Blue and White Chinaware for Dolls

On the platter is Fair Mount near Philadelphia
by Stubbs Staffordshire. I've made it printable
and of a color similar to the Blue Willow plates.

        "Transfer printing is a method of decorating pottery or other materials using an engraved copper or steel plate from which a monochrome print on paper is taken which is then transferred by pressing onto the ceramic piece. Pottery decorated using the technique is known as transferware or transfer ware."
        Indigo or Cobalt blue and white are by far the most popular combinations in transferware but it also comes in brown and white, black and white, green and white, red and white....well, you get the idea. It has been manufactured for over 100 years from many different ceramic companies. Staffordshire is probably the most famous company to produce collectible transferware.

• A Guide to Vintage & Antique Transerware China
• Transferware: It's not just blue or Chinese
• Transfer Printing Demonstration at Spode
• Transferware China - 101 Class by Adirondack Girl at Heart
• "Little Blue Willow Plate" story for children
• Printable Blue China Plate poem
• Blue Rose Dishes for Printing and Crafting too...

The Blue-Willow Plates that tell a legend of two lovers.

Small sauce bowls. These are hand painted blue and white.

A small, three inch tall vase made in China and it is blue and white.

 

 

Blue and white doll sized tea set, added to the set this week.

Lovely small salt cellars fit in perfectly with this collection.

 

Collection of Blue Canton Chinaware sold 100 years ago.

 The Legend Behind Blue Willow China

       "Everybody knows Canton Chinaware - the always popular open stock "willow" pattern - with its pagodas, bridges, streams, boats, little figures of men and women, and the love birds. A quaint legend has it that the story depicted on the china tells how a mandarin had an only daughter, Li-Chi, who fell in love with her father's secretary, Chang.
       The mandarin forbade the match, so the lovers eloped, hiding for a time in a gardener's cottage, until at last they attempted to make their escape to an island which was Chang's home. The mandarin pursued them, whip in hand and would have killed them had not the gods come to the rescue and changed the two into a pair of turtle doves.
       In the design will be seen the mandarin's house with a fence round it, the gardener's cottage, a bridge over which the mandarin ran after his daughter, who, with a staff in hand was accompanied by Chang. Above are the turtle doves, and beyond is a boat crossing to the island. At the time of the elopement the willow was shedding its leaves, hence the name of the design." 

Above is the original antique blue willow legendary plate design. It is a printable for those
 students who would like to decoupage a set of china plates for their dolls. Cut cardboard to
back the plate designs and stick them together with Mod Podge. Give your doll's dinnerware
several coats of Mod Podge to make them durable enough to play with!