new for the Autumn from Marimekko ...

For this Autumn, the new range of fabrics and tablewares from Marimekko is called the Sääpäiväkirja or Weather Diary Collection and was inspired by “observing seasonal weather patterns as well as by the exuberant glow of colours in autumnal gardens.”

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Tableware, in the familiar Oiva range, has been included in the new season Sääpäiväkirja designs, with plates, mugs and cups in amazing watery blues or strong autumnal yellows and the pitcher has a band of design in sharp, deep greens and blacks with an image of “windblown trees, rustling reeds, glowing golden grasses, storm-soaked rocks, and misty archipelago mornings.”

New fabrics include Jussaro, 100% cotton with a design inspired by rolling storm clouds, and Kuuskajaskari, 100% linen with an amazing continuous pattern, that runs along the length of the fabric rather than across the width, with an impression of grasslands under a heavy sky.

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My descriptions may sound like a bad travel advert but the pieces themselves are stunning and once again Marimekko has come up with something very new - a short break from their hallmark designs with strong abstract or geometric patterns - and, as always, by taking the patterns across a range of fabrics and tableware, they make it possible for you to give a table setting or a room a complete and co-ordinated make over with a very striking effect.

Menu Bottle Grinders

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This pepper or salt or herb grinder comes from Menu and was designed by Norm, a design studio in Copenhagen that was founded in 2008 by the architects Kasper Rønn and Jonas Bjerre-Poulsen.

Good design usually comes about through one of three approaches: a designer can come up with something completely new ... a new and inspired object for a new function to produce something we didn’t even know we needed ... or a designer can take something we use every day and refine it and improve it and develop the form and construction or, as here with these grinders, designers can take something we take for granted ... surely there are hundreds of pepper grinders in the shops and a pepper grinder is a pepper grinder is a pepper grinder ... and go back to basics and rethink the whole thing.

With the Bottle Grinder you snap apart the two halves to put in the the peppercorns or rock salt or dried herbs or whatever and just snap the grinder back together. Simple. But I’ve never seen it done like this. I’ve lost track of the number of times I’ve ended up with pepper corns rolling around all over the kitchen work top or the floor as I’ve tried to pour them into a little hole in the bottom of the grinder with it’s silly little cork or rubber bung or tried to feed the corns in around the vertical axle of the mechanism having taken the wooden top off one of those tall wooden grinders where you twist the top and the pepper comes out of the base.

With the Bottle Grinder, after you have filled it, you invert it; twist the two halves against each other; adjust the wooden dial in the top if you realise you want something finer or courser, and then you just stand it down. None of that business of pepper clagging up around the base where the work top has got wet and the base of the grinder damp. The finish is soft plastic ... sort of rubberised ... so you can grip the thing easily and clean off finger marks afterwards.

Sometimes it’s a good idea to go back and start the design process by rethinking the whole thing if, like the team at Norm, you want to design a good, practical and stylish product.

Turning Tray

Nord stocks the Turning Trays that were designed by Finn Juhl in 1956 and are now produced by the Copenhagen company Architect Made.

They have a teak frame and are reversible with laminate surfaces to the tray in different colour combinations - Kimono Red and black, Alaska White and black, Husky Green and black and Angel Blue and black. The trays come in three sizes - 23cm x 45cm, 30cm x 48cm and 38cm x 51cm.

investing in good design

By investing in good design I don’t mean buying an outstanding piece of furniture that might make a fortune at an auction in the future but buying something that is beautifully designed and that is well made and is a pleasure to use.

When I was a student and living in a shared house I invited my tutor and his wife round for supper. Although there were glasses in the cupboard in the kitchen they were all different and all pretty grim - either donated by parents and obviously dug out of the attic as “good enough to do a turn” or they were glasses with odd logos on them and had been “borrowed” from one of the local pubs.

I went out and bought a set of plain glass tumblers from the recently-opened Habitat store. Forty years on I still have those tumblers; still use them every day at breakfast for juice and at supper for water. I still enjoy using them and I still think the design cannot be bettered. 

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It was some years later that I found out those tumblers were designed by Kaj Franck in 1958 and that they are still made by the Finnish company Iittala. Occasionally Iittala adds a new colour to the range but the form and the quality of the glasses is the same.

So that’s what I mean by investing in good design. Buy something that you like - something that not only looks good now but will not look dated next year; buy something that is well made and does what it is meant to do and does it well. Those are key qualities that mean that a piece of furniture or an item of tableware can become a design classic.

Maybe one day my tumblers will end up in a recycle bottle bank but they’ve served me well for forty years so they probably have a place and a use for a few more years to come.

design classic: the Sarpaneva casserole

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This cast-iron casserole was designed for Rosenlew by Timo Sarpaneva in 1963 but has been reintroduced by Iittala. The ingenious curved wooden handle can be used to carry the pot from the oven to the table and then can be slipped out and latched into the top to remove the hot lid. The heavy iron ensures slow even cooking and the enamel lining means easy cleaning and maintenance.

Just a few points: don’t leave the handle on when the pot is in the oven (as if you would!) and as with all cast iron, dry the pot well immediately after washing. If you do forget the casserole when it’s in the oven and it burns dry then don’t panic and plunge it straight under the cold tap - a sudden change of temperature can make any enamel lining “crizzle” - better to allow the pot to cool slightly and then fill with warm water and leave it to soak.