Cotje Reydon was born Jacopa Lambert in Amsterdam, the Netherlands – ‘Cotje’ being a diminutive, and ‘Reydon’ her second husband’s surname. In the 1920s, she studied weaving (in the Swedish tradition) in the Dutch town of Laren, established a small studio, and is believed to have won a silver medal at the Paris Exhibition (c.1924–25). In 1926, Cotje and her first husband migrated to Australia and settled on a farm outside Brisbane. They divorced shortly afterwards, and she remarried another Dutch migrant, Peter Reydon.

Cotje joined the Arts and Crafts Society of Queensland in 1928 and began exhibiting the following year, showing ‘bureau scarves’, cushion covers and handbags. In 1934, she showed work with the Arts and Crafts Society of New South Wales that was commended in the Sydney-based journal Art in Australia and in Brisbane’s Courier-Mail. Around 1935, Reydon and her husband operated the Continental Corner, an arts and crafts shop in Brisbane’s Edward Street. From 1936 to 1943, they ran a shop in Queen Street’s Brisbane Arcade, stocking ceramics and metalwork by Brisbane craftswomen.