I recently had the chance to test a pattern for Laurraine at Patchwork Pottery. She pattern tested for me with the Sew-Ichigo patterns, her proof reading and attention to detail was amazing, so I was happy to return the favour. Regular readers here know my love affair with tea and tea imagery so I feel a kinship with Laurraine who is similarly inspired by tea and all that relates to it. I followed her Quilted Teacup pattern and made a Liberty lawn and linen tea cup.
Liberty lawn is the perfect match for a teacup pattern, so English, delicate and small prints- just like floral china. Ali at veryberryhandmade has started selling Liberty charm packs in a range of sizes at The Fabric Market Place. I bought a pack of 15 x 4" squares and dug into my little Liberty stash making this a scrappy project, just as Laurraine intended.
The linen is Kaufman Essex linen in bleached white. I had a selection of this sent to me when I did the Zakka Style Sew a long. I first came across Essex in a quilting bee when it was part of a fabric selection. It is linen/cotton blend, but it cuts like a heavy cotton- it doesn't slip and slide or even fray in the nightmarish way that 100% linen does. The yarn dyed variations are incredible- I will show you more soon, but I always like to have a few colours of the standard Essex in stock and I have always bought from Simply Solids.
It is quite a fiddly pattern as all 3D sewing tends to be but it is not hard. The skills covered are bias binding- making and attaching and then just standard sewing. There is a balance of hand sewing and machine stitching and she includes a glossary and diagrams of all hand stitches involved.
The pattern comes out at around the size of a medium china tea cup- so delightful! Now all I need is for Liberty to do a mix and match china tea set using their classic pattern archives!
You can find Laurraine's pattern here along with other equally detailed and cute projects.
