In staying true to the WWII theme this week, I am presenting a tutorial on making a hanging pocket. As we all know, the Greatest Generation were experts at recycling and reusing. Well, due to the economy and the war, they had to. But at the same time, they sure had some clever crafts...things to make to both use
and store recyclable materials.
This project came from one of my many war-era craft magazines that I can't stop compulsively buying. It is a pocket you hang in your kitchen to keep scraps of paper and string decorated with orange trees and embroidered lettering. The original is to be made from blue and white stripe ticking, but in this day and age, ticking is not a regular item in our sewing stashes. So I had to improvise and use a medium weight canvas material. Feel free to use whatever you want, just be sure that it is firm enough to keep it's shape when full of stuff. If you use regular cotton calico fabric, you may want to use a firm iron-on stabilizer. I apologize in advance for the photos...the sun kept going in and out today and many of the pictures look very drab :(
Materials you will need are as follows:
Some type of
canvassy material, or ticking if you have it.
Green cotton calico
Brown cotton calico
1/4" double fold seam binding (1/2" will work) - mine is vintage
Green and black embroidery floss
Embroidery needle
Thread
Needle
Sewing machine
Now, the instructions in the magazine were not spelled out like instructions today. I will copy the instructions which will appear in
italics, but will also explain a little more what I did. There was no actual pattern piece, you just kind of wing it as you go.
The pattern described this craft to keep
"wrapping papers and strings kept under restraint."
Under restraint?! Like they are going to try to kill you or something :)
The pockets are made in one piece. a.k.a. there is no pattern for it and you simply sew two pieces of fabric together. I simply drew a square the size I wanted my pocket to be on the canvas with a disappearing ink dressmakers marker:
I then drew some text guide lines using dressmakers chalk and wrote in the words "Look Here For Papers And String" to be embroidered. Then you will embroider them as described.
The lettered inscriptions are outlined with six threads of orange stranded floss...
(I embroidered with a running stitch using orange floss as directed)
and then the letters are shaded on the underside of the horizontal lines and the right of the uprights with quarter-inch running stitches done with six threads of black, picking up as little material as possible between the stitches so that the effect of the line is almost continuous.(I used 4 strands of black floss using the same running stitch I used for the letters themselves)
Here is my sample all embroidered:
For the pocket, I cut a shape slightly larger than the embroidered piece out of the canvas with a peaked top. Now it's time for the
appliqued orange trees.
In developing the fruit-tree motif on the paper and string bag, the trunk is laid first, then the tree top and the tub over the top and bottom respectively, applying the strip of orange bias to each brown tub before turning the edges. The top is made of a single piece of green, upon which small circles of orange are applied for fruit. To allow for turning neatly, the edges of this green patch should be cut about one-eighth inch outside the outline and then slit in to the line of the angle between the peaks.
What?
Here's what I did:
I cut two circles from green calico and two tubs from brown calico. I cheated and cut two of the same shapes from stitchery witchery and fused them to my canvas shape in approximately the same areas as the magazine shows. I then cut two thin strips of orange fabric as well as stitchery witchery to adhere them, and fused them on the tubs. Much quicker, but you can always applique them the old fashioned way if time permits you.
Close up of orange tree:
And then to accentuate the outlines, after the patch is sewed down, each peak is bordered with an open V, or lazy-daisy stitch, of six threads of green stranded floss just outside the patch and the trunk is outlined with the same floss.
What I actually did was to embroider the lazy-daisy stitch around the green of the tree with 4 strands of green floss. I also embroidered a running stitch around the orange on the tub. Using 4 strands of black floss, I embroidered a running stitch around the tub itself as it looked so unfinished just leaving it alone. For the trunk of the tree, I took 4 satin stitches using the same green floss.
For the oranges on the tree, I used small orange buttons. As you would expect!
Closeup of finished orange tree:
The next step is to bind it with the bias tape.
After being decorated the strip is bound along the top, then pleated and stitched along side and bottom edges to the piece which forms the back. After turning and hemming back the top to form the casing, the edges are bound all around with bias-fold and it is rather amusing to use red or orange for the horizontal bindings and black for the sides and bottom.Well, I didn't have red or orange bias tape. I actually ended up using two different shades of green, both 1/4" bias tape. Yes, both were vintage! Along the top of the back and the top of the strip that forms the pocket, stitch a darker green bias tape. I actually unfolded the tape and sewed half of the tape on the edge. When this was sewn, I refolded and hand slip-stitched the free end of the tape to the back, making sure the original fold was set right.
I then placed the pocket strip on top of the back and trimmed them up to be even. Pin them together. I forgot to take a picture of it, but to create the two pockets in the top, I took the same darker bias tape and pinned it down the center of the pocket strip to sew on my machine.
At this point, I took a lighter green bias tape and sewed it to the sides and bottom of the two pieces together. If you want, you can seam the top pocket to the back before sewing on the bias tape. To finish it off, I sewed two old bone rings to each upper corner for hanging.
And here it is on my fridge!
It was actually fun making this albeit all the embroidery. Don't get me wrong, I love to embroider, but it was a little tough embroidering on the heavier canvas material, even with a small embroidery needle. All in all, taking out all interruptions, this worked up in about three hours. All the while I was embroidering, I couldn't help but wonder how many women made this exact same thing during this era. Were they wondering when the economy was going to get better while they were embroidering? Were they praying for their sons over seas? Were they trying to figure out how to stretch their last bit of ration coupons until they received the next batch? Who knows. The sad thing is that when these are found in estate sales, they probably get tossed in with the other garbage that no one wants...no thought given to the amount of time taken to create it, why it was created and what the creator was mulling over in her head while she was creating it. Think about that the next time you pass that 'junk' table at the next estate sale you attend :(
Well, I hope you try to make one of these over the weekend...it was fun. If you do, post pictures on your blog so I can see what you came up with!
