Lavender Sachet How To

Today I'd like to share with you some simple ideas for making cute lavender sachets - these make great little gifts and stocking stuffers! If you're not a lavender fan or just can't get hold of any, don't worry: the two designs I'll be showing you can easily be adapted to be mini pincushions or Christmas decorations.

The basic construction process goes something like this:
1 - Cut out all the pieces (pattern sheet has finally been uploaded - see end of post).
2 - Decorate the front (felt) piece of your sachet.
3 - Sew on ribbon if needed.
4 - Fold and press your fabric seams, and pin or loosely stitch them in place.
5 - Sew the felt and fabric together, right sides out, leaving a gap to add lavender or other stuffing.
6 - Stuff the sachet and finish sewing along the seam.

 

I've been making these for my friends and neighbours from felt and fabric, and have been making two basic designs: simple squares and little houses.

Here I've cut out felt pieces for three sachets...

Felt pieces for the front of a little house, a piece of cute house-print fabric for the back, and a matching piece of red ribbon so it can hang as an ornament at Christmas or in someone's wardrobe to ward off moths. You could always use another piece of white felt for the back of your house. I also chose a nice green print fabric, and a matching green felt square, and two co-ordinating felt squares (red and white).

To decorate the little houses, first sew on your red roof and door...

 

... and then embroider little windows -I used a double thickness of ordinary sewing thread for this.

 

Then flip the felt over and sew on your ribbon loop - if your ribbon has a pattern on it, like my little hearts, make sure you sew it on the right way up!

 

The light gave out at this point so here's one I made earlier:

I stitched the felt front and fabric back together with red thread to make the stitches a nice decorative feature - just an ordinary whip stitch but if you wanted to make it look really neat you could use blanket stitch. Stuff it with polyester stuffing instead of lavender and it would make an adorable Christmas ornament! The gorgeous house print fabric I used is the Avenue print from Summersville.

 

The squares are constructed in much the same way - you just skip the ribbon loop. They make a sweet scented addition to a clothes drawer or in-storage coat pocket, and stuffed with polyfill or fabric scraps they can serve as pincushions.

As with the houses, you can make them entirely from felt or use patterned fabric for the backs. You can have a lot of fun playing around with colours and decorative details and make each square slightly different.

When working with fabric, take your colour and decoration cues from the fabric pattern itself - using this Totem print fabric (from Summersville again) I chose a matching bottle green felt and added an appliqued felt detail based on the shapes found in the print:

 

I did something similar with the sachets in the photos at the start of this post - combining co-ordinating turquoise and green felt with a turquoise Totem print for one square, and embroidering one of the houses from the Avenue print for the other.

When using two plain felt squares you can have a good rummage in your crafting stash and use up lots of odds and ends!

I wanted to use some of the lovely woven heart ribbon, and took my cues from this - I decorated one side with a white felt applique heart (using the template from the heart ornaments I posted last month) and the other with a strip of the ribbon and three adorable gingham buttons purchased from BigFish.

 

I've not finished this one yet, but I think the end result will be rather charming!

Here's the pattern sheet - double click to view full size and print, or draw your own to get them just the size you fancy.

This tutorial is for non commercial use only: you can use it for as many sachets as you like for yourself or as gifts for friends but please don't make any for sale. Please feel free to borrow photos if you want to blog about this project, but remember to credit me and link back to the original source, and do not reproduce my entire tutorial on your site. Thanks!
 
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