My Teacosy Revolution has a lot to live up to...it MUST deliver...!

Spring in Tasmania...

I found this lovely sewing magazine in Troyes, France, during my last trip. It was published in March 1952, and the title, 'Mon Ouvrage', translates as 'My Work'.
I was hoping I'd discover a French tea cosy pattern inside, though I wasn't that fortunate...it has mostly clothing and table linen and Broderie Anglaise patterns, which are lovely, though not as exciting for me as a tea cosy!

The previous owner has traced over the cover design to get an embroidery pattern, which is a nice touch!
Birds don't really feature on my tea cosies, as yet...I like these colours though, very 'Spring'...the question is now: How to make these colours look funky and contemporary and....Revolutionary!!??!!

To be continued in Tea Cosy format.....soon I hope...eeeek, so much work i want to do, not enough time....

Another favourite Tea Story...

A scene from the Toy Story animation...

Giving Darjeeling its 15 seconds of animation fame!

My favourite Tea Time invitation...

Swiss Tea Cosy pattern from the early 20th century

Here is an exciting example of a Swiss-German tea cosy pattern from the beginning of the 1900's. My fabulous Swiss friend Jackie found this magazine in a flea market in a small village not far from Zurich when she and her boyfriend were taking a cycling trip one weekend.

Its such a treasure of a find because it shows that not only the English and British Isles inhabitants were making tea cosies a hundred years ago...and the German (Swiss German), work for tea cosy is great: Teewarmeru, which actually sounds Japanese! My computer keyboard hasn't got a letter 'a' with two dots above it, so just picture the 'a' in Teewarmeru having two dots above it to give it a flat 'aaahhhh' sound.

Its a nice hand embroidered cosy too...I'll have to give it a go...and just a reminder that if anyone would like a copy of this pattern, free of charge, please email me, or leave a comment here, with your name and address and I'll post it off to you as soon as I can. I could try and get a translation done to go with it...I'll see how many people ask for this first!



This is the cover of the old sewing/needlework magazine...

Devonshire Tea at Neil Pitt's Menswear store

This is a regular thing I do with dear friends CatRabbit (Cat Badcock, a distant relation and craft superstar), and Alan Moyle (Photobat, fabulous Tasmanian photographer), at Neil Pitt's Menswear Store in Launceston, Tasmania. Devonshire Tea here costs $6.50 and the scones are homemade and the tea comes in little old embossed aluminium teapots, it's totally fabulous!!

Neil Pitt's occupies the old 'Majestic Theatre' in Brisbane St, Launceston and a few weeks ago we managed to ask for and receive a quick tour of the upstairs part, to discover the late 19th Century ceiling and lead-light fan lights intact above a false floor used for storage. It was a magical moment...and will probably lead to a photographic project for Alan, and emerge in my work and Cat's somehow too.

Antique Tea Cosies from my personal collection

I took advantage of my new white shelves to take this (slightly dodgy) photo of three antique Victorian/Edwardian silk tea cosies I've collected over the past five years, two have hand embroidery or ribbon work embroidery decorating them.

The red enamel teapot is a recent acquisition too, from a local junk shop...it makes a great cup of tea!