JULY 9, 2020
3-cup teapot, Arthur Wood
Tea and all things tea continue to be popular. Tea holds its own in the coffee obsessed culture we live in. When I was at Comfort Clothing I had a small side project on the weekends, creating tea cosies with plans to sell them at gourmet food shops. Some stores were concerned about whether I could meet their demand. I was trained to manufacture. My concern was whether they would pay me. Sometimes a businesses accounts payable is not as pretty as the storefronts that we shop in.
Cosy Red Grandmother’s Flower Garden
Here is the one that I was marketing. The design on the front is called Grandmother’s Flower Garden. The cosy (12″ wide x 8 ″ high) covers a range of teapot sizes from three-cups to 5 ½-cups.
Evesham, 4-cup tea pot, Royal Worcester
tea cosy covering Evesham teapot
detail of flower motif, english paper piecing, seven hexagons
tea cosy shown with Evesham cream and sugar accessories
Sarah’s Garden, 5 ½ cup tea pot, Wedgwood
detail of flower motif, english paper piecing, seven hexagons
tea cosy covering Sarah’s Garden teapot, shown with cream and sugar accessories
hexagon pattern piece with example of fabric ready for wrapping
English Paper Piecing is a method of attaching and stabilizing pieces of fabric together. The practice’s name comes from the fact that it was, and still is, popular in Britain. The technique used to paper piece involves wrapping paper shapes in fabric and then stitching the fabric together. Once a shape, block, rosette, or finished piece has been made, the papers are removed, leaving the fabric as the remaining item.
The hexagon is a design shape that goes way back. I have seen Matthias Church in Budapest where the florid late Gothic style was extensively restored in the late 19th century.
It is a motif in many quilts where the well-loved pattern is known as Grandmother’s Flower Garden (left) and Tumbling Blocks or Baby Blocks (right). It just depends on how dark and light colours are arranged. Here are two detail pictures from baby quilts that I made for my daughter c. mid 1980s.
And lastly, the hexagon pattern has been obsessively repeated in many of my paintings. Here are two examples: 42 x 48 inches, acrylic on wood panel.
left: Key West House Colours II and right: No Geography Without Stars III
