Lavender Bottles

Lovely lavender is in bloom at this time of year in my part of the world. Our own is just about over now, but there's plenty of it still around in gardens, blooming away and smelling wonderful on the warm late summer air. This was ours about two weeks ago. It did smell good, and was full of bees most of the time.



Most of it is now cut and dried, and ready to make lavender bags and sleep pillows with. I've blogged before about my love of lavender here, here and here, and showed you some of the things I've made.



This year I thought I'd try a tutuorial-style thingy, and show you how to make something a bit different - lavender bottles. Here are some I made 2 years ago, and they still scent my drawers beautifully. They're called bottles because of their shape, and are sometimes called wands too. They are quite fiddly to make, so I keep mine quite small and short, but you can make them as big as you'd like.

First you need to cut some fresh lavender with stems as long as possible on a warm, dry day, ideally before the buds have opened. I usually use 15 stems for a bottle. Always make sure you have an odd number, as you'll be weaving in a spiral.



I use a length of fairly narrow ribbon about a metre long and cut off any I don't need at the end. Firmly tie one end around the stems just below the flowers.

Gently bend the stems back on themselves all around the flowers, trying not to break them.

This is why they must be fresh and not dried, so that the lavender is nice and flexible.

You should aim to make a little cage all around the flowers, holding the stems gently at their base.

Now comes the fiddly bit. Space out the stems evenly and pull the ribbon to the front so that it comes to the top of the bottle.

Once it's through, very carefully start to weave the ribbon under and over each stem, turning as you go.

It's most fiddly at the start, but gets easier as you go, and is important that you try to keep the stems in place as you weave.

Round and round you go. Each time you weave the ribbon under or over a stem it should be opposite to what you did last time you went round. That's why you need an odd number of stems.

Tuck any stray flowers in as you go. You can see it's coming together now, wrapping the flowers tightly inside.

As you get closer to the base of the flowers, pull the ribbon a little more tightly to make the neck of the 'bottle'.

Now wind the ribbon tightly around the stems in a spiral until you reach the ends. It needs to be tight because as the lavender dries it will shrink and the ribbon will loosen.

Tie the end up very tightly. You don't want all that hard work to come undone!

Snip the ends of the stems neatly.

And make a hanging loop with the ribbon.

Finished - ta dah! It's all ready to use to scent your wardrobe or drawers, and will gradually dry on its own. I like to make them in different colours, and often give them as little gifts. Purples, blues and greens work well. I always keep a few for myself, though!

If you decide to have a go at making one, I hope you enjoy them as much as I do.
See you soon x

Scavenger Hunt

Hello there! I've hardly been in Blogland over the last two weeks and have been missing you all - how are you? It's been busy here and I'm very glad that it's a Bank Holiday weekend. Last week we had several seasons at once with snow, sleet, hailstones, rain and warm sunshine all in the course of a couple of days. That's April for you. This weekend I'm joining in with a photographic scavenger hunt hosted by Hawthorn at I live, I love, I craft, I am me... If you've never visited her blog, I recommend you take a look. Her photos are great and she always has something interesting to say. Over the last three weeks I've been taking photos which fit the categories she set, so without further ado, here they are:

1) Orange

I reached for a clementine after our meal and P passed me one of our old Ikea plastic plates. We bought these plates years ago when the children were little and we needed some unbreakable crockery. We've carried on using them, as we're fond their flowery shapes and bright, zingy colours. As soon as I put my clementine on it I knew that this was my 'orange' photo.

2) Feather

Our garden is regularly visited by pigeons and collared doves who like to peck the seeds I put out on the feeder. I know many people think of them as a nuisance, but I have great affection for them and love their rounded shapes and soft grey plumage. When I was gardening I found a feather and used it to mark where I'd planted some seeds. 

3) Something fresh

Two weeks ago I picked some rhubarb from our garden and within 20 minutes it was trimmed, washed, chopped and cooking gently under a crumble topping in the oven. Even I was impressed by my speed. As my friend said, 'That's quicker than Birds Eye!'.

(Here's the 'after' shot - we ate it with vanilla ice cream).

4) Horizon

We drove to Wells one evening recently and, as we reached the top of the Mendip hills, this view lay ahead. We take this road very often and as a result it's become very familiar, but I never tire of this wonderful view of the Somerset Levels and Glastonbury Tor. Magical.

5) Wet

I went outside after a shower of rain and stopped to look at raindrops which were caught in the new leaves of the aquilegias. The closer I looked, the more I could see. You can see our cherry tree reflected in this lovely, sparkly droplet.

6) Craft

I love going to craft workshops and learning something new. Still on my to-learn list are basket-weaving and stained glass-making, but one that I really enjoyed a few years ago was mosaic-making. I made a mat and this green and white daisy-bordered mirror which hangs in the kitchen (as it's a mirror I am making a rare appearance). Cutting up the tiles was easier than I expected and I enjoyed piecing together the design as I went. I must do some more one day. 

7) Growing

When we were at our local farm shop recently we stopped to visit the ducks and hens, and as we passed the pond we noticed the frogspawn. It's not the best photo, but you can see the hundreds (thousands?) of tiny eggs and a tadpole swimming by. In every egg was a miniscule wriggling black dot, each one a froglet in the making. 

8) Memories

This little milk bottle brings back memories of my infant school days. Back in the 1970s every child was entitled to school milk, and we would be given ours at morning break. If I was milk monitor I would count out the little bottles, which held a 1/3 pint, and line them up on top of the big old stove that stood in the corner of our classroom to warm. Then I would pop a stripy red and white plastic straw into the top of each silver foil topped bottle, ready for drinking. I actually didn't like warm milk, but did enjoy the ritual of having my own tiny milk bottle.

9) Sticks

I love a den. We found this one in the depths of Goblin Combe. We hadn't seen anyone for the whole time we'd been in the beautiful and eerie gorge, but here was reassuring evidence of busy human activity. Rather cosy isn't it?

10) Sky

This is my choice of category. At this time of year the skies are so dramatic, a fabulous ever-changing artwork going on above our heads as we go about our everyday business. I am a bit of a cloud freak and can't take my eyes off the silvery-lined, billowing cumulus clouds which tower high into the atmosphere. The beautiful dark grey parts of them bring rain and hailstones, and before you know it the sun is out again.

I really enjoyed doing this scavenger hunt and hope to visit you all in Blogland a bit more this week. Hope you've all had a good weekend. See you soon x

A Creative Catch-Up

Well, it's the final week of our summer holidays here and it's pouring with rain. I've got a good few things I plan to get done this week as well as appointments, a bit of catching up with friends and, last but not least, some creative time. I started as I meant to go on this weekend with some time spent in my shed making things. Here's Miss Blossom who lives in the shed. She's spent the summer swathed in roses - very nice too.

I've managed to spend a couple of afternoons and mornings out there in sun and rain, and love it very much indeed. I did some jewellery-making the other day. It's such a pleasure to be able to spread out my stuff as much as I please and not to have to tidy everything away each time I finish.

I keep my bead mat and tools in a shallow tin so that nothing rolls away and I don't lose things. Here I was repairing D's necklace and making her some gemstone chip bracelets.

On another afternoon I also made some very simple amethyst and flourite earrings...

...and some haematite ones. I'll probably wear these for work.

Here's a little wire hare which I made a while ago. I twisted him from silver wire and gave him blue glass bead eyes. He's only tiny and sits on a pebble catching the sunshine.

I've also been doing a bit of crochet too. This is a mandala which I made to Lucy's design at the start of the summer. I put the colours of roses, sweet Williams and blue skies into it. I think that the last few rows went a bit awry and don't quite match the pattern, but I'm happy with it.

Recently I've been fidgety and restless and not able to get into my crochet. I've just not been feeling it - you know what I mean, don't you, dear reader? I lost my crochet oomph. Making little items wasn't really grabbing my attention and I felt I needed something a bit larger with lots of repetitive rows. Once again, an Attic 24 pattern came to mind - Lucy's stripy bag. Here's one I made a few years ago which I use all the time.

I chose lots of bright, fresh colours - a real mix with the dominant colour a lovely cherry red.

Feeling very excited at the prospect of a new project I chose my colours. I wanted to capture the colours of late summer, now that the colours are jewel-like. The old gold will be the main colour and for me it's the colour of cornfields and harvests. The deep mauve is the heather-clad moors at this time of year, the dark pink the colour of fuchsias and dark geraniums. The orange is the colour of bright nasturtiums and calendulas, and the green the soft colour of their leaves. Finally I wanted a deep blue for late summer skies and warm nights. I'm still not convinced about this royal blue and may swap it for something more azure. This bag will use up some of my stash of cotton yarn, and it's mainly Rico Creative Cotton, but there's some Twilley's Freedom Sincere and some Rowan Handknit Cotton too.

I lit my Wild Gorse scented candle (one of my birthday presents last year) and settled down to make a circle for the base of the bag.

It grew quite quickly, and I'm loving doing it. I'd love to start a blanket, but after my incredibly slow progress with J's university blanket last year I think I'll stick to something more manageable for the time being.

While we are in my shed I thought I'd show you around a bit. Here's my seasonal noticeboard made from a piece of cardboard, gingham fabric, cotton tape and split pins. I change what's on it to reflect the seasons. At the moment there's lots of purply lavender and heather colours. The little artificial thistle and heather corsage at the top is a souvenir from our several holidays to Edinburgh when the children were younger. We used to take them to the Fringe festival and enjoy exploring the city and surrounding area too. We hope we'll go back one year soon.

Here are some honesty seed pods which I grew this year and am drying. I'm hoping they'll go a lovely silvery white, but it's not looking promising. Despite that, they're very pretty as their colour fades.

This little set of wire shelves lived in the kitchen until its refit and now I'm using it in my shed. I've got all sorts of pots, jars and knick-knacks on it and a summery retro ice lollies postcard too.

I always harvest our lavender and dry it. Here it is waiting for me to strip the flowers from the stalks and store it in bags, ready to use. Aaah, the smell!

I have a collection of seaside things on my desk. A small jar of seaglass (I have a couple of small boxes of it, collected from many beaches over many years), some sand, smooth pebbles,

and a few wonderful striped cockle shells from Zeeland this summer. I have plans for these.

And here's my bright collection of knitting needles and a little textile pot which I crocheted from yarn made from recycled saris.

I hope you've enjoyed being out in the shed with me. I've loved showing you around my creative little space. It's been good to have the company - do drop in again. With a week to go before I'm back at work, I'm going to sit down and make those curtains now. Perhaps that rain might even ease a bit...