A Great Thrift Store Find!

I've been doing a lot better staying away from the thrift stores. For awhile there I was going almost every day on my lunch hour. I did go once last week and boy am I glad I did! I found my perfect china. It's not a full set but now I have something to hunt for. The pattern is Noritake Athlone and I only paid $12.99 for all these pieces. It's far from being a complete set though. There aren't any dinner plates. I looked this pattern up on this web site and just the 8 bread plates I have sell for $60. Each dinner plate on that site sells for $19.99 so I may just buy a couple every once in awhile...this is going to be a slow process getting a full set because of my budget constraints but it will be fun. Note to my kids: I would love any extra pieces as birthday or christmas gifts!

This set has a medium size platter, 4 salad plates, 8 bread plates, 4 soup bowls and 8 small bowls....makes me wonder where the rest are??? I went back to the thrift store the next day just to be sure they somehow didn't get split up but no such luck. I love the thrill of hunting for something so I'm excited!

Since there aren't any dinner plates I figure I can do the mix and match thing and use my bluebird plates that I got at the same thrift store. Oh, the thrift store I got these at was Savers...they have much better stuff than the Goodwill! I think both of these go together pretty well. (click to enlarge)

I'm trying to find out how old this pattern is. If anyone knows, please tell me! I even emailed Noritake and they just referred me to some book that someone wrote on Noritake china.
I also made another rose from the coffee filters last night. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, click here. This one came out even better than the first. The new one is one the right. I used yellow and pink watercolors on this one.