Figgjo Inspired Tea Cozy
Tea cozy and MCM Figgjo tea pot
I have a tea pot that I use in Maine - its from Norway from the 60’s.
It’s by Figgjo in a well-known pattern called Market by designer Turi Gramstad Oliver. I love her illustrations - she has a very sketchy and free style. I also have a matching sugar bowl and tiny creamer, so cute!
Turi’s illustrations, so fun!
Since the tea pot is on the larger size (5 cups?) I wanted to make a cozy to keep the tea hot. This is the first one I made, so I measured my tea pot a few times! and then made a paper pattern.
Planning out the fabric and color combos is the fun part. Of course this is another project where scraps come in handy. I had scraps of linen and leftover upholstery fabric when I refinished and reupholstered my Heywood Wakefield dogbone chairs - notice the pebbled textured blue fabric on the seat cushion - the cozy will definitely match the Maine decor! Also I used regular cotton quilt batting for the insulation and cotton fabric for the lining.
If you ever want to know what to do with Swiss cheese, more Swiss cheese and even more Swiss cheese buy this cookbook Alpine Cooking. It actually is an awesome book with great recipes and has come in handy 1600 ft above sea level.
I always start out a project by sketching, it helps me think through design, size, what fabric and trim I want to use and also document decisions. Since this was my first tea cozy I did a ton of research online. I didn’t want to put all of the work into it only to find it was too tight to fit!
Here are some of my sketches and ideas for embroidery; a bird with a funky tail and fish with a mohawk, LOL. It also reminds me of a hand-embroidered halter top my mom made and I wore in the early 70’s.
The linen was a little on the bright side so I decided to dye it in black tea. It worked great.
Next time, I will use a larger piece of linen! I skimped with a too small piece and in the end I needed to add more fabric to span the height of the cozy. I just covered up the seam with some trim but it looks deliberate, so you really can fix any issue with trim creativity! You can see the difference when you look at my sketch versus the finished cozy. But then again a sketch is only an idea, not set in stone.
I do get a ton of inspiration from pinterest, especially when I can’t sleep at night - a sinister habit that only makes insomnia worse, a delicious never-ending cycle! But there are so many talented folks on pinterest and the satin stitched flowers are a gorgeous example of a color palette and an embroidery style I wanted to incorporate into my project.
BTW these projects also help you learn new things and provide inspiration and aspirations, so a good excuse to crack out on pinterest at 3 in the morning! Again part of the vicious cycle!
And here are some close-ups of WIP and finished work. I added some opalescent seed beads to the embroidery on the fish and the bird. I had some ribbon that I used to make my own piping (you can see how it warped a little, I need to hone my skills on that!). And also rick rack that I bought for no reason at all that just happened to match the project.
The handle at the top is supposed to resemble a leaf. I also had 2 matching vintage buttons in my stash that look like carved ivory, but I think are bakelite and they make it easy to take the cozy on and off the pot.
I also made a mat to protect the table. It was a fun project and I use it all the time (when I’m drinking tea of course! But who knows is really in that pot?) :P
