For Christmas gift exchange I had made white on white Boutis sachets. Barely finishing six sachets, there had been no time for the washing step before sewing the sachets into the little pillow. The washing step is to tighten the batiste fabric, closing up the holes made during the stuffing/cording stage. The washing also removes the light pencil lines from the corded side.
Fast forward to January. LB’s birthday gift already being late, there wasn’t a hard deadline to strive for. After checking with her to make sure that she liked the sent of lavender, I began to make 2 more sachets. This time I wanted to bring a little color into things. LB really likes the color Tiffany Blue, so that was the color. In preference to natural fibers, cotton yarn (the kind to make dishcloths with) was picked up next time I was at the local craft store. It wasn’t until arriving home before the idea of color bleeding came to mind. (sigh) Synthetic fibers it would be.
This particular project is small and very portable. It went wherever I went, until all the cording was complete. Pleased with myself for getting to this step, I threw them in to the washer with a hot load. Excitedly emptying the dryer later, I searched through to find both of them. Ummm… there was only one. I checked the washer to see if it got left behind when changing load to dryer, nope. Then checked the dryer, sometimes things get caught on the fins. Still no luck. 🙁 After all that work and time, to end up with only one seems so unfair.
The one that survived the washing procedure wasn’t much to look at.
A press with heavy steam helped a considerable bit. With all the fraying around the edges it occurred to me that I should have used fray check at the beginning of this project. The blue yarn cording didn’t all get trapped inside of the design, but the holes were all much tighter.
Would I do a project like this again? Yes. I like doing it and I like the way it looks when it is finished. Things that I would do differently: Only stuff/cord on the back side, make sure that ALL the yarn has been drawn into the fabric, wash by hand in hot water then dry with an iron.
Now to find time to stop by the post office…
Hopefully the other one will turn up somewhere!
Thank you. Me too. It’s bad enough that the washer eats my socks!