Quick…what’s bergamot? Some sort of wildflower, you say? Well…yes…and no!
My good friend Liz had a birthday this week. I had to do something extra nice for her because she’s such an awesome friend. Anyway, she’s English and loves Earl Grey Tea. She also really loved the art houses I did recently. Couple that with the fact that I saw this little house over at Sue Bleweiss’s blog awhile ago, and I knew I had to make Liz her own little art house that stores her beloved Earl Grey Tea!
So, as any self respecting tea drinker knows, Earl Grey is 
black tea flavored with bergamot, so looking for inspiration, I did a quick google and discovered that the bergamot that flavors Earl Grey tea is an orange, Citrus aurantium ssp. bergamia to be exact! (Info and image from Wikipedia) It’s a pear-shaped, bitter fruit and grows best in Calabria, Italy! Who knew….certainly not me!
The other bergamot (Monarda didyma) is also known as Scarlet Beebalm. Pretty, but not a tea flavoring!
Any old who… this was the inspiration I needed to focus on a design for a teahouse! I constructed it similarly to my other 3-d houses, but becasue of the small size of it (the sides of the house are 3.5” x 4”), most of the construction was done by HAND! Through PELTEX! AAAHHH! The only thing that made it bearable (besides a strong thimble) is that the zigzagging around all the edges made little holes for the needle to go through. Anyway, I got this far on the sewing machine:
And then I spent some quality time with my thimble. The end result is worth it:
Yes, that is a homemade Dorset Button. I Hope she likes it…and I hope she can keep from peeking at my blog like I told her until she gets it in person!
14 Responses
I would not think she could help but like it. It is wonderful!
Candy you never cease to AMAZE me!!!!!
Wow! That is so cute!
That is so cool!!
oh, that is just darling and original!
Very cute little house 🙂
Such a cute gift!
Cute house to store tea…I will also try to make one to keep my collection of http://www.talbottteas.com/
okay, that is ridiculously cute! i love it!!
çok güzel olmuş bence onun içine başka şeylerde konulabilir:)
That is simply divine! Love it!
To answer your question on my blog, my project had absolutely no hand sewing – but it was big enough to negotiate my way around the sewing machine, and had a slightly different construction process. That book on fabric boxes (I linked to in my post http://nicolemdesign.blogspot.com/2009/05/memory-chest.html ) might be worth you having a look. That’s where I learned how to do it. I used bias binding instead of satin-stitching the edges.
Candy, the Teahouse for Liz is darling. This is my first visit to your site, and I love it. I just recently discovered the magic of Peltex, and now with my fabric collage I can work also in 3-D. You are way, way ahead of me on that! Thanks for sharing your teriffic pieces. I’ll be back. http://kbartdesigns.com