Another Turkmen Pouch

 I've been working on another of Alison Snepp's Turkmen Pouch (Inspirations 69, 2011). Back then I made one, and yes, the green fabric is the same. I've made many variations on this. The shape is versatile.  I cut this out a couple of years ago, when a friend wanted to make one. She finished hers long ago and my fabric stayed in the drawer, cut out but not assembled. The friend now has a craft group engaged in making them, and got me involved.

I had to remind myself of the processes for putting it together. Measuring - never my strong point - is crucial, because the design depends on a more-or-less perfect square. Given the dominance of the wattle lining fabric, I decided to limit myself to threads in the colours in that print - greens, yellow and a little bit of brown. There was already enough black!

The design calls for button-hole pinwheels in the squares of the grid. I don't much like stitching them and I decided it would be fitting to use Ghiordes knots to make little wattle blooms instead.I fluffed them up using my faithful boo-boo stick.  

I liked the result.

The edges are decorated simply, the piece folded and the joins ladder stitched. While this was easy stitching, the black fabric was a bit denser than is ideal for hand-stitching. I realised that the next steps were not going to be easy.                                

I tried several different needles and threads, but stitching along the edge was difficult through 4 layers of fabric, two of them dense. While the colours work, and it has an appropriate folksy look, the stitches are far from smooth and even.

Similarly, the triangular insert with it's turkmen stitch, gives the right effect, but isn't accurate.

The pouch did, however, join up nicely. and works together as it should.

The final challenge was the button and tassels. The button was easy. I have had this one from Tasmania for quite some time.  Made from a large gum nut, the clever artisan who made it inserted a piece of fine dowel to form a shaft. It was, I think, a gift from my daughter Alison after a trip to Hobart. It was easy to add a tassel and attach it to the point of the fold-over, then to make a loop on the back of the pouch

I gathered a few small gumnuts from a street tree and gilded them with acrylic paint, then tested them as a tassel. I decided against it. I thought they would make the pouch a bit fragile and involve too much glue. The gumnuts are too hard to pierce easily with a needle. 

The pouch needs to be used without fear of damaging part of it.

I opted instead for a tassel from variegated linen thread with one gumnut attached. I was able to pierce the gumnut with the point of a darning needle, then insert a fine needle through the small hole with machine thread attached. Once through, I attached a bead to one end of the the thread and tied it on with several knots, then pulled it into the gumnut as a stopper. The other end of the thread I stitched to the tassel. 

If the gumnut comes off in use not much is lost and the tassel still functions.

This is how it folds over for closure.

It can, of course, be easily used  without the closure.

I'm satisfied with this finish. 

The pouch will be useful, and act as an example to anyone wanting to make one in the future.

Turkmen embroidered pouch

In the midst of making things for Christmas (blogs of which will have to wait until after the event!) I treated myself to a project I've been itching to try - Alison Snepp's Turkmen embroidered pouch from Inspirations Magazine Issue 69.

I've been gradually gathering fabric and threads for this  since I first saw it. I love the colours, the concept and the combination of stitches used.

The lining fabric Alison had used was distinctive and I couldn't find anything quite like it locally or online, but when a friend, recently returned from Indonesia, gave me, out of the blue, a piece of batik in maroons, greens and blues, my immediate thought was it would work brilliantly for this project. I had already purchased the deep red sateen base fabric and found a deep olive green cotton drill in my stash for the third piece.

The next step was where I went wrong. I think I need to go to some quilting classes to learn how to cut and join accurately, because, although I measured carefully, the three pieces did not fit together as intended. In the end, I trimmed the larger pieces to end up with a three-layered square, but the proportions of the border did not match the instructions.   The border should be the same width as the green squares, so I needed to adapt the running stitch zig-zag on the border .

One of the things I enjoyed about this project is the variety. The green fabric is hand-stitched to the red, the resulting piece is machine-stitched to the lining,  then the running stitch squares and border pattern are created by stitching through the three layers.

The little pinwheels are then added to some of the squares before folding the fabric to form a pouch.

Every stage is interesting and exciting, as you layer one effect on another.



You then embroider along the joins with corded blanket stitch bars and stem stitch.

The opening is finished with a cord and - the most interesting bit of all - embroidered with chain stitch in alternating colours, using a needle threaded with two colours. Magic!

The embroidered gusset - introducing a third thread colour - is a nice finishing touch, outlined in stem stitch and filled with double chain stitch (also known as turkmen stitch).

The blue and ecru tassels are as per the instructions. It was meant to have three tassels made from the red cloth also along the bottom, and one on the flap. My  cloth tassel was disappointing as the fabric was not dyed on the reverse side, so I decided to substitute a red thread tassel on the flap.

I loved doing this project, and I'm really happy with the result. I intend to use it as a knitting bag.