Category: Sewing

Today I was supposed to go to the birthday party of a friend of mine. However a few weeks ago I found out that I had a study day today as well. This was only a once a year day and I’ve been struggling a bit with the course matter so it seemed like a better plan to go there. However, I felt a little guilty for not being able to come because he had announced it literally months before. So I decided to make a gift. A special gift. A (mostly)hand-crafted gift.

The plan was as follows. Since I know him from Larp (live action role play) which is, how is it easily and shortly explained?!, a type of role playing. You write a character for yourself that you play in a setting that game masters have written, usually fantasy/medieval like. So you basically, from the moment they announce ‘time in’ to the moment they announce ‘time out’, you play someone else and improvise. It sounds very silly and complicated (especially when I tell you that we fight with swords with a carbon core, foam around it and latex on the outside) but it’s really a lot of fun and you can easily enjoy yourself by trying to make period(like) pieces to wear.

So I figured, what do all people in medieval times need? A pouch to put their stuff in. So I made a pouch. I still had some fabric lying around that I’d used for a dress (it’s not done yet, after 3 years), which was brown and suitable. So I picked that. Now because of the little guilt trip I was having I figured I did not want to just make a plain pouch, so I decided to do some embroidery on it. The first thing that came into my mind was leaves. So I found a picture of leaves and copied those.

I have the worst method of embroidering ever, since I use tracing paper to copy the shape and then pin it on the fabric and sewed directly through and over it, later I rip it of and use a pin to remove little bits. That last bit can be severely frustrating if you have several lines crossing each other. But well it worked.

So after many long hours embroidering leaves onto a rectangular and a round bit of fabric that I’d strengthened with interfacing, I decided I had enough leaves. I cut identical pieces to the embroidered ones and sewed them together (lazy me used sewing machine), and the embroidered ones to. Then I attached the lining to the embroidered bit right sides together while leaving 3 cm or so unsewn so I could turn it right side out. I sew a little loop to the top (inside the open bit which I’d left at the back seam) to hang on a belt and added 8 little loops to the top to be able to close it. Then I hand stitched the lining to the embroidery around the bottom and around the top. Many, many hours after the initial idea had been hatched, three lost needles and many pricks from the things too, it was finished. So I mailed it yesterday and received an email today that he’d received it and liked it. So I’m happy now.

Do you want to see some pictures? If not don’t scroll down.
By the way, excuse the picture backgrounds, I finished it at the office because the four loops I had on just weren’t enough so I added four more at the intern ship I’m doing. And since it had to be mailed that day I had to take picture for evidence there.

  
                     
From the back all the way round, and the lining.

And here how it looks closed up and ready for use!

Conclusions: finishing something on time, before the deadline is very, very gratifying. Making something useful is also very gratifying and learning a new stitch can make one’s embroidery look much nicer. I think I might try this again someday people. Although I’d probably clip the seam allowances more next time. I will hopefully do something fun tomorrow.