Making Lavender Sachets

I have been meaning to make these Lavender sachets for months but as usual my attentions were diverted to some other passing fancy.  As I was starting to pack away some of my winter clothes I felt like now was was the right time, although with the current snow, sleet and hail here in the UK most things have already been unpacked!

Lavender Sachets

The fabrics will probably be familiar to you, if you have been following the blog for a while, as they have been used in the Summer tops I made last year and also in the bags for the Advent Calender.  My Magpie tendencies won't let me throw anything away that I think might come in useful.

Stamped fabric

Knowing that the finished items would not need to be either washed or worn I took the opportunity to stamp onto the white fabric (one of Hubby's old shirts), using a little kit I brought from the local market.  Influenced by the soothing properties of the lavender I chose to stamp words associated with it............ peace, calm, zzzz. 

Stamping set

They are nice and simple to make and are ideal for using up scraps, hence the different shapes and sizes.

red spot lavender sachet

If you have only a small amount of fabric it can still be used for decoration or you can have a different fabric on the front to the back, you really just have to play around with what you have to hand.  I toyed with putting buttons on but couldn't find any that I felt fitted in, maybe on the next batch.

Choose your design

Lay out the design until you are quite happy with it and then sew it on, it needs to remain in place but isn't going to get any hard wear so you can leave some edges free, I do however recommend the use of pinking shears or you will need to hem your edges unless you are looking for a frayed edge.

Hem  along the sides

With the design facing inwards hem along the edges leaving an opening at one end, a bit like a pillow case. On the red spotted sachet I pinked all four edges and stitched on the outside, as it adds another texture.

Bag of lavender

Turn the bag through so that the right side is showing, you can press it to give nice crisp edges or you can be a lazy bones like me and just go straight to filling it with lavender.

filling the lavender sachet

I found the least messy way to fill it was to stand it in the bag containing the lavender and use a piece of rolled paper as a makeshift funnel, then just pile it in there. You want the sachet to be quite well filled so I would suggest over filling and tipping out the excess.

tuck the ends in

When you find the right level fold the ends of the sachet inside to give you a nice neat edge and sew along.

Red stitches

The red stitches of the visible hem contrast nicely against the white of the fabric

3 lavender sachets

All three sachets are tied together by the use of the base fabrics as contrast on the other two.

This would have been a nice quick make if done on the machine but I opted to hand sew and underestimated how long that would take me, luckily I wasn't under any time pressure.

These are ideal as birthday or Christmas presents, it is never too early to make a start!

Just a reminder that the Me Made May challenge starts on Sunday, I hope all who take part have fun with it, please feel free to leave a link on here to your blog or put up your instagram name so that we can follow you.  I haven't decided how I am going to document my little effort, but as my pledge is only once a week it won't take up too much time!

For those in the UK enjoy your bank holiday weekend and I hope you get to see some sunshine 

Red Nose Day

I have spent my evenings this week making sweets, cookies and cakes to sell at work for our  Red Nose Day fundraiser.

I kicked off the week with cheats fudge from Hope and Greenwood's Sweets Made Simple book.  As promised it was very simple to make, it went down very well and best of all raised £10.00 for RND.

I really enjoyed the TV series that the book accompanied and I love Kitty Hope's style, she can really rock a vintage look.

My second make was Golden Syrup honeycomb, I have made this recipe loads of time but for the first time ever I managed to not only burn the mix but I also burnt the pan!  In fairness the pan was on its way out the door and its only my lack of focus that has meant it wasn't replaced sooner.

Not to be beaten I brought a new pan the following day and set to to make the honeycomb again, It looked perfect but when I whisked in the bicarb I didn't get the usual reaction of a volcanic flow of molten gold.  It was a very much subdued reaction and when I poured it into the tin it was very flat and didn't bubble up. I left it to cool while I tried to work out what had gone wrong, the answer was sitting on the counter top, I had picked up the baking powder and not the bicarb.  It was a lot more brittle than usual and the bubble were very much smaller, in some ways it was more like the crunchies you can buy in the shops.

So I still needed to make another batch as I know some of my colleagues love a bit of chew in their homeycomb so batch number 3 was made, I managed to use all the right ingredients and it resulted in the chewiest honeycomb I have ever made.

So now I need to experiment with a bicarb/baking powder mix to see what results I get with that, but I think I will be saving that for a little while I think we are all honecombed out.

 A batch of the Anthony Worrall Thompson cookies along with a batch of Mary Berrys Double Chocolate cupcakes finished off my contribution to our Comic Relief fund raiser

Time for a cup of tea and watch the Great British Sewing Bee on catch up, I might have to consumer test one of the cupcakes :)


Thanks for reading

....starting something new

Hi

So I finally got round to starting my blog, I have been toying with the idea for a while and here I am. I have carried out extensive research by reading loads of other blogs and in all honesty I haven't a clue how this is going to work but if I don't make a start I will never find out. Any tips, help or advice would all be very gratefully received!


My intention is to use this space to share with you some of the things that  I love in my life. Like most people my family is my number one love, but it would be pretty boring for anyone who reads this if that was all I wrote about, although they may make the odd guest appearances from time to time.

Inspired by the likes of Kirstie Allsopp, Great British Bake Off and the Great British Sewing Bee I dabble at a very basic level in sewing, knitting, crafting and baking so I will share my triumphs and failures.

These are some chocolate chip cookies I made last week using an Antony Worrall Thompson recipe I found on the internet. The recipe is really easy to follow but do make sure you rest it in the fridge as it has so much butter it goes very soft. I have made this before and substituted the chocolate chunks for Smarties.  Hopefully the link below will take you through to the recipe on he BBC

 http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/chocolatechipcookies_72335


So there we go blog post number one complete with a photo and a link!