A happy plethora of pink & red...

Today I broke into some of the stash of fabrics that Ian had given me for my birthday. I wanted to make something small that wouldn't use up too much of the loveliness....so my mind turned to the thing that always seems to be lacking in my handbag - a little teabag holder (of course). I don't drink normal tea or coffee (although oddly I do love coffee cake), and often when I go to a friend's house they don't have any herb teas. Sitting there drinking a glass of water instead of sharing in the cosiness and companionship that comes from tea drinking seems most unsociable, so I have adopted the habit of keeping a couple of sachets in my bag...but that's dissatisfactory as tea doesn't taste nice when it's been borne from a crinkled old sachet. So I made my little teabag holder from these fabrics:

I cut a rose from the white fabric and appliqued it on to the flap. I had no idea whether my machine would cope with doing something on that intricate a scale, but actually it was really good, so I then decided to try and pick out some of the smaller lines created by the inner rose petals...it was a sewing session, for once, where everything went right!

I over-locked the sides of the pouch (gosh, pouch is such an unpleasant word...sorry!) to hold it all together, which was a new technique to me, but I found the result most pleasing!

And here it is with my olive bowl that I picked up from the ceramics studio today...you can see I was working to a theme here! I have gone quite crazy for the combination of pink and red.

And on the left is Ian's pot...which I love.

Anyway, I know Mr Teacakes will disapprove of this question....but does anyone have any tea recommendations? My addiction to collecting new flavours has become the source of some resentment in my house and when I'd accumulated over 40 different varieties Ian forced me to do a cull and resign at least 35 of them to the garage, only permitted to re-enter the house on a strict rotation basis. My two favourite staples are Licorice Tea and then the rather dull, but trusty, Peppermint tea, so this leaves me with only three other possibilities at any one time! The man is a teabag tyrant!