I Made an 18th Century Pocket

 

I decided my first project after I finished my chemise (which I'll be posting about soon) would be a pocket. I started out by finding a free pocket pattern on google images and tracing it from my screen onto a piece of paper and then tracing that onto my fabric which I had left over from my chemise. This was my first time ever doing embroidery, so I was unsure how it would go but I was excited to try.

For my very first attempt, I kept all 6 strands of the thread and tried a chain stitch for the big stem in the centre. I very quickly realised that 6 strands was far too thick for this linen and for the rest of the pocket used 3 strands. I also think my chain stitch was also rather messy, but I didn't bother redoing it lol.

As I stitched I marathoned Lucifer on Netflix. 

I ended up using chain stitch for the centre stem, split stitch for the thinner stems, back stitch for the outlines, fishbone stitch for the leaves, satin stitch for the flowers and bugs, and long & short stitch for some of the other flowers. I did attempt a french knot but it didn't go too well. You can also see I tried a few different things for the centre of the flowers but settled on straight stitch.

Here you can see my finished embroidery. I'm really happy with how it turned out, especially considering this was my first attempt. I will say my hand had some major cramps afterwards, I think I may have used a needle too thick for the tight weave of the linen.

I cut out the pocket with a perimeter, I was not smart enough to fold the piece of fabric in half so it was even though lol. I then traced the outline and cut out two more pieces, one to line the back of the embroidered piece, and the other to be the back of the pocket.

Once I'd sewed the lining to the embroidered layer I had quite a bit of trouble figuring out how to neatly attatch the bias tape to the opening slit. I ended up having to unstitch and redo it a few times. In the end I managed with the help of some fabric glue at the bottom point, though it was still not as neat as I'd have liked.

Once that was done, I attached the back of the pocket before covering the edge with some herringbone tape. I struggled with how to get it to lay nicely along the rounded edges, which only became worse when I sewed it down on the machine. I probably should've hand sewed but to be honest I doubt that would have been much better. My talents don't lie with sewing.

I am however extremely happy with my embroidery and I'm excited to do more~