A handmade stoneware vase decorated with a blue-and-white beetroot.

Initially designed and made for last year’s Potfest maker’s competition Rooted in the past, planted in the present, these Willow Vegetable Vases are inspired by my allotment. I enjoyed playing, designing and making them so much I decided to make them a permanent collection.

Over the years I have found lots of pottery fragments, mainly blue and white and Willow Pattern, while digging over the ground and I’m still finding more. The patterns from the fragments are copied directly onto the vases, while the vegetables are those grown on the allotment. The fragment decoration is enclosed by the shape of the vegetable for a contemporary take on a classical pattern.

The vase is made from a white stoneware clay thrown on the potter’s wheel and then decorated with coloured slip using traditional making techniques - inlay and sgraffito.

Leave simply to stand alone on the shelf or group together to create your own interior vegetable patch. They’re a unique gift idea for the gardeners and green fingered people in your life.

Approx size: 14cm H x 8.5cmW with a turned foot ring on the base