Tag: lavender bags

Lavender Bags

Lavender bags - the insides

Much of my time over the Easter break was spent sewing a dress, and getting out of the house with Paul, which made a nice change! (Photos to follow.) Yesterday and today however, have been mostly spent working on lavender bags for the EMPORIUM.

In the box above are 65 little pouches made from recycled sheeting, each containing about 10g of dried Yorkshire lavender. The little pile on the floor was intended to be the filling for the 66th. Oops…

Lavender bags

Having made up the outer pouches yesterday, all from my ridiculously large box of scraps, I spent today stuffing the insides into the outsides, and ladder-stitching them closed. I’ve still got just less than half to do, but I have now printed out all the labels and packaged up all of the completed bags.

These are most of the fabric choices, there are a couple more that I only had enough of to make one or two. As you can see, there are quite a lot of skulls left over from the old GothStuff days!

I reckon I need one more long afternoon (on a day when my hands are inclined to cooperate) to finish the rest. For now they’ll be sealed in a couple of layers of plastic bags so that they don’t make everything else smell of lavender, until they come out again at the Steampunk Extravaganza next month. I’m currently trying not to worry about how soon that is and how few days off work I have in the meantime. The list of things I need to make is definitely getting smaller, and I WILL get it all done!

Hop Pillows ready for the EMPORIUM

Hop Pillows

Remember the hops that I started making into pillows, way back in November? I finished one, for Sarah’s birthday, as she’d kindly harvested the hops for me from the skycarrots allotment. The rest have been sitting around almost finished, just waiting for the top of each pillow to be ladder-stitched together by hand.

Today, in a flurry of productivity, I’ve sewn them all together and wrapped them all up with labels styled for the INEXPLICABLE EMPORIUM. These prints aren’t particularly “steampunk”, but as I’m trying to recycle the remnants of my stash before I buy anything new, I decided to use them anyway.

You might recognise a few of these fabrics – some of them turned out to have been hanging around for rather a long time!

  • Koi fabric from a circle skirt and corset that I made to wear to a friend’s wedding
  • Sewing print left over from an ill-fated dress that I’ve never worn
  • Psychedelic design was the lining for my Beatles jacket
  • Sugar skulls from my favourite skirt!
  • Flames from Lettice’s skirt
  • Strawberries left over from a pair of BIG PANTS that went straight from my sewing machine to the charity shop
  • Rainforest creatures from a dress I bought that turned out to be so badly made that the only thing I could do with it was chop it up.

The clover & ladybirds print is the only fabric that’s never had any other incarnation. I bought it back in the days when I was making lots of tote bags, but it turned out to be a little bit too thin. I have a little bit left over (along with most of the other fabrics) that I’ll be using to make some matching lavender bags. I have enough dried lavender to fill a hundred bags, so that should keep me busy for a little while!

Pads, pouches, pillows and pockets

zipped pouch for Sarah

This is a zipped pouch that I made for Sarah’s birthday. It’s about 12″ long, but sadly not quite big enough to fit a 12″ ruler inside, otherwise it would have made a lovely pencil case! Although it is long enough for pencils…

I wanted to pop something inside the pouch, and it was just the right size for a wheat pad, a hop pocket and a little clove and lavender pillow. The hops came from the skycarrots allotment, but I didn’t think Sarah would mind getting a few back again!

Wheat, hops, lavender & cloves

Sarah and I are doing a fun art project together, where we take it in turns to create an image which we then share on a tumblr called scribblescribes. Each of our entries is “inspired by the day” and contains lettering. So far I think Sarah’s “scribbles” are much more imaginative than mine, so I want to try and think about my days a bit more creatively!

Today I am mostly staring at a blank Risk Assessment form that I need to fill in to apply for a market stall at an event in May. These things just feel so terribly soul-sucking. What risk can there possibly be from a stall full of haberdashery that can’t be avoided by the application of simple common sense? Okay, so we are hoping to take candles, but there’s a strong possibility that we won’t be allowed to light them anyway, so hopefully our chances of setting fire to all our customers and burning down the venue will be minimal!

(Note to self: must buy small fire blanket.)

Calming influence

Lavender bags

Here we go – matching lavender bags, to go with yesterday’s wheat pads.

These are half the size of the wheat pads, so approximately 10cm (that’s 4″) square. They’re made in the same way, with a recycled polycotton inner bag which contains the lavender. How I made these without spilling tons lavender and wheat into the guts of my overlocker, I’m not too sure! There’s approximately three ice-cream scoops of lavender in each little bag. Measured very scientifically, I can assure you.

As you can see, the little loop makes them easy to hang up wherever you like!

I’m thinking of making some cinnamon and clove bags to hang up at Christmas, for a seasonal scent. Some cedar or pine scented bags might be nice too, to keep the moths at bay from your wardrobe or knitting stash…

These are also on their way to the Art Market, but when I return I’ll be making some more. I’ve been asked to make a tutorial too, so I’ll make a new page for that when it’s done.