Diary of a Teapot Collector, by Sue Blazye

April 2005

Hi everyone

I’m glad to see that Cardewclub.com is now up and running.

I am getting the next lot of pictures ready for them to enter and when I get a bit of time, I will be checking to see if they have been listed correctly.

I went to the NEC Spring Fair to check out the new designs for this year.

Tony Carter had 11 ‘new’ designs but I am sorry to say that 9 of them were re-issues of old designs. There were only two new designs - a sewing machine and a one-cup golf bag.

Cosmic Designs have no new teapots this year.

Cardew Design were not standing at the show this year but their last year?s ?Sitting Disney? range was available for sale on the ‘Enesco’ stand.

Enesco had a beautiful new range of ‘Franz’ pots, the newest one of two goldfish, which is fabulous.

Swineside Teapottery had three new designs - a lovely medium heart ideal for Valentines Day. It is very similar to the old ‘Rising Hawk’ one. They have also done a Golf Bag, which is larger than the Carter one. The other new design is a round of cheese to publicise ‘Wensleydale Cheese’. They have revamped a couple of old designs as well. The Titmarsh Watering Can is now a Romany Watering Can and the Wheelbarrow now has vegetables on it. Oh yes, there is also another aga - this time an Italian one.

Gary is working hard on new designs. He is certainly heading in a new direction this year with his new Deco range and his huge Morrisey pot.

I had an interesting visit to Richard Parrington’s house. We had a viewing of the DVD that he has produced about his life in the world of teapots and saw the model of the first new teapot since the break up of his company in the late 1990s. The teapot is called ‘Mars and Venus’ and is going to be a low edition of around 100 though I am not sure what the price is going to be yet.

I bought lots of delightful small pots from the ‘Fitz and Floyd’ outlet in Orlando. Whilst I was there, I also bought through Amazon on the Internet a new book called ‘The Teapot Book’ written by Steve Woodhead.

Richard Godfrey is featured in the book. He is someone who comes from Devon and Paul Cardew may invite him to his open day in June. Richard has a stall at the Bovey Tracey annual fair.

I notice that not many of you have ordered the new ‘Fairy Infusion’ teapot that Paul Cardew is producing but… It’s not surprising really as we haven’t even seen a picture of it.

That is all I can think of for now. See you all in Devon for the open day.

I have booked a table at the Passage House Hotel. Please let me know if you will be joining us on Friday night at 7.00 p.m.

Sue