Thursday 26 February 2009

Vintage Thingies Thursday 17 - Tea Cosies

This week I'm playing along again! The Coloradolady is hosting, and on her blog here you can find the links to other blogs showing their vintage finds and treasures.




This week I'll show you two of my newer tea cosies. This first one is from the 1960's, very straight edges and stripes. The fabric is heavy cotton and the insulation layer is foamy plastic. The stain may be coffee or tea; I'll need to try and wash it away.



This other one is more interesting. The covering chintz is from the 1950's. The tea cosy is very heavy. When my mother gave this one to me, she told me I could renew the insulation. I picked up the seam connecting to top fabric and the inner flannel, and guess what I found? The original wool fabric (dark red with a cream pattern, heavily damaged by burning and stains), and the original insulation. It was newspapers dated several years before my birth! I left all the original pages there, added some new news, washed the fabrics and put it all together again.



I think this fabric has a Mediterranean touch, hot summer days and laundry lines across the window. The tea cosy was used also in the garden when we had mid-morning tea and coffee ("elva-kaffe" like our grandmother used to say) or afternoon coffee with the grandparents, great aunt Saima, my parents, the kids who happened to be at home and the summer exchange students or other friends we happened to have living in the house in later years.


There was a round table, four wooden garden chairs, two benches and the lawn to sit on. Naturally, the sun was always shining, the lake was blue and the birds were singing.


In this last picture is a generous peek at the secret Tea Swap project I have been working on. I'm leaving for a little holiday trip tonight, and when I come back on Tuesday evening, I will pack this and the other two things together and send them on their long way on Wednesday.

21 comments:

  1. Great sneak peek!!! Wow how fun to find old newspapers inside the tea cozy. Hopefully they were still able to be read!

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  2. Love that colourful 50s cosy :)

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  3. Beautiful tea quilt!
    I like the 2nd tea cozy best, too. Very cheerful.

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  4. I love the graphics in the 50's tea cozy. That is so very cute..and what an adorable quilt. Such talant. Thanks for the peek today.

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  5. lucky person who is the recipient of your tea swap! And I love the tea cozy's.

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  6. Nice cozys! Thanks for the peek!

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  7. Love the cozys. What great family memories you must have! Lucky, lucky swap partner. Enjoy your holiday!

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  8. Your tea cozies just snagged my heart. They're fantastic!
    Ooo, what a great sneak peek!

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  9. Love the vintage novelty fabric in the cozy. Your swap partner is going to love it.

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  10. Love your vintage tea cozies! There is something about them that makes tea time so special! I love your blog home and must return to visit again! Have a great trip and happy VTT!

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  11. Love your tea cozies. They're just wonderful..could you read a bit of the older newspaper..what fun that would be. Happy VTT, and have a great weekend.

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  12. I love the "Mediterranean" cosy! (I think you put the wrong photo in for the Chintz, though!) Could you repost the photo for next week?

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  13. I love the stories about your tea cozies! The second one with its meditteranean touch is the one I like best! Your sneak peak looks so good, the fabric with little cups is pretty!

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  14. I love the tea cozies and the peek at the the Tea Swap quilt is wonderful...its storming here so a nice cup of tea sounds just right.

    Your story of summer tea in the garden...ah, I think it warmed me up a bit!

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  15. Wow what a lovely story to go with your tea cosy! Such a treasure!

    Oooo lovely peek too! The teacup fabric is perfect.

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  16. Love what you did with the chintz cozy, adding new newspaper to the old, cool idea.
    Roslyn

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  17. Wonderful tea cosies! Your swap project looks gorgeous, someone is going to be very lucky.

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  18. Thank you for all the comments! The newspapers were printed on good Finnish paper, so of course I could read the old news. And so will the next person who will want to wash the window print chintz someday.

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  19. I want you to see the Vintage Tea Cozy I have it is very nice . Hoping you may know more about it .
    Linda Marie
    www.sunflowerlane.biz

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