Happy New Year!

We've really loved 2009. It's been manic, productive and exciting, but most of all it's been so much FUN! We hope you've all had a good year and that ToDryFor has given you a chuckle as well as some great designer tea towels to dry up with.

We want to wish you all a very happy 2010 - can you believe it's a new decade already? We've got loads of wonderful things planned for the new year, so do keep popping back!

We've gone Lahloo-py over this wonderful tea!

If, like us, you're rather partial to a good cuppa, you will fall in love with Lahloo tea! Kate Gover (Lahloo's founder) has chosen teas from the world's most enchanting family-owned, fairly traded and sustainable tea gardens.

This ain't no Tetley tea we're talking about here!

Excitingly, Kate has given us lots of lovely tea samples to send out to our ToDryFor customers in the run up to Christmas (while stocks last). Each sachet includes an amazing recipe card for tea-related treats; you could be sipping on an Earl Grey mar-tea-ni (get it?) or feasting on Green Jasmine & Peppermint sorbet...incredible!!

Not only that...but you can claim a 10% discount off Lahloo tea until the 28th February 2010; simply enter the code TDF10 at their checkout - www.lahlootea.co.uk

AARRGGH! Panic! It's nearly Christmas...

Goodness! How did that happen? It's December already, which means that it's nearly time to dust off the decorations and get ready for Christmas.

If like us you have been putting off your xmas shopping for as long as possible, you will now be in a state of festive-induced panic...Don't worry, there's still time to listen to Mariah Carey's Christmas album whilst snuggling up in front of the fire with a glass of port and some mince pies.

Here are the all important 'order by' dates to ensure you get your tea towels in time:

UK:
Friday 18th December

Western Europe:
Thursday 10th December

Japan, USA, Canada and Eastern Europe:
Wednesday 9th December

Rest of world (including Australia and New Zealand):
Thursday 3rd December

If you have an emergency that means you are unable to place your order before the above dates, do get in touch and we will try to work our delivery magic to ensure you get everything you need.

Don't forget, if you pull the short straw this year and have to clean up after Christmas dinner whilst everyone else snoozes in front of a festive You've Been Framed, at least you get to do it in style with ToDryFor...Merry Christmas!

Prints Charming

We're very excited to have some new ToDryFor publicity material, created by graphic designer extraordinaire, HelloWilson.

We'd been thinking about creating a brochure for sometime, having received requests from numerous people who didn't have internet connection but were still in desperate need of some lovely new tea towels.

HelloWilson painstakingly colour-coded around 70 of the tea towel designs featured on ToDryFor and magically transformed them into what we think is a masterpiece of print! She also thought she'd notch up some postcards to boot - hey presto, we have lots of super stylish new promo material to give away. Do feel free to request a brochure for yourself or friends and family!

Do you need any super-swish design work doing?

Visit HelloWilson's blog for more info...

Fancy a cabbage with your tea towel, sir?

We had a great day out yesterday, running a [fruit and vegetable] tea towel stall at Midcentury.Modern. We weren't sure if our matching ToDryFor aprons would be a bit OTT, but now we don't really want to take them off!

We met lots of amazing people, including the wonderful Ben Javens, the delightful (and very funny) Sara Fowles, and the lovely Ruth Green.

It was so much fun chatting to people (it's very rare that we ever get to leave Tea Towel Towers) and now we get to eat cauliflower soup for the next 5 weeks! Woo hoo!

ps - our super special tea towel bunting was very kindly made for us by haberdashery queen Fliss Russell - thanks Fliss!

pps - more about our exciting new brochures tomorrow...

Rob Ryan at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park

We were lucky enough to be invited along to the opening of Rob Ryan's amazing new exhibition at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park on Wednesday evening. Officially opened by Sir Paul Smith, the exhibition showcases Rob's work to date, including the beautiful and intricate original paper cut (below) that he reworked for our ToDryFor Heaven tea towel.

His iconic birds were perched in and around the gallery space, including this little chap on a hand rail:

And here's Sally, posing in front of a poignant print:

The Rob Ryan exhibition is on until the 21st February 2010, so you still have quite a bit of time to visit. Make it a date!

More new tea towels to mop up your drool with!

Oof it's been a busy week, but we've still found time to add a couple more new tea towel designs to the site.

First up, a tea towel with an eco-friendly message from the lovely Mary Fellows:

Waste Not Want Not is priced at £9.50 and is perfect for all your hippy friends, or just for people who like to eat a lot of food (it's always a good excuse)!

We'd also like to welcome a new designer to ToDryFor; Repeat Repeat's amazing 'Fetch' tea towel is now available and is priced at £8.95! Unfortunately it doesn't come with a free sausage dog...

We'll soon be adding more new tea towels in time for Christmas, including some spectacular sardines, some beautiful beach huts and some cracking caravans!

It's Showtime!

No, not the Dutch martial arts programme...we're talking Christmas gift fairs and design events! We're leaving Tea Towel Towers next week and will be venturing out, tea towels in hand, to the following shows:

AWS Gift Fair
Tuesday 10th November, 9am – 3pm (£3 entrance)
Hilton Hotel, Seven Hills Rd South, Cobham, KT11 1EW, UK

Midcentury.Modern
Sunday 13th November, 10am – 4pm (£6 entrance)
Dulwich College, Dulwich Common, London SE21 7LD, UK

It would be great to see you there! We'll be the ones in matching aprons surrounded by vegetables (don't ask)!

Cats in Crockery! Oh My!

We're so excited to announce the arrival of our new, exclusive Gemma Correll tea towel featuring cats in crockery! We're sure Gemma needs no introduction, but if you fancy reading a bit more about her work, why not check out her biography...

Tea Time is the fourth in the ToDryFor range of artist-commissioned towels. It's £9.95 and it's in stock at ToDryFor now! Meow-wow-wow!

Green is the new orange...

Roll up! Roll up! Come and get your iconic architecture tea towels; Barbican now available in green!

People Will Always Need Plates design the most wonderful architecture-inspired tea towels, producing limited edition runs in different colours. In the past we've stocked the iconic Barbican tea towel in magenta (sold out), teal (sold out), orange and now green! (Hurry, each colour gets snapped up pretty quickly and we're nearly out of orange)...

tea tOWeLS are the talk of the TOWN...

May we introduce two new astonishingly bright tea towels for your drying-up pleasure...

Night Owls and Town are designed by the lovely Lisa Jones Studio and are priced at £10 each! Twit TWOO HOO!

We Heart Computer Arts!

Wow! Friday Fun! Boy wonder illustrator Stuart Kolakovic has been featured in a fantabulous article about applied graphics in the November 09 issue of Computer Arts (on the very first page of editorial, no less). Just to add to the excitement, they've included a massive picture of the super kitsch 'Right On' tea towel that Stuart designed for us. Yay!

Stuart describes his style as "wannabe '60s Slavic and '70s folk art". We simply describe it as awesome! Find out a bit more about Mr Kolakovic here...

He ain't gettin on no plane, sucka!

He's here!!! He's only £7.50 and he's green! Check him out...

Anyone for (mr) green tea?

Oh my! Look who's coming...it's Mr T! It's the Mr Tea Towel! It's the Mr Tea Towel in green! We're really excited to be able to offer the fantabulous Mr Tea Towel (normally pink) in a bright, exclusive to ToDryFor, zingy green. Not long to wait now - we'll pop up a new post once he's arrived...giddy much?

Eye magazine offer - party rings a-go-go!

Super cool graphic design magazine Eye is giving away an amazing, limited edition James Joyce tea towel if you subscribe before 30th October.


Be warned...you may be subliminally *forced against your will* to eat hundreds of party rings and rich tea biscuits!!

Give me wine, sunshine, and breakfast in bed...

Ooooo nothing beats a nice bottle of wine with dinner, shared between friends (or not, as the case may be). Keep Calm Gallery have yet again come up trumps with the newest in their range of slogan tea towels.I feel like somebody has made my own personal tea towel with the design above, and the one below comes a close second...

Both tea towels are now available from ToDryFor, priced at £8.50.
I reckon they'd make very good presents for dinner parties...just a thought!

Let them eat CAKE...

CAKE! CAKE! COFFEE AND CAKE! CAKE! CAKE! CAKE! Sorry about that...we are overwhelmed by the gluttony that these new tea towels have instilled in us. Designed and hand-printed by Megan at MR.PS, they will remind you to get your sugar-fix wherever and whenever you can...

Shier(s) Brilliance!

We've just added these two new wonderful tea towels (designed and produced by Ros Shiers) to ToDryFor. Ros's glamorous style is truly distinctive - we adore her LOVE design and are now thinking of starting a russian doll collection...

Both of the tea towels are printed on super soft 100% natural cotton.

ToDryFor is in HEAVEN

We are completely and utterly bowled over by Rob Ryan's incredible tea towel design (above), commissioned for ToDryFor. We just don't understand how he has the patience to work his intricate, paper-cut magic. Amazing artwork at an affordable price makes the hassle of washing up that little bit easier! Check it out...

Bossy Boots

This wonderful, didactic tea towel has compelled us to put on our bossy boots here at ToDryFor. Designed and produced by Coralie Bickford-Smith (aka Bickford & Smith), it will help to ease the stresses of unequal relationships all over the world; be it a student house or a marital nightmare, the directorial tea towel tells it how it should be. Coralie also designs awe-inspiring book covers for Penguin (shown above)....

Treasury Trove!

We're super excited about adding two new tea towels to the site. Designed and produced by lovely Lucia at Treasury, they're a perfect combination of flying ducks and afternoon tea and cake. Anyone fancy some battenburg?

New Towel - A Seasonal Guide to British Fruit and Vegetables!

This is the first of a batch of new tea towels we are adding to the site, and we are so excited about it! It's A Seasonal Guide to British Fruit and Vegetables designed and produced by Stuart Gardiner. It does exactly what it says on the metaphorical tin, highlighting which fruit and vegetables are in season in Britain, and when. So if you are trying to be that bit more environmentally friendly, and cut down on your fruit and veg air miles this is the one for you. On another note, Stuart had a hand in designing a load of amazing Iron Maiden album covers - what a legend!

Woop!

ToDryFor has its own blog! Woop!