A Little Work Pouch

Way back in 2016 the creative stitching group I belong to ,Stitchers Plus, had a challenge for the year to work 2" squares. My mind went instantly to working tenneriffe lace in a square format, it was something that I had wanted to try for a while.

I played with a few different designs which can be seen here , and settled on one that I liked so decided to make more.

The problem was what to do with them. A friend had suggested that I make a 15 sided biscornu, and I remember thinking 'why not?' So off I set to make 15 of the same designed little squares, just in different colour ways. I think I made ten before I  started to think how I could put this pin cushion together. The squares had been on exhibition, and in that process had been mounted to navy card to keep them flat and show off the colours to best advantage. To make the pincushion, I would have to take them off the card and mount them onto something else. I needed something rigid to help hold the shape, and everything I thought of was not pin friendly, so I needed to think of something else to turn them into.

I thought of one of those  square shaped bags that were traditionally from Central Asia, so bought some navy linen, interfaced it, carefully sewed a square, turned it through and folded it to shape, only to find it didn't sit quite square. Oh well, it would have to do. I found out later that all my friends who have made them have never got them quite square either.

So, the bag made, I then stared to add on my tenneriffe squares for decoration. I had a plan, but the plan didn't quite work, the squares were just too big to do what I wanted. I could only fit four of them on, and then they went on crooked, and the bag still looked incomplete. So then I decided to add some interlaced herringbone. Mmmm... remind me not to do this stitch ever again!I knew the stitch had to be worked carefully, and I'm sure I did it right, but when I came to do the interlacing, some of it worked, some of it didn't. If I don't tell anyone they won't know 😃😃.

The bag talked to me as I worked the interlace herringbone, and I kept adding rows of it. The issue was that where the joins met was not the best. So I decided to cover them up. I vlysafixed two layers of the linen together, cut some small circles and stitched them over the joins using woven wheel. Looks much better.

Then I needed a closure, so I made a covered button using the same linen with another woven wheel for decoration.

It's finished! Yay! My fifth UFO done for the year.