Hancock Commons and the Crafting Club organized a Destress Night open to all students that consisted of stuffing and embroidering scented sachets. A sachet is a small cloth bag filled with aromatic ingredients such as herbs or flowers. These bags can be placed anywhere to release the scent of the ingredients, including in drawers to make your clothes smell good, or placed in pillows to help you sleep. One typical sachet filling is lavender, which was the scent chosen for the Jan. 28 Destress Night.

The kits were supplied at Edge Café to be picked up before the event and a member of the Crafting Club was present to guide students as they made and embroidered their sachets. The kits contained the bags for the sachet, lavender for stuffing, thread and needle for embroidery and a tea bag to maximize relaxation. The embroidering aspect allowed for creativity and personalization, as each attendee was able to stitch their own design onto the cloth bag prior to stuffing it with lavender. 

After embroidering a design on the front of the sachet, attendees stuffed the bag with the lavender filling and tied off the top. During this time, participants were able to converse over Zoom, which provided an opportunity for new friends to bond over similar interests. 

Sophomores Aliza Reinstein and her roommate Orli Sweifach both attended the event. When asked why she and Sweifach participated, Reinstein said, “We like crafts and wanted to do a relaxing activity.” 

She explained that they saw this as an opportunity to pass some time and interact with other people during quarantine. The group was able to relax while talking about school, hobbies, events over the break and other lighthearted topics. 

The event was an opportunity to take some time out of a busy week and destress while making new connections. The evening was part of the Hancock Commons Destress Series, a two-part series designed to help students survive quarantine in a fun and creative way. There will be another sachet-making event on Wednesday, Feb. 3 at 8:30 p.m.