Sachet Tutorial

Hi! I was going through some old-fashioned handkerchiefs in the china hutch and thought they might make up into some pretty sachets. They went together very fast and are a good use of handkerchiefs that are "too pretty to use."


First, I picked out the hankies I wanted to use. My great-grandmother did beautiful work on hankies much like these; but she died in the 1960's before I was born and I didn't want to use hers. Luckily, someone had given my mom many hankies and I am not sentimentally attached to them, but I admire them nevertheless! So those are the ones I decided to use.


Next, I picked out some fabric for the inside pillow. This fabric happens to be some old Shabby Chic sheets that had seen better days, but is perfect for this type of project.

So here is the jumble of hankies.

And here they are all pressed.
My hankies all measure about 11"X11". Place WRONG sides together and using a scant 1/8" seam allowance, sew up the long side and ONE of the short sides so you have a pillow case for the herb pillow.

I cut all the pillows 10 1/2" X 14"

Turn down both the short ends 1/4" and press, turn again 1/4" and press. Now sew this down on both ends.

Place the fabric face up. Fold the bottom up 1/3 , fold the top down 1/3. Pin if you like to use them, and then sew up the short ends. Turn right side out, poke out the corners and give them a nice pressing.

Ashley Rose and I went the health food store where they sell herbs in bulk. We picked out lavender, red rose petals, and lemon peel.

Carefully mix them all together.

Open your pillow by turning down the top flap, and carefully spoon some of the herbs into the pillow. Don't overfill, they look better lying rather flat.

Turn the top flap down so your herbs don't spill out. Then take your hankie and scrunch it up like you are putting on a sock, put the pillow inside and then pull the hankie up over it.

There! Now you have a nice, inexpensive sachet for your linen closet or to give as a gift.

Happy sewing!

C. C.

Mr. Holmes, I presume!

Introducing...Mr. Sherlock Holmes!

He was born on Valentine's Day and is a Miniature Schnauzer.

When he is good, he is VERY good, but when he is bad he is HORRID! He is like a small tornado! He brings out different things piece by piece until he has a rats nest of everyone's belongings in a pile. What a lovely little thing he is though!


Well, here are a few things I have been doing. These are 100 percent soy wax candles. Thank you to Karen for guiding me through the process. It is a lot of fun! I bought 50 pounds of wax and have gone through about 15 pounds of it...so many more candles to go. The set here are Lemon Pound Cake, Blackberry Sage, Grandma's Cupboard, to name a few.

The set here are the Christmas gifts. They are "Santa's Whiskers," "Hansel and Gretel's House," "Christmas Cookie," to name a few of those. I have "Hillbilly Homebrew" and "Orange Chili" and "Vanilla Oak" and other scents coming in the mail. This is really neat; I told Karen in an e-mail I think there is something in a woman's genes that causes us to pour things into jars and admire them! Very satisfying!

Here is a little garden sign Ashley Rose painted. It says "Garden Fairies" on it and there is a little fairy peeking over the fence!

Here are a few door hangers I ordered from Viking Woodcrafters. The one on the left is for Halloween, the one in the middle I shall do for Christmas, and the one on the far right is a fairy door for the garden that Ashley Rose will be painting. This summer, we will be working on improving our painting skills with "Lessons in Strokework" by Judy Diephouse. Matthew is away all day at an Engineering camp for kids at NMSU, so Ashley and I will have many hours to work on her sewing skills and painting skills and, of course cooking! Yesterday we made some Peanut Butter Cups! Oh dear! They were candy store good!

Here is a garden sign I just finished. It is a Kim Christmas design.

Here is another Kim Christmas Design. It is called "Wrong Turn." I did two of them, one for my mother in law. I have finished them both, so now they have black sheer 1" ribbon tying them onto a black dowel stick.

Here is a birthday gift to myself (hee-hee). It is a punchneedle design by Jan Goos from Goosnest Designs. Very cute. I don't do very many punchneedles because they are the most expensive project I work on! But every once in awhile I have to splurge. It is mounted on the back of a cheap-o frame that I cut to fit. The "kick-stand" part of it didn't work and it kept rolling over, so I had to hot glue gun all sorts of stabilizing pieces of cardboard to it! It looks rather rough in the back, but we will just concentrate on the front. The ruffle around it is some of the rayon seam binding.

Here is some more of my birthday gift to me! A cross stitch by Blackbird Design. Cross stitches are really some of the most affordable projects, because it takes FOREVER to do one and the floss isn't too expensive. Especially the Blackbird Design patterns because they don't do a lot of thread changes. They call of the hand dyed which is twice what plain old DMC thread cost, but you need half of the colors so it all works out. Plus, if you don't want to use/buy everything they call for, since it is a old fashioned looking piece, you can use a steel color or an "Old Purple Paint" color for a crow instead of a black color, etc.

Here is another Blackbird Design. This is a pin keep. Again, very affordable. This is a scrap piece of linen and only one color of hand-dyed floss; it creates its own color variations. I used three buttons I had on hand; some ladies have antique button collections that they could use for this sort of project. Mine are antique/vintage from the fact that you always seem to have a few buttons left over from a project and they sit around for a lifetime! Many of them are my mom's from when she had done so much sewing of her own clothes in the 1960's.

And of course we had an end-of-the-year recital. Matthew had danced for the first time when he got the part of the prince in the Nutcracker. You might say he caught the "dancing bug," and now is taking lessons with his sister, which she is very accepting of! They are in the same class, and he being the only boy in lessons in the studio, he is quite popluar (which he doesn't seem to mind at all!), but his sister who is shy by nature, has taken it all in stride. You actually can't tell she is a shy quiet thing when she is on stage; it is an oxymoron that she loves to perform like she does.

Here is a menu from a tea party Ashley Rose gave recently. She did everything herself. She named her little room "Le Petite Cafe."

Please read the next post...the pictures were taking awhile to load so I refreshed the page and it saved on a new post!

Mr. Holmes, I presume! con't...

This is a continuation from the above post...

Here is the little table at Le Petite Cafe.
Some of the decorations...Ashley Rose did everything herself.

The name cards:

The doll tea party set-up.

Well! That is all for another six months (just kidding! hopefully I shall do another sooner than that!).

Until next time!

C. C.

DRUMROLL PLEASE......

AND THE WINNER FOR THE MOST PERSEVERANCE IS.......MEEEEEEE!!!!! (applause....yeah....clapping.....shouting....whistling) No, really, you're too kind.

This project was a teaching tool so that I may learn to applique (note: this is NOT a beginning applique project). It took me two whole years to complete! The hand quilting took a long time, too. On the label which I pieced as part of the backing, I estimated the quilting to be done last July!

Some of the tiny flower centers I just couldn't do properly, so I opted for some pretty buttons instead.

This bunny is holding a key with a rhinestone in the center of it.

This one is holding a pot filled with buttons.

And here is a little arrangement under the coffee table. I did the birdhouse a couple years ago, and the little paper mache eggs I got from Williams Sonoma catalog.

Here are three little quilts (well, the one on the left is a miniature) that I worked on so I could have some hand-work during the kids' lessons. I am going to make several more so that they can go on the wall in a group. I think that is a lovely look.

Well, I think I will take my award and I can now begin to plan for.....MY NEW NEXT PROJECT!

Have a creative day!

C. C.

Happy 2011!!!

I have been working on a sewing box for my daughter. She will be 10 next month, so I think I will give it to her for her birthday, but really it is for her hope chest.

This is the first painting project that I designed that has been of any substance. I have painted a few things, but not an actual design with detail. I don't know if you can see it, but the bunny is working on a carrot applique and Miss Mouse is working on a cheese applique!

This is a cross-stitch I finished five years ago for her sewing box (plus a little pin cushion). I was going to have my husband do an elaborate box, but I just couldn't decide how it was going to look and this cross-stitch was just sitting around in the "Hope Chest" box, so I decided a band-box would work perfectly to hold the most important sewing items. That way the thing would be done and it is still a special box made by her Papa.

I cut out a piece of light-weight cardboard, put a piece of batting just right on the top, and then covered it with some crushed velvet; then I hot glued it to the bottom of the box. The chicken to the left is a pin cushion I had seen in a store; but they wanted $13.00 for one so I just studied it and made one out of scraps at home for the hope chest.

Here is a lovely little needle sharpener. It is a little bit of emery powder in a square of tricot and then a little doily gathered up around it. I got the kit from Nordic Needle, I believe. I have actually never used the one I made for myself (I made two), but I thought they were a cute little old-fashioned addition to a sewing box, so I put one in here for her.

Let me tell you! I bought these two fancy scissors with bonus money (I guess that is what you'd call it) from the quilt store. They gave me a punch card, and after you filled it up with so much money in purchases, you would get a $25 amount to spend. Ashley Rose has been learning on my scissors, so they are now all dull and her scissors are fancy "Gingher" sharp as can be! The injustice of it all!!! I offered to trade her, but she will not hear of it.

Here is the sewing box with the lid on.

Here is another little thing I made for her hope chest. This was a rather challenging project. I got this kit through the mail (perhaps from Nordic Needle) about five or six years ago. I began to cut and hot glue all the little rectangles to these tag board pieces and actually got overwhelmed with it and quit. It took forever to finish this project! I only made one for the hope chest instead of two (one for me to keep); and I believe I will stop at one!

Here below is the contraption all opened up in all of its rectangular glory! Yikes! A sweet novelty, but I found it difficult. I guess you are supposed to put all sorts of needles in the little padded areas; maybe buttons in the middle. It's the thought that counts when working on a hope chest, I think! I actually think it would be a neat project for someone to offer a class for kids who would be interested (and committed) to meet once a month or so and learn the various homemaking skills and put together a hope chest full of hand made things. I read this book, "The Hope Chest: A Legacy of Love," by Rebekah Wilson, and I became completely inspired to do a hope chest for my daughter. When the kids were born, the years seemed endless; that they just stretched out forever before they were grown and in homes of their own! I was afraid if I were to die before they were all grown, that there would be no one to do pretty things for them.

I guess there was a fire in my great-grandmother's time that destroyed a lot of family heirlooms. Then my grandmother pared things down a lot in the 1960's because they retired to Florida and didn't want to haul a bunch of stuff around. Then my mom died in 2000 (she could knit and sew but didn't care to do much crafting beyond doing socks) so she wouldn't be able to make anything for the kids (she made Matthew a hat and some mittens when she was sick that he cherishes; Ashley Rose was born the year after my mom died), and there is no one on my husband's side of the family who likes to do fancy work, so I have been working off and on for these 10 years to finish little projects that would be special (at least to me!) for after Ashley Rose is grown. Sometime I will have to show the little bags I made to put the treasures in the hope chest. They are around the size of pillow cases and they have her initial embroidered on them: still have about five to finish if I can get inspired to do so!

Well, have a creative day!

C. C.

Some Christmas Decorations

Hi! I have been painting up a storm and thought I would share a few pictures.

This one I finished the other day. It is a Kim Christmas design. I made two of them so I could give one away. This Hot Chocolate dispenser I finished today. It is also a Kim Christmas design. (The "Friends" one behind I finished last summer and just got it all glued together for Christmas - it is a Jamie Mills-Price design). My husband has been experimenting with his band boxes, mixing cherry and maple wood pieces to make different looking boxes. Every box he makes is better than the one before! I love them all. As a matter-of-fact, everyone he makes I claim as my own and it is very hard for me to part with them if he wants to give them away!

I have showed this before, but I like it and enjoy looking at it and putting on the blog over and over. I can't believe I was able to make this; I didn't think I had it in me! I am not trying to brag, I just think that it actually looks like a person and can't believe I was able to pull that off!

Here are some other pieces. The bear on the right is a Jamie Mills-Price design painted on one of Rob's band boxes that split on the side (he gives me his rejects to paint on and I DON'T complain EVER!!!). The one on the right is the other Kim Christmas design I painted to give away. Actually, my daughter liked this one better than the one I am keeping; but I already put my name on the other one so I shall have to give this one.

Here is a stocking I did for my husband BK (Before Kids!) I felt like it took forever to finish it (back before kids taught me patience!) Then after I finished the cross-stitching I was so excited to finish it into a stocking that I rushed through the sewing and messed up the piping and sewing the toe of it! I still put it out because Rob likes to fish and it has Santa fishing with his elves! How funny!

Rob made this for me this year. It is a music box. He made one for our daughter also (shhhh!) I am putting some silk ribbon flowers on it for her Christmas.

Well, that is all for now. I need to take a few pictures of some Christmas decorations in the next few days for you; I like looking at everyone elses.

Have a creative day!

C. C.