Knit One, Die Two
Page 23
To make one sachet you will need only about 35 yards of yarn, so this project is a great way to use odds and ends of yarn left over from other projects. A typical skein of medium-weight acrylic yarn from the hobby store contains 170 yards. These directions are based on using medium-weight yarn and medium-gauge needles, size 8, 9, or 10, but obviously the bags don’t need to be any exact size. If you’re using very fine yarn, you can easily judge how many stitches to cast on to make the bag three inches wide, or as wide or narrow as you want it to be.
You will be knitting a front and a back and sewing them together on three sides. To make a front (or a back), cast on 12 stitches. Use the simple slip-knot cast-on process or the more complicated “long tail” process. Either works fine. Leave a tail of a few inches. If you cut the yarn off right at the beginning of your first row, the knot can loosen and stitches will unravel. The tail will be hidden inside later. Keep knitting until your piece of knitting is about six inches long. Make your last row a “knit” row rather than a “purl” row and then cast off. The instructions for casting off are usually part of a “How to knit” video or you can search “How to cast off.” Leave a tail of about 24 inches after you cast off the last stitch. You will use this tail to sew your bag together. Cast on another 12 stitches and repeat the same process to make the back (or the front) of your bag, but you don’t need to leave a long tail when you cast off. Just a few inches is fine.
Now it’s time to sew your front and back together. Arrange the two pieces with the right sides—the obvious stockinette sides—facing each other, in the same way that you put right sides of fabric together when you sew a seam. Make sure the short edges where you cast off are at the same end. This end will be the open top of the bag. Use a yarn needle—a large needle with a large eye and a blunt end. Thread the needle with the long tail and stitch the front and back together all the way around three sides starting with a long side. To make a neat seam, use an overcast stitch and catch only the outer loops along each side. When you’ve finished the third side, you should be back at the bag’s open top, meeting up with another tail. Unthread the needle and tie the remaining yarn to the other tail in a tight knot. Trim these tails to a few inches and use the yarn needle to hide them, stitching small stitches in and out along the seam for an inch or so and then clipping the shorter tails that are left. You will still have two tails hanging at the bottom of the bag. They will be hidden when you turn the bag right side out, but you can trim them to an inch or so if you like.
After you’ve turned the bag right side out, fill it with your dried flowers, herbs, potpourri, or a bar of fancy soap. Gather the neck of the bag together, loop ribbon around it and tie a bow.
If you’re giving the sachets as gifts, you can attach tiny name tags or cards with messages. Use a pretty font from your word-processing program to print the name tags or cards.
For pictures of many finished sachets, including a catnip sachet, visit the Knit & Nibble Mysteries page at PeggyEhrhart.com.
NIBBLE
Pamela’s Peach Cobbler
This is best if you make it when peaches are really in season, a narrow window in some parts of the country. It can also be made with many other kinds of fruit, like blueberries or other berries, or apples. It’s also a great thing to do with rhubarb, if you are a devotee. But you will need much more sugar with rhubarb, about ¾ cup more.
Ingredients for peach cobbler:
4 cups peaches, peeled and sliced
5 tbs. sugar, divided
2 or 3 tbs. rum or bourbon (optional)
1½ cups flour
3 tsp. baking powder
½ tsp. salt
½ cup plus 2 tbs. melted butter, divided
⅓ to ½ cup heavy cream
9-by-12-inch baking dish (exact size isn’t crucial)
Butter your baking dish, fill it with the peaches, and sprinkle 1 tbs. of sugar over them. Use more sugar if you wish, but the cobbler dough is also sweet. Sprinkle on the rum or bourbon if you are using it.
For the dough, sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt. Using a spoon, not a mixer, blend in ½ cup of the melted butter and 3 tbs. sugar. Add heavy cream, a bit at a time. You want a soft dough but you don’t want it to be runny.
Drop the dough in patches on top of the fruit using a spoon or your fingers. Pat it down to smooth it, but it’s not necessary to cover every spot and it’s okay for the dough to be thicker or thinner in places. Chill the cobbler in the refrigerator for at least half an hour.
Heat the oven to 425 degrees. Take the cobbler from the refrigerator, brush the top with the remaining melted butter (you might need to remelt it), and sprinkle on the remaining 1 tbs. of sugar. Bake the cobbler for half an hour or more. You want the top to look puffy and be lightly browned.
Serve it warm (but not hot) or at room temperature, with vanilla ice cream or heavy cream.
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For a picture of the finished cobbler, visit the Knit & Nibble Mysteries page at PeggyEhrhart.com.