Demi-Sun Appliqué
Christian de Holacombe
Filum Aureum, Fall 2003

This project makes a drawstring pouch big enough to conceal a wallet and other modern accessories. It features a green demi-sun on a gold background, the heraldic badge that all people of the Kingdom of the West have a right to bear.

Materials

• Gold velveteen or other sturdy gold background fabric, cut 11 x 22 inches, or two 11-inch squares.
• Green felt or well-washed wool for the appliqué.
• About 2 yards of cord.
• Sewing thread to match the cord.
• Fabric for lining, the same size as background fabric.
• Two drawstrings, each about 20” long.
• Embroidery needle, scissors, embroidery frame or hoop, and (optional) gluestick.

Instructions

 

Tracing patterns onto felt is difficult because it’s soft and fuzzy. This pattern also has long skinny bits, sharp points, and wavy edges, which may be distorted either as you trace or before you get them stitched down. So try this:

1. Don’t cut out your paper pattern yet. Lay it over the felt, and either glue it down lightly with a gluestick, or baste it a little inside the pattern lines. Then cut out both paper and felt together on the lines.

2. Fold the background fabric crosswise, making two squarish shapes, with the fold at the bottom. Measure up about 1 inch from the fold and lightly mark a crosswise line. (Or use one of your two squares and measure up about one and a half inches from the bottom edge.)

3. Baste, pin, or glue the felt side (not the paper side!) of the appliqué to the background, with the long straight side along the line you measured. For “glue basting,” use gluestick, a thin coat of white glue, or “light tack” spray adhesive (spray the appliqué, not the background).

4. Be sure the appliqué is straight and centered. Carefully peel off the paper. (Save it as a pattern if you’d like to re-use it.)

5. Starting at one of the “valleys” between the sun points, couch the cord with small, evenly spaced stitches on top of the edge of the appliqué, using 1 strand of matching sewing thread. Leave a “tail” of a couple of inches of loose cord before your starting point. (Later, thread this through a large-eyed needle and carefully “plunge” it through to the back of the fabric.) Using a couched cord on the edge of your appliqué “squeezes” the edge of the appliquéd piece between the cord and the background fabric, holding it more securely, as well as being decorative.

6. After you have couched the cord all the way around, you can add another decorative cord outside the edge next to the first, or additional embroidery, as you like. Plunge all cord ends when you’re done.

Finishing the pouch

1. Fold the lining fabric in half as you did the velveteen and sew up the sides, making a pouch. Fold the velveteen in half, right sides together, and sew up the sides.

2. Turn the lining pouch right side out and slip it over the inside-out velveteen pouch (like a pillowcase over a pillow) so the seams match and the loose seam allowances are hidden between the two layers. Turn under the top edges of both the velveteen and the lining and sew them together with overcast or machine stitching.

3. Turn the pouch right side out. Draw a line with a wash-out marker 1/2 inch below the top edge, and backstitch or machine stitch along this line all the way around the pouch. This forms the casing for your drawstrings.

4. Carefully pull out a few stitches from each side seam just below the top edge to make an opening for the cord. Thread one drawstring through the opening and around the top, then knot the ends together. Repeat from the other side seam with the other drawstring. You’re done!

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