4 lbs of Lavender doesn't really evoke a sense of peace and relaxation.

Unfortunately, I'm not one to have lots of stories of a summer vacation visiting exotic locations or hanging by a beach house or relaxing in front of cozy campfires. In fact, I can barely come to terms with the fact that it's well into September already and R is about to start classes tomorrow. I spent a quiet but hectic June, July and August secluded in a test lab at work. (I am happy to say that we'll likely be making our deadline on the 17th of September though!). I've promised myself a long christmas vacation this year. I think I'm about seven years overdue for one.

Anyways, at the beginning of the summer, I was commissioned to make 200 lavender sachets for a company I used to work for, to give away at a women's convention that is happening this week. I pretty much had all of my materials in place back in July, but due to circumstances that sucked some major arseness, I didn't get the tags I needed until a couple of weeks ago. So over the last long weekend of the summer, I had no choice but to hunch over the sewing machine and get the job done. I drafted anybody who didn't have four paws to help.



R was my main source of sweat shop labour - he didn't get paid and he was only allowed three unscheduled pee breaks. Clearly, he needs a better union rep. Dayna only managed to halt operations once, despite the fact that she developed a neat trick for stepping on the foot pedal of the sewing machine.


I used a variety of pre-cut quilting squares. The brilliance of this decision continues to amaze me. The outcome was amazingly colourful AND I didn't have the urge to chuck my rotary cutter out the window. My cousins came over to help for a few hours, and the younger one spent considerable time picking her favourite two patterns for a couple of sample sachets of her own. This seriously impacted quality control, but I guess you can't really complain when labour is free. I asked her to count how many squares I had and it went something like this:

S: 22... 23...24... 44

25!!!

S: Right. 25 ... 26....

Then:

S: 36 ..37 ... 38 ... 39 ... 99...

40!!!!!

love it.



I will probably throw a few of these into a shop soon. They're too cute.