Blue and white

I love blue and white pottery and decided to create some crockery-inspired designs for my Spoonflower shop. Old English plates sit alongside Chinese-inspired vases and Japanese soba cups on a crisp white background.

This fabric can be bought by the yard on a variety of fabrics or bought as ready-made items. I love this large throw pillow.

The crockery also looks nice as flower pots and the addition of the green of the foliage adds an extra dimension to the design.

I love how the plant pots look on this circular tablecloth, perfect for a table in a conservatory or for alfresco dining.

Teacups are the perfect print for afternoon tea. Print it onto a table cloth to enhance your teatime experience.....

...or use it on these gorgeous little cocktail napkins, perfect for having with an afternoon cuppa, or serve it with an early evening G&T!

The pottery also looks nice as a mosaic effect and makes a great co-ordinate to the crockery design.

I've tried it on these napkins that would look great with the pot plant table cloth above.

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True blue

I'm always on the hunt for new inspiration and when I decided to start a new design project based on blue and white pottery, I headed off to the Ashmolean museum in Oxford to get inspired.

Founded in 1683, the Ashmolean is the museum of art and archeology for the University of Oxford. It contains collections ranging form Egyptian mummies to modern art and is a great place to spend a few hours pottering about and getting inspired. I love the modern interior which marries perfectly with the traditional architecture of the exterior.

I spent most of my time on the second floor which is called 'West Meets East'. It showcases ceramics from China, Japan and Europe as well as many other amazing items.

It wasn't until I started looking properly that I realised how many cultures have used blue and white pottery through history. It makes it amazingly varied as a project idea.

I'm always looking for an interesting motif or a novel layout. I love the simple yet sophisticated placement of the image on the plate, above left. The floral uses up a small amount of the plate, so that the negative space is just as important as the image itself. The plate below uses a stunning image of a dragon. I'm now wondering how I could incorporate a dragon into one of my designs!

I love the shape of the two vases below and could see them working well as circular cushion designs.

Most collections I design contain three or four main designs, but the collection also holds together better with smaller co-ordinates. The two images below show some great co-ordinate ideas. The plate on the left almost has the feel of a patchwork design, incorporating a selection of small geometrics.

I love the idea of combining cultures within one collection and enjoy the challenge of how I approach this, whilst creating an interesting and cohesive group. Below is a little taster of my first design for this blue and white collection - a selection of blue and white pottery!

All White Now

I'm usually drawn to brightly-coloured things, but these beautifully pale items caught my eye and I felt the need to write about them. They are made by Lisa, a sculptor/model-maker based in Bristol, England. She works with clay and takes her reference from sea creatures such as coral, jelly fish and sea urchins. What I love is that she likes to leave the tool marks, raw edges and texture of the clay so that it keeps more of an organic feel. A lot of Lisa's work is pierced and she leaves this unsmoothed so that it keeps a barnacle effect, yet the white of the unglazed clay makes it fresh and modern. Her work takes on a rather ethereal feel in it's transparency as well as its lace-like quality. You can see more of her work here.

Atelier Halo

Atelier Halo is a French porcelain company with a Japanese aesthetic. It is run by designer Fanny Cavin who creates objects that are simple and useful, but are also aesthetically pleasing and play with the light.

She uses the technique of slipcasting or stamping the porcelain into pre-made moulds. Once taken out of the moulds, she hand engraves a pattern onto the object which means that each piece is unique. The objects she produces are quite thin so that where she engraves, it becomes almost translucent and light can penetrate the pattern. She also uses an oxide pencil to create some of her designs and this is where the Japanese influence shows. It reminds me of the indigo-dyed items that can be found here in Japan.

You can see more of her beautiful work here.