Drying to Know

It's not just us!!! There are other people that share our obsession with tea towels! Bath Spa University presents Drying to Know, an exhibition of informative and instructional tea towels through the ages. The exhibition will draw viewers' attention to the idea that a practical and necessary item can also be a work of art (something that we've been banging on about for ages), a form of advertising, instructional guides, and, by default, a celebration of all things British.

Drying to Know opens this Friday 8th November (coincidentally our 5-year wedding anniversary if anyone fanices sending us a card) from 4:30pm to 7:30pm. For more information visit: http://www.bathspa.ac.uk/homepage/news/a-different-way-of-looking-at-tea-towels

We heart Lisa Jones Studio...

It's true. We admit it. We have a big ol' crush on Lisa Jones Studio. It's not just that their new tea towels are utterly A-mazing, but everything else they produce makes us smile every time! We first blogged about Lisa and her partner Edward way back in 2010 and our love for them (aka slight obsession) just keeps on growing...

 

Their ever-increasing card range and new clocks are adorable and we especially love this bright yellow beaver mug (which cheerily stares back at us every time we open our kitchen cupboard).

If super-cute creatures just aren't your bag (!!?) then you should check out Lisa's blog; erudite to the nth, it's full of interesting ponderings, gallery visits, good reads, and enviable charity shop finds...

On yer bike...

Yes! William Wright's winning entry in our 2013 ToDryFor design competition has arrived!

Le Tour is everything you ever wanted from a bike-themed tea towel. You've got the rush of competition, streamline noses, those little cycling gloves that make you look professional, and curly handlebars without a hamburger bell in sight.

So what are you waiting for? Grab your bicycle clips and your spokey dokeys and speed on over to ToDryFor...

Dishes I'd Rather Be Doing

Ooo lordy! It's Ryan Gosling... in my kitchen... (on a tea towel, damn it)!

That's right ladies (and gentlemen), Dear Colleen's 'Dishes I'd Rather Be Doing' extended tea towel range is finally here. Choose between your glamorous Hollywood Dishes (George, Johnny, Brad, Owen, and Jake), not one but three Ryan Goslings on Hey Girl, and your classic Costume Drama hotties (Colin, Sean, and Hugh).

We are super-excited to have been able to collaborate with New Zealand-based illustrator, Dear Colleen, producing her fantastic tea towel designs here in the UK. See the full range (including her amazing Lemons towel) here...

Drying dishes with Daphne Padden

ToDryFor is delighted to present a new, vintage-inspired range of tea towels featuring original 1950s/1960s tissue paper collage designs by highly-collectible artist, Daphne Padden (1927-2009). When Daphne sadly died in 2009, unused collages were discovered in her studio and with the permission of her estate have been restored by vintage poster gurus, Quad Royal, and transformed by ToDryFor into stunning, linen union tea towels.

To give you a bit more background, these fantastic designs actually began life as cut-tissue paper collages; the glue hadn't aged well so they needed a little bit of a digital clean-up before they were ready to dry dishes.

Daphne Padden’s work originally came to our attention in 2010 when her iconic series of 1950s travel posters were uncovered in a disused passageway in London Underground’s Notting Hill Gate station (see image below).

This image is an official London Underground photograph; to view more visit their amazing flickr set.

Find out more about Daphne Padden and view the full vintage-inspired tea towel range here...

High Five!

It's ToDryFor's 5th birthday on Wednesday and we're planning a little something special to celebrate. We'll be selling our top five best-selling tea towels (see below) at £5 for 5 hours and, even more exciting, the first 5 people to order get one for 5p (RRP £9.95)*!

Ooh-La La! 

by Darling Clementine

The Bearded Lady 

by One Must Dash

 Heaven
by Rob Ryan

Storm in a Teacup 

by HelloWilson

Pugs Not Drugs 

by Gemma Correll

So, let's break it down again...
5 at £5 for 5 hours and 5 get them for 5p. Give us a high five!

The above towels will be on sale for £5 between 12pm and 5pm (GMT) on Wednesday 6th March 2013. That's Mother's Day sorted.

* Only one 5p tea towel per order (we'll refund £4.95 back to the 5 quick-off-the-mark lucky customers).

2013 Design Competition Winner!

Boy o boy! We received more design competition entries this year than ever before and it was a mammoth task trying to choose a winner. Some were highly commercial whilst others were completely obscure but utterly incredible; some just simply depicted cats that we fell in love with. However, we had to make a final decision and this is it...

Le Tour was created by William Wright, a Graphic Design and Illustration student from Leicester. We love everything about these two bicycle-obsessed chaps, from the snuffly moustache to the frisson of competition between the two of them. Not to mention that, dare we say it, the design is very 'on trend' what with Bradley Wiggins's recent rise to fame and the Tour de France coming to Yorkshire in 2014.

Le Tour is now going into production and will be showcased at this year's Pulse show at London's Earls Court, available in the shops and via ToDryFor.com in May. Woop!

We'd like to say a massive thank you to everyone who entered - we appreciate that it takes a lot of time and effort to come up with a design, and we're just sorry that we can only have one winner. We'll shortly be putting together a 2013 facebook gallery of our favourite runners-up - keep your peepers peeled to see if your design made the final cut...