Capable Kids Make Lavender Sachets

Looking for an easy place to start for a kids' sewing project?  We had an impressive amount of participation by children from preschoolers to teenagers when we made free lavender sachets at the 13th annual Lavender Festival in  East Tennessee.

FlourSackMama.com hosted a kids' craft booth, along with The Ferrell Shop, which provided the dried lavender.  At home, I cut 4 1/2-inch cotton squares from remnants and placed them right sides together.  I machine stitched a 1/4-inch seam, then added a seam-finishing stitch (don't own a serger), leaving an approximate 3-inch opening in the center of one side.  I clipped the corners.  I added a few drops of lavender essential oil to dried rice, then added it in a one-to-one ratio to the dried lavender.


At the festival, the children learned to turn their cotton square right side out and use their fingers to push out the four corners before filling it with the lavender mixture.  With varying amounts of assistance, the kids tucked under the remaining raw edges and whip-stitched the opening.
An impressive number of participants were willing to try stitching their sachets themselves, even if they had never sewn.  Several had already been exposed to sewing.  I enjoyed seeing both a mother and then a grandmother showing a little girl their variations on how to finish a row of hand-stitching.  Several boys did a skillful job of sewing up their squares.  One young girl proudly announced that she'd be making a quilt in her next sewing class!


Thanks again for all of the support and Facebook likes from folks who attended the festival!

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