhere on the net that there are over 400 different patterns of this hand painted pottery along with 11 different shapes or line treatments.

I first fell in love with Fiestaware & Blue Ridge Pottery as a kid. My mom had a couple Fiestaware pieces & a Blue Ridge fruit bowl in the Mountain Ivy pattern. As Martha Stewart in all her domestic wisdom found it necessary a few years ago to highlight Fiestaware on her show the prices have shot up to more than I am able or willing to spend. I acquired that little Mountain Ivy fruit bowl when my mom got remarried. Then in the summer of 2003 we spent 2 ½ months with our friends John & Jen, in Sussex County New Jersey between moving from FL to MI. John was one of my John’s best friends & the best man at our wedding. Let’s just say that this was time well spent as we knew that our time with John was limited.

While we were there I found a Mountain Ivy dinner plate in one of the quaint local antique shops. It took 3 times of going to the same shop over the course of those months for me to finally buy it. They were asking more than I wanted to spend for it ($15.00 I think). Seeing as we were moving to MI with no jobs & not working while in NJ it wasn’t high on the priority list to be buying more dishes. I just couldn’t let it pass. I ended up buying it near the end of our stay & now I am so glad that I did. Every time I look at that plate I think of that summer & how the fates granted us that time with John. I smile because he would have liked that I started collecting Blue Ridge Pottery. Just one last little jab to annoy my John with.

Thanks Rain Man for the excuse to have yet one more thing to collect, although I would trade all my collections to have you here to deliver your own jabs in the way only you can.