Super-sleuth viewers, who spotted Sherlock pouring from Ali’s teapot and his arch enemy Moriarty sipping from one of her cups, dashed to their computers to trace the design and place orders.
Ali said: “There are many independent small businesses out there like mine which are creating their own things, but not everybody gets their work shown on something like the BBC and on an iconic programme that gets shown all around the world. To have that kind of exposure is something that money can’t buy.”
It was while at a friend’s house that artist Ali received the good news: her Home Sweet Home tea set, featuring maps of the UK and Ireland, had just appeared in the second series of the BBC’s Sherlock – and later the same evening found she had sold out of everything with that design.
Ali, who graduated from the University of Brighton with a BA(Hons) in fine art and sculpture, said: “I thoroughly enjoyed my course and found that I really learned the value and meaning of conceptual art and that has helped with the process of how i work now. I have always made the focus of my work about my family, memories, religion, identity and mortality and that is what my collections are still based on.”