I should say: I'm not much for Valentine's Day itself, but the crafts are always pretty. I was playing around with felt recently and came up with this simple, non-frilly sachet. Easy to whip up if you need little gifties.
You might have everything you need to make these in your stash: two 6" squares of woven fabric, and some felt scraps. I made mine with seven colors of felt, but the design would also be cool if all the layers were the same color.
You'll also want a water-soluble marker and some good fabric scissors. And a heart template - I made mine by folding some card stock and cutting a heart freehand. You could also trace around a cookie cutter.
So first, you'll want to cut some hearts out of your felt. And these hearts need to be graduated in size, so the hearts get a little smaller with each layer. I figured out a nice, lazy way to do this.
Start by tracing the full-size heart onto the first color of felt, and cutting it out. This will be the bottom-most heart on the finished sachet.
Then, you can fold your template in half again and cut away about 1/8". You can do this freehand - the hearts don't have to be perfectly-sized.
Once you've shaved this bit away, open the template back up and trace it on the second color of felt. Cut that one out.
...And then repeat these two steps with the rest of the felt colors. Each heart will be slightly smaller than the one before it.
Next, take the smallest heart - this is the one that will be on top of the stack in the finished sachet. Use a ruler and a water-soluble marker to draw a line down the center. You'll use this line as a stitching guide in a moment.
Stack all the hearts up on one of the fabric squares. Arrange them so they're reasonably centered on top of each other, but don't worry too much about it.
Center the stack of hearts on the fabric.
Take this to your sewing machine, and place all these layers under the presser foot. (You might need to press the felt down with your fingers to help it fit.)
Before you begin stitching, take a moment to make sure your hearts are still stacked in a fairly centered stack, and that they're centered on the fabric square.
Sew your way down the center of the heart, following that line you drew earlier. Be sure to backstitch a couple times at the start and end of the seam.
Next, pin the two fabric squares together, with right sides together and the hearts to the inside.
Head back to the sewing machine and sew around all four sides, using a 4/8" seam allowance. Leave a nice, big opening in one side, because you'll need a lot of room to turn those hearts to the outside! Notice how I sewed just enough around those two bottom corners so they'd be nice and sharp, but I left most of that side open? That's the way.
Clip off the four corners.
Turn the sachet right-side out. Poke a chopstick into the corners, so they're nice and sharp. And then turn the raw edges to the inside and press them.
Fill your sachet with something nice, like dried lavender, dried rose buds, or cedar shavings. Don't fill it too full! The sachet should lay pretty flat even when stuffed.
With the sachet filled, slip stitch the opening closed.
If you like, you can sew a contrasting zig zag around the edges of the sachet. Try to press the filling material out of the needle's way as you sew.
(You could also embroider a design around the edges.)
And finally, use a moistened cotton swab or washcloth to remove that stitching line.
Give the hearts a little "fluffing." You might also want to trim their edges a bit here and there, if they need it.
And that's that! Hope you like!
credits to: allfreesewing.com
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