Not Another Tea Cosy?

Over the years I've made dozen of teacosies. Some for charity  [here and   here] others for friends and family [Here] 

And even some which won a place in a prestigious exhibition [I still can't believe it] But this summer I have been taking a tea cosy apart. It's a vintage linen one, printed with an embroidery design. I have been repurposing it to form the basis for a piece of needlework which will be a small part of a friend's much larger project. Apart from the green bugle beads I've not had to buy any other materials. I cannot reveal more about this project right now - but this is my progress so far.

More details in the Autumn! 

[on the subject of crafts, the latest series of Repair House, 6.45 BBC 2 has been great] 

The Adventures Of Grumble Bear

Two days after Bob found my Slop in a CS in Dereham, I found this book for 50p in a CS in Wymondham.

I was quite intrigued, especially when I found that inside the covers were diagrams for stitchery plus some correspondence from the book's owner [but that's another story] I decided I wanted to try my hand at smock making. I started investigating the subject. I discovered that Alice's little book is the one everybody refers to - and copies of it go for £50 in the USA [no, I'm not selling] 

Although smocks were seen being worn by shepherds in Sussex, Hertfordshire and Berkshire even in the 1970s, they've almost all been replaced by more modern garb on the farms. Some Morris Dancers wear them - and a few people recreate the old designs just for pleasure.

I had not realised that the embroidery on a smock often showed the occupation of the wearer - so the farmer at market, looking to hire workers, could see [without asking] whether they were woodmen, shepherds, gardeners, cowherds, milkmaids or gravediggers etc. I looked at the patterns, and read the instructions - smocks were made from a set of rectangles - some buttoned all the way down the front, some slipped over the head with a button at the neck, some were symmetrical, with a larger neckline, and could be worn either way round. 

The more I read, the more fascinated I became. I'd done smocking at school, and knew the basic principal; You make even gathers across a length of fabric and pull it up tightly, to make corrugated 'reeds'. Then you stitch on the top surface, making patterns with variations of three stitches [reed, basket or chevron] Once that is done, you snip and remove the gathering threads and are left with a piece of fabric which is elastic and stretches round curves and springs back into shape.

I'd made myself a top with a smocked panel in my teens, and did a smocked dress for Liz when she was a baby. 

A traditional smock has smocked panels on the front, back and cuffs, plus embroidery on the shoulders, collar, sleeves and "boxes" [these are the unsmocked panels on either side of the front and back smocking]

I realised it would take me forever to make one. I discovered that a company in Hampshire in the 80s took 4-6 weeks to complete bespoke smocks for people.

So I compromised- I decided that Grumble Bear should have a new outfit. GB was the bear my Mum bought for Steph when she was born. He had a very grumbly growl [sadly it stopped working years ago] I found a piece of linen in my stash, and using the book, I chose designs based on 'Dorset Woodman' [well it seemed appropriate] and made a tiny Dorset Button to finish it off at the neck.

He still looks disgruntled, despite his fancy new outfit! Yes it is a little bit short, but that's because I wanted it to look good when he is sitting down on the spare bed. I am not sure if I have the energy to make a proper full size smock - but I think I would like to develop the ideas of smocking, and the three embroidery stitches used in smocks [single feather a.k.a. blanket, chain and feather]

Here you can see details of front, back, shoulders, cuffs and boxes

I've got some small bits of linen in the Great Stash. Maybe I need to make yet another tea cosy...

Sitting And Stitching

I am endeavouring to follow doctor's orders, and when my arthritic knee hurts, I elevate my leg and rest. Sometimes! On Saturday I decided to allow myself lots of time at the sewing machine - maybe not exactly the same as having an elevated leg, but at least I was sitting down.
I managed to complete a whole stack of sewing jobs for various friends

• shortening a pair of curtains, and replacing the eyelets with Rufflette tape
• re-attaching a waistband to a friend's trousers
• doing an invisible repair on a ripped jacket for another friend
• shortening a pair of my own trousers [which I have been wearing for weeks with the unsewn hems just turned up and pressed inside]
• making yet another tea-cosy [a simple one, no frills one this time]

I got out the embroidery machine to produce a couple of bibs for friends of Steph and Liz who have recently had babies

- and on the knitting front I made the little coat and beret from the vintage pattern I used for the dress a few weeks back.

Whilst the red pixie hood on the pattern looks very cute, I suspect my young friend may struggle to fasten the button under the chin - the beret will be easier to pull on. I have cheated with those buttons too - they are decorative, and there are two strips of velcro under the double breasted flap.

A recent post by Heather at Hookery has reminded me that it is months since I attempted any serious crochet. Maybe I should plan some hooking for the Easter Holidays...

The Manchester "T" Cosy

One of Steph's early comments about her new company was that she loved the fact that the team drank plenty of tea during the working day. However, they did not have a teacosy. So she volunteered me to provide one [well, not many Mums can say their they have had teacosies exhibited in Norwich Cathedral] Things sort of spiralled out of hand - Tangible Branding is a consumer research company specialising in improving brand performance through discovering insight, making connections and generating ideas. 

 

They thought they'd like one with a 'Manchester' theme. That ruled out a simple knitted one. Unfortunately the office teapot is not a regular round Brown Betty, but the 'coupe' shape. So here's what I came up with...

The brief—to make a tea cosy for the team at Tangible Branding. This was to fit the existing white china teapot, which is not the traditional round ‘brown betty’ shape.

The cosy should have a ‘Manchester theme’. I decided to avoid football, music and TV links, and consider instead the architecture of the city.

1; because of the shape of the pot, I opted for a cuboid cosy—this reflects the idea of bricks and building

2; my base colour is grey—to reflect the rain for which Manchester is famous, but more importantly, the steely determination of the industrialists and entrepreneurs who built this city.

 3; I chose 7 landmarks, recognisable by their silhouette—the Town Hall, the City Library, Beetham Tower, Urbis, IWM North, the Hulme Arch, and the Lowry Millennium Bridge. These were created in felt with machine stitched embellishments. These were then handstitched to the base.

4; Then I picked 8 streets—Deansgate [of course!] Corporation Street, Canal Street, Quay Street, Albert Square, King Street, Piccadilly and Exchange Square. These names were embroidered on evenweave linen and attached to the base.

5; The top was decorated with a spiral of machine stitching—which leads into [or maybe out from?] the centre– where there is a button with the Tangible logo.

6; Finally the cosy fastens underneath the handle with a button and loop closure. Again I stitched a T for tangible

I stitched a label with all the details, and put that on the inside. And then I posted off their Manchester T cosy

[I have to say thankyou to Bob, who provided lots of encouragement during the process - including the name]