Boro Pocket - Guild Certificate Course

This month's certificate course workshop was taken by Barbara Mullan, focusing on Japanese Boro Embroidery.  It was a lot of fun. 9 of us met with Barbara, all armed with scraps of fabric and some sturdy cotton threads. I had a pair of jeans with me, just in case I was moved to cut them up. They are in good condition, but are now a size too big for me. I've run elastic around the waist so they are wearable. As it happened, Barbara had strips of denim for us, and others had brought along various bits of usable denim. 

It was very much a design-you-own piece workshop although Barbara had included a design for a pocket in the notes. I worked on a pocket to fit my mobile phone using one of Barbara's denim strips and my own patches. Some worked on larger pieces for bags. There was a lot of sharing and ideas flying. I love these workshops.

I was very pleased with mine.

When I got home I tried it on three summer dresses that don't have pockets, which really limits my use of them, since carrying my phone on my person is a high priority for me. I have managed to insert a small pocket into the side seam of the dress on the left, but it won't fit my new phone.  It isn't a bad blend, but I preferred the pocket on the ikat dress on the left - the red in the pocket picked up some colour from the dress. The third dress is black and white so doesn't work at all.

I had originally intended to line the Boro piece with denim, and use the dress fabric as the back of the pocket, but decided the ikat cotton may not be strong enough, so made a pouch from the denim fabric and lined it with some Japanese indigo fabric I had.                                                                                                    This gave me a fully lined pouch that I could attach to the dress along the seamline to give it strength.                               The back is plain   

However, after attaching it by machine, I realised that washing would present a problem. The thickness of the pocket and the dyes of the threads would not work with a dress requiring regular washing.  So I removed it.

I measured the pouch up against the ones I already have for buttoning on to leggings and pants without pockets and added loops in the same place, so I can use it on the same buttons.

As I was adding this after I'd lined the bag, I covered the loop ends with a bit more fabric.This is now the completed pocket.

It's not quite the end of the story. Since I had begun and failed to add a pocket to the dress ( and the dress fabric is not strong enough to take the button solution), I went hunting for any left-over fabric from when I had made it. I didn't find any of the ikat, but I did find the plain maroon. So I now have a pocket on the dress ready for summer!

I've also found just enough fabric to add one to the black and white dress I have without pockets. The third dress was bought, so I don't have that fabric. I'm sure, however, I can find something suitable. One day.

This is quite enough from one Boro workshop!