How to make strawberry wardrobe freshener or scented sachets from fabric scraps.

Strawberry shaped fabric scented sachets

Once again it's time for the Pinterest challenge, hosted by My Pinterventures. I love joining this monthly challenge when a group of creative bloggers try something from their Pinterest boards, maybe mix it up a little bit and share how they got on.

This month I was inspired by the beautiful traditional Victorian tomato pincushions that have a little strawberry pincushion attached. These tiny strawberries apparently used to be filled with emery sand and were used to sharpen pins and needles before they were put into the main tomato pincushion.

I thought it might be fun to add some lavender to a little fabric strawberries to hang in the wardrobe,pop in a drawer or display in a bowl as wardrobe fresheners or scented sachets.

You can use a sewing machine to make the main body of the strawberry but this is such a quick little sew it’s just as easy to stitch it up by hand.

How to make a Strawberry Wardrobe Freshener

To make your own Strawberry Wardrobe Lavender Bag you will need:

A small piece of cotton fabric, a red print is cute but you can use whatever you like
A sewing machine or needle and thread
Fibre Fill
Dried Lavender or your choice of pot pourri
Green and white felt
Yellow seed beads
A length of ribbon about 6” (15cm)
This Strawberry Pattern

Strawberry Wardrobe Freshener Pattern

Making the Mini Fabric Strawberry

Cut the main strawberry body shape from your cotton print fabric. Fold it in half, right sides together and stitch down the side. Round the bottom point slightly too.

Turn the “cone” you’ve created right side out.

Work a line of running stitch around the top opening of the cone but don’t pull it tight yet. Use a strong thread or double your thread for this bit so it doesn’t snap in a moment when you pull it up.

Add a little fibre fill at the bottom, then a layer of lavender, then a little more fibre fill. If you prefer you can stuff the strawberry completely with just dried lavender or another pot pourri. I found the fibre fill/lavender combo worked well for me.

filling a strawberry shaped bag with lavender

Pull the running stitch up as tight as you can and secure your thread with a few extra overlapping stitches.

Before you cut the thread use it to secure the ribbon hanging loop. Just fold your ribbon in half, stuff the end into the gap at the top of your strawberry and work a few stitched to secure it.

Decorate your fabric strawberry

Cut the calyx and 2 leaves from green felt and the flower from white felt. (did you know the green star top bit of a strawberry is called a calyx? I confess I had to look that up!)

Cut a tiny hole in the centre of your calyx star and poke the ribbon loop through it. Push the felt calyx right down to the strawberry and then stitch all around using green thread to hold it in place. Just press it down all around to coax it into place. You’re stitching something flat onto something rounded so there will be a few creases/lumpy bits.

Add the leaves, holding them in place with just a few stitches at the end.

Add the flower, holding it in place with just a few yellow seed beads.

close up of bead detail on a strawberry shaped fabric lavender bag

You can see that I didn’t bother to change my thread colour for this, I think the green hardly notices. But if you prefer of course you can change thread colour!

You could use a yellow button as a flower centre or a single larger bead or even some french knots.

These little lavender scented strawberries were a really quick make and they look so sweet. I'm really pleased with how they turned out. I think I maybe should have rounded the bottom a little more, my strawberries are maybe a teeny bit too pointed but that is an easy fix for next time.