I have more than a few teapots. I can match several of the ones posted already, so I'll post different ones. I'm into reuse, and I hate seeing beautiful china being sold cheaply at thrift stores, knowing someone loved it. I rescue what I can.
The first teapot I ever got was this one. It was my grandmother's, and when I was in high school I used it all the time, so she gave it to me. In the rat trap off campus house I had in college, it was used by starving students :D
When grandma cleaned out her house to move she gave my mom a set of violet pattern tea party plates, my mom knew I loved them, and gave them to me. I have bought more of the pattern over the years, and have had a lot of tea parties involving them!
At one point I found a teapot that matched them and got it to go with the violet china.
Some of the tea parties were with my friends, we would all dress up in garden party clothes and use all the pretty china and be elegant and silly.
Some were more interesting though. I'd make an appointment with an old lady who lived alone, all I asked of her was I needed a pan of boiling water, and I was willing to fill it and do it. I'd show up with a cooler, packed with a tablecloth, linen napkins, lovely china, beautiful dishes filled with all kinds of neat nibbly things, and I'd make tea in the pot, and we'd have a tea party and laugh and I'd get her to tell me stories of her life. When we were done, it all packed up into my cooler and she had no mess to deal with. It was great fun and I learned a LOT.
My neat antique china has had an interesting life, both before I got it, and since.
