Lavender's Blue Dilly Dilly

The lavender in my back garden

 Lavender's blue, dilly, dilly, lavender's green,

When I am king, dilly, dilly, you shall be queen.

Who told you so, dilly, dilly, who told you so?

'Twas my own heart, dilly, dilly, that told me so.

Call up your men, dilly, dilly, set them to work
Some to the plough, dilly, dilly, some to the fork,
Some to make hay, dilly, dilly, some to cut corn,
While you and I, dilly, dilly, keep ourselves warm.

Lavender's green, dilly, dilly, Lavender's blue, 

If you love me, dilly, dilly, I will love you. 

Let the birds sing, dilly, dilly, And the lambs play; 

We shall be safe, dilly, dilly, out of harm's way.

I love to dance, dilly, dilly, I love to sing; 

When I am queen, dilly, dilly, You'll be my king. 

Who told me so, dilly, dilly, Who told me so? 

I told myself, dilly, dilly, I told me so.

I am very fond of this nursery rhyme. It always seems so romantic. Also the only thing I remember of my very first day at school, was standing in a circle with other children singing this song.

But did you know that the earliest surviving version of the song was printed in England between 1672 and 1685, under the name Diddle Diddle, Or The Kind Country Lovers?  The lyrics printed in this version are not so romantic but quite bawdy.  

I have been making lavender bags, mainly because my mum supplied me with an enormous bag of lavender. She lives in sheltered housing with a communal garden, so having checked that no one else wanted the lavender she went out and picked it, dried it, and stripped it from the stems. So my work room has the delicious smell of lavender at the moment.

The first bags I made were not my own design, but from this book. I used silk for the main fabric, as I didn't have the linen that was suggested. Very handy to keep your undies smelling nice! 

I thought about the song, and how all the lavender I see is not blue, but lilac or deep purple. But a bit of research and I have found white, pink and blue lavender. To my surprise there is even a yellow variety of lavender!

I then had still more lavender, so decided to make some from my own design. First I appliqued felt on to hessian for the plant pots. (I still haven't mastered the free motion sewing, so these are edged neatly with my feed dogs up.) Then I embroidered the lavender plants using wool. I made little bags of muslin for the lavender, as I thought it might work its way out through the hessian. 

My first idea was to sew little bags and turn them out, but the hessian was just too stiff for this. So instead I simple pinned the front and back of the bags together, and sewed round the edge. I had to use my zipper foot for this, so I could get nice and close in to the muslin bag. I think the rustic look is rather nice. They have a ribbon in case you want to hang them in your wardrobe. Despite saying I wasn't going to do any more craft fairs, I have one coming up next weekend, and am hoping these might sell well. After that they may end up in my Etsy shop, and I guess the postage will be very low.