Mitered Heart Sachet FO

Following my early summer flurry of sweater making I wanted to work with teeny tininess for a while and this is what I came up with...

Pattern: "Mitered Heart Sachet" by Vicki Sever
Yarn: Koigu Painter's Palette Premium Merino
Colour: 138
Needles: Clover Bamboo 2.0mm dpns
Modifications: None
Start: July 16 Finish: August 12, 2008

Its been in my cue for a long time. I discovered the pattern on line probably close to two years ago. Then it took forever to find the yarn...

Koigu is made just north of Toronto but it was impossible to find in stock around here. Eventually I landed some at Purl in NYC this past February in a colourway I thought would work. (KPPPM 138 -there's no sign of this colour ref.# on the Koigu site maybe its discontinued?)

Meanwhile for two seasons I've been planting more lavender in the garden to have enough to actually fill the "several" sachets the pattern said could be made from one skein of yarn.
Then of course came the harvesting and drying and then cleaning the lavender flowers off the stems. Comparatively speaking, the actual knitting of these was probably the smallest part of the whole project! My first attempt at miters, each sachet made of 14 interconnected squares, I made 4 sachets for a total of 56 miters.
I got faster at them as I went but also a bit bored. Coincidentally I was reading a library copy of Mason Dixon Knitting during this project (I've wanted to do a mitered blanket ever since reading about it on the January One blog). After making my 56 miters though I don't think I'll be doing a mitered blanket. Repetition on that scale - repetition that requires a bit of attention be paid -isn't what I'm looking for in my knitting time. Having said that though, I can see picking up another skein of Koigu if I ever come across it again and taking another run at the sachets since a) I now have the lavender harvest to fill them and b) they are a lovely little gift. I also think they'd be lovely knit in a pale, solid colour linen yarn which would make an utterly different effect with a pretty ribbon for contrast.

(My number one son surprisingly told me he thinks these sachets are the nicest things I've ever knit! He also shared the fact that he can't understand "shoving them in a drawer with a bunch of underwear"!)
This was also perfect summer time knitting. The wool never touches any part of you other than your fingers and its utterly portable. Its also a very good knitting value for the money. The one skein kept me and my fingers intermittently amused for the better part of three weeks. The coil less safety pins called for to hold live stitches would have been a great help but not being able to find any I made due with regular safety pins and the smallest stitch holders in my collection. I did find I had to track every line of every square with post it notes as well as mark square #1 as a reference to avoid getting lost or joining on miters in the wrong order or orientation.

I've decided to make liners for my sachets because I think there are too many holes in the knitting through which the lavender might escape. The scent of lavender is lovely on clothes, but the feeling of lavender buds in clothes is another story entirely.

My liners are made with fabric remnants hand sewn with a couple of strands of embroidery thread from my little stash. (Both remnants are fifty or sixty years old - one side from a much laundered cotton bed sheet, the other a piece of very fine tulle) I could have whipped these up on the machine much faster but I don't think the vintage tulle would have survived and I just like the idea of making the whole thing by hand. My favourite part about the sachet design paired with that colourway of Koigu is they remind me of time worn tapestry or heavy embroidery and I think they deserved a lining in keeping with that well worn aesthetic.

No one will likely ever open the sachets to replenish the lavender (other than me) but I like the idea of knowing that if they do they'll find attention to detail even in there.

Two of the sachets will be birthday gifts for my mom this week and two will stay with me. There may be one more left in the remaining yarn. I'll just have to see if the mood strikes me to start another and find out for sure.