Afternoon Tea Throw – Fondant Fancy, Chocolate Tiffin and 3 More Sandwiches

I am supposed to be knitting other things but I have knitted a few more blocks for this throw.  The first was inspired by a pink fondant fancy.

I like the fact that it has a random wavy line across the knitting.  There is an idea that knitting has to be regimented – it doesn’t - it can be random and wavy!  The Chocolate Tiffin block has a much more regular pattern.

I was eating some Chocolate Tiffin when I decided to knit this block.  It isn’t a very traditional “afternoon tea” ingredient – but I like it and I wanted to include some more chocolate in the throw.

The last 3 blocks represent different kinds of sandwiches.  The first one is Tuna and Cucumber, the second Ham and Mustard and the third one is Cheese and Tomato. 

I did think about Coronation Chicken and other more sophisticated fillings but they are not very interesting colour-wise.  I also wanted to pay tribute to the sort of sandwiches I used to eat. 

I am now going to have a short break from the throw and knit a tea cosy for my cousin.

Afternoon Tea Throw – Iced Bun, Viennese Whirl and Sandwich

Last week I knitted two blocks inspired by my grandparents.  When we used to visit them – which was not that often as it was quite a long journey – my grandma used to give us iced buns.  They were her favourite. 

 

Then we used to go into my granddad’s room and he would open a box of Viennese Whirls which were his favourites. 

 

Both of these are not very typical afternoon tea ingredients but I have included them because of the personal connection.  The background represents a Cornish ware plate which can be found in many English households.

The third block is inspired by 2 sandwiches.  The turquoise background is similar to the Poole pottery plates that my parents had.

 

This design has been very difficult.  Originally I thought of a striped block representing a pile of sandwiches – but I thought that was boring.  Then I thought I could just divide the block with a diagonal line representing the filling but this does not work out because the block is not square.  I also tried making the sandwiches smaller and having 4 – but that looked very odd when I knitted it.  My second attempt at actually knitting a block inspired by a sandwich – had just one sandwich – but that looked odd as well.  In this version the sandwich and the filling are thicker which I think looks better.

The filling was originally intended to represent cucumber, then I changed it to lettuce (which is not very traditional but the sort of filling I had at home) and now it is more egg and cress!  I will now knit a few other varieties.