Lavender Sachets and Pincushions

I've been making lavender sachets; this is one of the projects I promised to show you that requires baker's twine.  Two readers have told me that after seeing my post about baker's twine, they placed orders from Talking Twine and Trim--the etsy store where I got mine.  That's awesome, fiddlegirl8 and Lime Riot--I hope you like yours as much as I like mine!


I made these lavender sachets for two reasons:  first, I was trying to come up with new heart-shaped things for my other blog, 365 Sewn Hearts (I need a heart for every day of this year!); and I need stock for my little booth in a local shop.  This project was so perfect for both!  I've made lavender sachets before, but in a different style, so it was nice to make something new.  I had lavender on hand, so I jumped right in!


Sixteen lavender sachets:

The picture below shows how I started.  I printed out words and phrases on the computer, then traced them onto white fabric using my light box and a micron marker. I have an assortment of the micron pens, each with a different sized writing tip, so for different projects I can use whatever size works best with the font size I've chosen for my letters.

I cut out a bunch of hearts from various fabrics, and ironed interfacing onto the back of each to give the finished heart a more "solid" feel.  Then I cut out the words and phrases, and machine sewed them to the front of each heart.  I took all the hearts to my sewing chair in the family room and watched TV while I hand-sewed a running stitch with embroidery thread around the edge of each phrase, using the machine stitching as my guide.  (I always try to have some kind of handwork ready near my sewing chair--I don't like to watch TV without it!)

Then I chose two buttons to accent the front of each heart, and sewed those on.

Back at the sewing machine, I sewed the heart fronts to matching backs, stopping at the top to add two 12" lengths of baker's twine.  Then I turned them right-side-out, stuffed them with lavender, and sewed the openings shut. 

I packaged each heart in a ziplock baggie with my business card, and put them in a basket to take to Country Treasures.

I thought I had an endless supply of lavender in my closet, so I was surprised when it ran out before I had finished filling all the hearts!  I decided to turn the remaining hearts into pincushions.  To keep pins from poking through the back, I cut plastic food-container lids into heart shapes and put them inside the hearts before filling them with polyester fiberfill. 

The front and back of un-stuffed pincushions:

Eleven pincushions, all finished!

This is my favorite one, because I love the the print and colors of this fabric.  I think I will keep this for myself!

Zakka Sewing Book

I may have mentioned my awesome friend Susan before; in her regular awesome manner she sent me a great book for Christmas called Zakka Sewing.  Zakka projects are functional objects to use in the home, meant to add an element of style and individuality to the environment.

Susan sent the book in this super cute bag she made!

We both love the "shabby chic" style, but Susan is more successful at it than I am; it's hard for me to let go of finished edges and 90-degree angles!  She knows I love pink, and hearts; look at how fun and raggedy this heart is!

Okay...getting back to Zakka Sewing...I decided to choose one of the 25 projects in this book to make and show you.  Here's what I made:  the "Flower Corsage Pincushion".  It is a wrist pincushion meant to resemble a wrist corsage.  Mine looks just like the picture in the book--success!

My one complaint with this project is that the flower patterns in the book are not full size; the directions tell you to enlarge them on a copy machine by 200%.  Well, I'm at home in my pajamas, and my scanner doesn't enlarge like a copy machine...so with a lot of scanning, editing and printing, I finally got the flower patterns to approximately the right size (the larger one is about 3" across, and the smaller one is about 2 1/2").  Would it have killed them to include full-size patterns???

After tracing the flower outline onto the fabric, you are supposed to cut it out and then sew around the edges (which are left raw).  Since I'm always thinking, I decided to sew first and then cut out the flower.  It was quick and easy this way.

Here's the flower, it's almost done!

After making the flower, you make the wrist band; that part is very straight-forward.

Sewing it all together (by hand) took a little figuring out; you layer the flower and wrist band with a felt circle and a plastic disc (cut from a milk carton or a random lid) and blanket stitch it all together on the bottom.  The stuffing is actually inserted here, underneith the wrist band (which seemed weird, but it works out okay).

 I have never used a wrist pincushion before, and I am super excited about this one--it is so cute and feels so nice when it's on (it's just like a fabric bracelet) that I hope I will use it a lot!  Once I got past the pattern-enlarging issue, it went together quickly; there is no interfacing or anything tricky, and I had all the materials on hand (you probably do too).  I can see that this will be a perfect little "extra" to add to future craft swap packages on Craftster!

There are several more projects I would like to make out of this book, and I plan to show you at least one more.  Which one will it be--the bunny pencil case, the slippers, or the sashiko pouch?