Weeks ago I promised a friend I would put a little tutorial on here on how to make lavender wands. I'm just getting round to it now - hopefully there'll still be some lavender left in your garden if you want to make them.
First pick your lavender and remove side shoots, leaves etc. (OK, that's the easy bit done!)
Then assemble your tools :-
Not much needed here - scissors and paper gift ribbon. You can use real ribbon if you'd prefer but it does get a bit expensive, and I find the paper stuff easier because it's a bit "stiff" and therefore easier to weave with. You will need about 1.5 metres of ribbon for each wand.
Tie the stems together just underneath the flower heads leaving a nice length of "spare", shown on the left hand side. The ribbon on the right is going to do the weaving. Make sure you use an odd number of stalks (I normally use 13) so you can weave round and round in a circle. (An even number doesn't work - try it!)
Now turn the whole thing upside down and bend the stalks down over the flowers, all the way round. The "spare" bit of ribbon gets pulled down and hidden amongst the flowers and the stalks. This is for tying with the longer length after the weaving is finished.
Now you can start weaving the ribbon under and over each stalk, pulling it tight as you go.
Carry on weaving until all the flowers are covered with the ribbon. This forms a sort of "basket" around them and stops the little buds falling out as the lavender dries.
Once you get to the end of the flowers, fish out the "spare" piece of ribbon and tie it around the stems with the weaving strand. You may still have a long length of the weaver left, in which case you can cut it off and tie it around the stalks on top of the other knot.
The last thing to do is curl the ribbon using the blade of the scissors and cut off the stems to the length you want.
Perfect for hanging in your wardrobe, and placing in drawers with your woollens to keep the moths away. I use lots of these in with my fleeces and spun wool (if you knit, you could pop one in your knitting bag) and, fingers crossed, haven't had a problem with moths yet!
The blue wand on the right is one of last year's - dried out now, but still intact. It's not quite as aromatic as the new ones, but it could probably be topped up by dabbing on a bit of lavender oil.
First pick your lavender and remove side shoots, leaves etc. (OK, that's the easy bit done!)
Then assemble your tools :-
Not much needed here - scissors and paper gift ribbon. You can use real ribbon if you'd prefer but it does get a bit expensive, and I find the paper stuff easier because it's a bit "stiff" and therefore easier to weave with. You will need about 1.5 metres of ribbon for each wand.
Tie the stems together just underneath the flower heads leaving a nice length of "spare", shown on the left hand side. The ribbon on the right is going to do the weaving. Make sure you use an odd number of stalks (I normally use 13) so you can weave round and round in a circle. (An even number doesn't work - try it!)
Now turn the whole thing upside down and bend the stalks down over the flowers, all the way round. The "spare" bit of ribbon gets pulled down and hidden amongst the flowers and the stalks. This is for tying with the longer length after the weaving is finished.
Now you can start weaving the ribbon under and over each stalk, pulling it tight as you go.
Carry on weaving until all the flowers are covered with the ribbon. This forms a sort of "basket" around them and stops the little buds falling out as the lavender dries.
Once you get to the end of the flowers, fish out the "spare" piece of ribbon and tie it around the stems with the weaving strand. You may still have a long length of the weaver left, in which case you can cut it off and tie it around the stalks on top of the other knot.
The last thing to do is curl the ribbon using the blade of the scissors and cut off the stems to the length you want.
Perfect for hanging in your wardrobe, and placing in drawers with your woollens to keep the moths away. I use lots of these in with my fleeces and spun wool (if you knit, you could pop one in your knitting bag) and, fingers crossed, haven't had a problem with moths yet!
The blue wand on the right is one of last year's - dried out now, but still intact. It's not quite as aromatic as the new ones, but it could probably be topped up by dabbing on a bit of lavender oil.
Thank you so much for this lovely tutorial. I'm looking forward to making some this weekend.
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