The Damsel has a few rose bushes at her cottage. She loves her pink one, and her yellow one, and her minature rose, and her old-fashioned rambling rose.
Of course she loves the old-fashioned one.
But her red one, an Abraham Lincoln, is the only one that really has a nice rose scent. Apparently, when rose growers hybrid the plants to get beautiful colors, it breeds out the scent. So if you’re in the market for a rose bush, keep that in mind. Do you want color or scent? Check the label…sometimes you can have both.
The Damsel cries when she deadheads her red roses, because they smell so, so, so wonderful and she can’t bear to throw the petals in the trash. So she thought back about what Grandma would do with rose petals. One thing she’d do is make sachets.
So what’s a sachet? Sachets are little pillows filled with dried flowers. Lavender is popular along with roses. Say “Sa-shay,” as in, “I’m going to sa-shay out to the rose garden and pick some flowers.” The usual use for them is to stick them in drawers, to make everything smell nice.
Gather some past-their-prime roses, pull the petals from the flower heads, and set them out to dry.
There are ways to hurry this process along, but if you don’t have an immediate pressing need, you could just put them out on the counter in a pretty dish, taking whiffs whenever necessary. Stir them with your fingers a couple of times a day. Feel fancy while stirring rose petals with your fingers.
After a few days (four or so) the roses will be dry and a bit sad looking. But they still smell wonderful.
To make a sachet, you need some sort of loose weave cloth, so the scent can escape. The Damsel first tried cheesecloth, because it’s the loosest weave cloth she has. UGLY WARNING: cheesecloth will work but oh my ugly.
Next she found a hunk of lace fabric in the bottom of the scrap box. It’s open enough for our purposes.
Cut a rectangle from the lace. It doesn’t matter what size, but remember that sachets are usually on the small side, so they don’t crowd your drawer.
Fold in half, trimming the edges if necessary to straighten. Don’t fuss.
Put right sides together, if there is a right and wrong side to the material. With lace fabric, there often isn’t. Sew up two sides. With the fold, you will have one side remaining open.
Turn right side out. Now you have a little bag.
Stuff it with petals. Don’t be shy.
Now all that remains is to sew up the remaining side. You could handstitch this to make it extra nice, or do it this way on the machine:
Hold the bag with the open side at the top, and settle the petals to give you room. Fold a half inch or so of the cut edges to the inside. Pin it if you’d like.
Topstitch across the open end of the bag.
Add a ribbon if you like. Sachets make sweet little gifts. Tie one on top of your next present to a rose-loving friend.
Pingback: how to dry lavender « Old School