Metadata

Wednesday 5 February 2014

Knitted, heart-shaped lavender sachet

Today I'm making a lavender sachet as a gift for a friend who won't be feeling very happy this Valentine's Day. I won't talk about her private grief other than to say that I think she's being a real star, handling a very tricky situation with great dignity and lots of courage.

Anyway, what do you think? Any chance it might raise a smile?



 I'm loving all the pinky, flowery, girliness of it, and I'm not normally a very girly kind of girl.

If you would like to make one of your own, you can find the pattern here Skinny heart pattern on "Lulu loves" website. It's very clearly, and accurately written, and I wholeheartedly recommend it to you.


I filled mine in part with the suggested toy-filler, but in the very middle I placed a couple of sachets of dried lavender seeds, tied up in some kitchen muslin so that they don't come out. As a result my room is smelling like summer, and that is making me very happy whilst the wind whistles down the chimney and the rain batters against my windowpanes.





And then I embellished it with some knitted lavender stems for luck.





If you'd like to have a go at knitting your own lavender, here's what you need and here's how to go about it: 

Materials:

Small amounts of 4 ply wool in lavender and green colours. I used Sublime extra fine merino wool in 4 ply.
1 set of 2 mm needles. I used a 4-needle set that I have for making socks, and I found having a spare needle to do the double-back-and-make-petals bits quite handy.

 Pattern: 

Cast on 3 stitches

Row 1: knit (3 stitches on needle - all numbers in brackets shown below are the number of stitches you ought to have on your needle at the end of the row.)

Row 2: purl (3)

Row 3: knit (3)

Row 4: purl (3)

Row 5: knit into the front and back of each of the first two stitches, knit 1. (5)

Row 6: purl (5)

Row 7: *knit 1, cast on 5 stitches by rolling the wool in front of the needle to create two loops and drawing the first loop through the second one to create a stitch. Cast off the 5 stitches that have just been created by knitting back across the new five stitches and casting them off one by one*. I found it useful to use one of the other sock needles to knit back in the opposite direction and cast these stitches off. Repeat from * to * across the row, ending with knit 1. (5)

Row 8: purl (5)

Row 9: knit (5)

Row 10: purl (5)

Row 11: knit into the front and the back of each of the first 4 stitches. Knit 1. (9)

Row 12: purl (9)

Row 13: knit 1, cast on 5 as in row 7, and cast them off again. *Knit 2, cast on 5 as in row 7, and cast them off again*. Repeat from * to * across the row, ending with Knit 2. (9)

Row 14: purl (9)

Row 15: *slip 2, knit 1, cast off the first 2 slipped stitches by drawing over the first knit stitch*. Repeat from * to * across the row. (3)

Row 16: Change colour to green to knit the stem: purl (3)

Row 17: knit (3)

Repeat rows 16 and 17 until the stem is as long as you want it to be.

Cast off.

Sew in your ends, and sew up the back of the lavender head and stem.

Ta-dah: you've just made a lavender flower.



 Enjoy!


Bonny x

No comments:

Post a Comment