A folk-style pocket

I have some good-quality wool scraps from a folk costume I made for my daughter. I also asked my mother to give me the scraps that she had from her old national costume project. Now, I decided to combine these fabrics and make my own folk-style pocket for my folk costume.

I went through all the images of folk-style costume pockets I could find and collected ideas. There were several motifs I found beautiful. Instead of going for the more commonly seen naturalistic floral embroidery, I felt drawn to more geometric and abstract styles. My notes were messy, though:

I made a pattern for the pocket out of paper. Then I used thread to mark the outline of the pocket onto the blue wool. I also added horizontal and vertical lines for alignment.

I tried drawing my design onto paper but as I was travelling at that point, I didn’t really have any tools to transfer my design onto the fabric. So, I switched tactics and decided to design on the fly, starting from the flower pattern at the centre. I used several different stitches: the cross-stitch, the satin stitch, the backstitch, the running stitch, and the chain stitch.

When the embroidery was done, I gave it a press and then cut away the pieces. I backed the embroidered wool with sturdy linen to make it more durable.

To continue with the theme of adding scraps of fabric, I finished the pocket opening with a small piece of red wool that was also left-over from my mother’s costume. I made the back of the pocket out of stripy wool from my daughter’s costume (that you haven’t seen, yet!).

I finished the edge with blue bias tape and then folded the upper edge to the back and formed it into a casing for a belt.

This folk-style pocket turned out very cute! It clearly has the look of Finnish folk style pockets but the mixing and matching of motifs makes the design unique and my own.

I hope you liked this post. See you soon! Happy sewing!

Katja