Snail Spirals

Here's the finished hardanger sachet, containing lavender from my garden. I really like the way this came out. When I was fabric shopping off-island last Saturday, I was actually on a mission to find fabric with a print of lavender (the plant) flowers on it. Though there are dozens of fabrics with prints of lavender (the color) flowers, I was unable to find the exact fabric that my mind was picturing. Serves me right for venturing out with a preconceived notion of exactly what I wanted. The fabric on the back of the sachet is very close, though. It's just not quite as "photo-like" as what I had in mind. I think it works very well with the lavender sachet theme, and the stylized flower sprig pattern probably goes even better with the geometric nature of the hardanger.



I found several fabrics that were possibilities for the sachet, and since I live on an island with no ready access to a fabric shop, I got samples of each. By "samples" I mean at least a yard. Fabric stashing is as bad an addiction as yarn and fleece stashing.



I also got the ribbon and velcro to finish a little crochet hook case that I made about a month ago. I was using the case that my steel hooks were passed down to me in, made by my great-grandmother, but it's made out of felt and is somewhat fragile. It also didn't have a strap to keep it rolled up. So I made a new one, modeled on the original (which is a pretty standard design).



It has slots for 20 steel crochet hooks and rolls up nice and compactly, with a velcro-ed ribbon to hold it closed. I have a complete set of steel hooks from size US00 to US14 (2.7mm to 0.6mm) that were my great-grandmother's, great-aunt's, and grandmother's, all on my dad's side. There are many duplicate sizes in the box I inherited, but I pulled these out to be my "working" hooks. It's nice to have vintage fine-thread crochet hooks, because the shape of the shank is so much better than the ones you can buy today. Some of these date to the 1910's.

When I hold this little roll of crochet hooks, I feel like I'm holding a treasure.