Tuesday 15 January 2013

smelly drawers

Morning ladies, we had snow yesterday!  I always get excited about snow.  I lived in Poland for 2 years, during that time the country had the worst winter in 100 (or something) years and it snowed everyday for 4 months. I got excited every single day.  English snow is nothing like that, but it was good whilst it lasted!

Saturday caught me sewing again.  This time I broke out WIP #48 which is one of the ones that isn't a WIP, it's a set of hankies.  My great aunt bought these for me about 10 years ago.  I've never used a hanky, I find them a little bit gross, you know, the idea of carrying snot around in your pocket, then putting it in the washing machine with your knickers...


But, they were a gift and too pretty to throw away and so they sat in a procession of drawers for many years.  No longer!  I knew I wanted to make lavender sachets, for me for a change, so lavender sachets I made.


I started by cutting one out in a circle, sewing it to a plain backing and adding a white cotton trim.  I backed it with a patterned fabric (below).


A pink one was cut in a square, doubled as the fabric is so think, and a pink lace border rather unsuccessfully added!  The back is plain white.
 

The blue one was given the same treatment, but smaller and centred and using this lovely blue trim I found in a box. 


On a quick side note... rummaging for the blue trim lead to a 2 hour sort out of all my ribbons and trims.  Trims were wound onto cards and pinned, ribbons were put in big jars according to colour.  Longer lengths of ribbon were wound onto empty ribbon bobbins (which I keep for some reason), and then sewing spools when the bobbins ran out.  It was a time consuming detour.


I wanted to experiment whilst making these sachets as it didn't matter if they didn't look great as they are just for me, so I decided to try some patchwork.  This block is from 200 Quilt Blocks.  This is number 182, plain block.  The pink one was successful.


So was the blue.  The yellow one was not.


I don't even know how I managed to do that??  I mean, how does that happen??


The two successful blocks were backed and stuffed with lavender.  The yellow block is now living in the bin.  He's very happy there he tells me.

Both are backed with plain cotton.  I would show you a photo but Photobucket says no.  They've revamped it and it's dreadful.  It's always been slow, now I have to go into each and every photo to get the link whereas before I could do it from the index page.  Now it's died completely.

There were 12 hankies in the pack, 5 are now sewn, 1 is in the bin, so that leaves 6...  I sewed again on Sunday... I'll show you the results soon.





13 comments:

Anna said...

Beautiful ! The recycling is perfect !
Have a cozy day !
Anna

Chrissie said...

Lovely way to use hankies, I liked your blocks, very pretty and useful too.

Shirley said...

Hi Wendy, they are lovely, what about hanging lavender hearts for the wardrobe with the other six hankies?

Marilyn said...

Great use of the hankies. Lovely smelly drawers to come.

Samantha said...

Lovely! I hate it when you go looking for something and you end up re-organising everything. It's nice to look back in there when it's done but things always take so long! (Says she who's just re-organised her ribbons...)

Did you use dried lavender? I have some I cut from the garden last year, I just don't know how to use it. I guess cut it into small bits and shove it into a cotton bag?

Pam @Threading My Way said...

A great way to use the hankies. I'd love to see some of your snow. I can count on one hand the number of times I've seen snow.

Rhona said...

What a great way to re-use those gorgeous hankies! They all look fantastic!

JoJo said...

Great use of the hankies! And I agree about it being gross to carry them around. I always preferred kleenex!

Sandra :) said...

Snow quickly loses it's appeal when it comes day after day after week after week after month after month YEAR AFTER YEAR - it's cold and wet and heavy - blech! I'd tell you you can have ours, but it all melted a few days ago - I'm sure we'll get more, though - lots LOTS more :(

Cute lavender bags - they're a pretty way to use up handkerchiefs :) I'm with you on the washing of snot - BLECH.

Melody said...

What a great idea. They look beautiful.

Shirley said...

You really do love craft, hopefully this will be me soon, lots of craft going on, you are never going to get bored with so many different projects

Shirley said...

Oops that was meant for your post today lol

Celtic Thistle said...

Great re-purpose of those hankies Wendy. Hope you are still enjoying the snow after this weekend!