valentine heart lavender bag tutorial

I have to say thank you for all the kind comments about my valentines lavender bags.

If' you'd like to know how I made them read on. otherwise go make a cup of tea and come back another day.

take a piece of fabric (I used some cream cotton) 10cm x 20cm.

cut a small heart from a scrap of fabric or felt and position it on the right of the rectangle, about 15cm across the fabric.

stitch around the heart to attach it, and then stitch a stem and a few leaf shapes.

I used an embroidery foot and dropped the feed dogs on my machine to do this, but you can easily do the stitching by hand (see further down for an example) with little running stitches and embroidery thread.

cut a piece of ribbon 15cm in length, and fold it in half (wrong sides together) then place the ribbon 15cm across the rectangle, so the ends are just sticking out over the top. take a pin and pin the ribbon in place in the middle of the rectangle (well away from where you will be sewing)

fold over length ways and pin.  Sew around the edge, leaving a gap at the bottom.(I marked the gap I leave with the pink pinheads) I always reverse and go back over the ribbon at the top, making sure it's really well secured. I sewed this by machine but you could it by hand using back stitch to make sure it was very secure.

clip the corners to reduce bulk, and then turn it inside out, watching out for that pin on the inside.

I stuffed mine with lavender, but you could use any dried flowers, or stuffing scented with some essential oils, or even just sprayed with your perfume.

I stitched this one by hand using some embroidery thread.  The fabric was fraying terribly so I made a feature of it and frayed it some more, before sticking it onto a piece of card.

one valentines card. 

hope that all makes sense, let me know if you make one.