Patchwork Lavender bags

A friend asked me to make her some lavender bags for her birthday. I decided that I could use it as an opportunity to try some things out as she hadn’t really stipulated what kind of bags she wanted. So, I figured I’d continue my learnings about patchwork. I had a size in mind for her bags (the larger ones) but was also keen to use up some scraps of fabric and make me some tiny ones.

• I started with the one in the middle of the bottom row — the striped squares one. This was originally intended to be larger but I got my calculations wrong and so it became one for me.
• Next up was the one in the bottom right corner — a 9 patch square.
• Then I did one to use up some of the strips of fabric that I’d got hanging around — and made the one in the middle of the left hand column. Again a small one, but possibly my favourite. And this became the inspiration for the next one.
• Next up was the middle large one — a larger version of my favourite small one.
• Then I went all a bit “making it up as I went along” and did the final of the larger ones — the one at the top left of the photo. This combined using up fabrics, with sewing and trimming on the fly. And I’m really pleased with how it turned out.
• The final one was the bottom left corner one. This was a very small scale attempt to do something based on this lovely cushion. It didn’t work brilliantly at this scale, but wasn’t as difficult as I’d imagined, so I may give it a try on a larger scale at some time.

Most of these are filled with the moth repellent mix of lavender, mint and herbs, but one is filled with lavender. As usual the backs are all envelope style, and the lavender is sewn into an inner cushion.

A good and useful exploration of different patchwork styles.