Thursday, November 1, 2007

Portmeirion's Holly and Ivy teawares


Have you seen the cover of the November/December issue of Tea Time Magazine? I really like the cover teapot in this issue. It's a design from Portmeirion called "The Holly and the Ivy," and if you look closely at the cup and saucer in the background, you can see that it bears the words to the old Christmas carol.

A visit to the Portmeirion web site reveals this is a 1996 pattern, so I was of course curious if it's still available. Amazon.com currently lists a set of six cups and saucers for $149.99 and the teapot for $71.99. I won't be paying that, but hey, there's always hope of stumbling across good deals one day on eBay or at T.J. Maxx!

And speaking of T.J. Maxx, I was in one the other day and saw a number of boxes containing a Spode blue and white teacup and saucer set. There's a certain pattern I was looking for, and they didn't have it, but while I was sorting through all the cups and saucers, I saw that these $9.99 Spode sets were $9.99 for a reason: "Made in China" was stamped on the bottom of the box! Spode? Made in China? What is this world coming to ...

4 comments:

  1. Wow! Mrs. McRae I love your tea cups from Czech and the teas sound delicious. Your friend Liz is the greatest!

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  2. I don't know if this is in your price range but check out Replacements LTD in NC. http://www.replacements.com/webquote/PRTHOI.htm
    I think that's the direct link to the pattern.

    They have been very helpful, to me, when I needed to add to my discontinued patterns.

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  3. Ginger,

    I had not seen a place to get just one cup and saucer, so thanks for the link!

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  4. Angela,

    You are welcome for the link. You can sign up online (for patterns that you like) and once a week or so they will send you an email with what they have in stock.

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