Lavender Bags and Bookmarks

The local school has an annual Mother's Day stall. Every child in the school has the opportunity to do their shopping in the hall sometime during the week leading up to the big day itself. Most like to buy two or three small items with their pocket money. 

They have a wonderful time shopping - browsing, choosing and counting out their precious coins. 

My daughter asked me to make a few lavender sachets - always a popular item. There are not many lavender flowers around during winter, but I picked what I could from the garden and someone on the local Facebook gardening group offered another bag of cuttings. After oven-drying them there was only enough for filling a few mini sachets.

My granddaughter had great fun choosing the ribbons and the buttons for some of the lavender bags.

As the day drew nearer more small items were needed to make sure everyone had the chance to find a suitable gift. I find it very hard to throw out little pieces of quilt fabric. Bookmarks seemed like a quick item to make that would use up some more of the small pieces I had left over from a colour wash quilt. And they'd provide an inexpensive gift.

The first bookmark I made was too soft and floppy and needed more body. 

Out came the iron-on vilene. I had to cut fabric and vilene pieces out individually because everything was cut from small remnants, mainly narrow strips of fabric and irregular shaped bits of stiffener.

Small oddments of ribbon came in handy too.

In the past I've had a few mishaps when ironing the stiffening onto the fabric, no matter how careful I thought I was being. This time I used baking paper over the vilene. I was pleased it worked well and protected the iron from any stray melted bits of glue. 

Initially I used printed fabric on both the front and back of the bookmarks. But I remembered there were scraps of plain fabric in my cupboard too. Putting plain on the back meant I could make more bookmarks - with a pretty floral on the front and a complementing plain on the back. 

In the end I forgot to take a photo of everything I made. These were just the first few bookmarks.

The market was a great success with most items on the tables completely sold out. And the children were delighted with the little presents they were able to find for mom or gran. To my surprise all the bookmarks and lavender bags were sold too. It's nice to know that bookmarks are still useful; that not everyone does all their reading on an electronic device.

I hope you are well and safe. 'Till next time, happy stitching!