Lavender Hearts

 As summer nears its end and autumn is in the air i've been cutting lavender to dry to make little lavender hearts and sachets with.............i love the floral scent and the delicate shades of this plant...

............these gorgeous softly coloured fabrics have inspired my making........they are from the sausalito cottage collection by holly holderman for lakehouse dry goods and i think they are some of my favourite designs............

 ............as well as making lavender hearts i made some simple lavender sachets too.......the fabric is perfect for these......if you don't grow lavender yourself you can buy it online (which i also do)....i need a LoT of lavender..................i bought the soap below in the south of france............it is not actually lavender scented but i love the look of it here........

 ..............collecting decorative bottles, soaps and scents is something i love to do and have always done, to inspire design ideas and to just look pretty around my home, studio and now to photograph to share with my blog friends :)...............i love the floral fragrances too, especially when winter arrives and i can't pop out to the garden to pick a scented posy (though i do have lots of bowls of bulbs around the house in the winter time instead)....................

 ................three little lavender hearts.........now i have got over the initial 'cutting into' of these sweet fabrics i can get on with using them in a new patchwork design.................

...............i had a tidy up in my studio this week......only a quick one and i need to do a lot more, but i came across this cute little bag of wooden letters in my scrapbooking supplies cupboard.......

                                            ...............so i had a little play with them.............

 ................i have cut most of the lavender that i want to dry now and tied it into bunches and hung it up in the linen cupboard to dry............the linen cupboard was one of the things i was excited about when we moved here as it is a walk in one, with the original shelves which i imagined neatly stacked with linen and dotted with lavender bags.....it was like that for a while soon after we moved in but does tend to get filled up with storing other things now and then..............

 ...............i love all kinds of lavender..............below is some dried sea lavender from france......

                               ................and a traditional lavender in a cloche from our garden.................

 ...............another picture from our garden below..............i love the lavender here with the white daises and the beehive which is really a composter..........

 .................i am working on a lot of new projects at the moment, with several magazine commissions to complete so i will be cutting and sewing for the rest of today..........the weather has turned autumnal here but we are told the summer is coming back again later this week :).............the grandchildren go back to school tomorrow, in fact daisy starts school for the first time.......sigh.... (afternoons only for the first week).......how fast the time goes...............

 ..............i have lots of plans and projects for the autumn............i love the variety of seasons we have here in the uk and the pleasures that we enjoy with each one.............of course, making quilts is perfect for autumn and hand quilting is an ideal wintertime pursuit..............i'll be doing lots.......

..............thank you for visiting me here today dear readers, it is lovely to see you and i do appreciate your kind comments.........it is always a treat to hear from my blog friends and to find new bloggers too...........wishing you all a happy september wherever you may be.........back soon xxxxxxxxxxx