Finishing: Applique a Pocket

This project comes from a visit to Camp Wannasew (The Silver Needle) from 2010. This project is practically fresh compared to some of the things I've been finishing! I hesitated to finish it this way because my hand sewing capabilities leave a lot to be desired. And I've heard applique is hard.

Now if you looked at just this side, you'd say, "hey, that's a great job." "Exept your blanket stitch is for shit." But let's go in for the wider shot, shall we?

Not horrible, but those curves just aren't as smooth. Sigh.
To learn this finish, I found this video which has a certain kitschy charm. Her tip to pull the stitches tight every third stitch or so is spot on. Stitches disappeared like magic!

For this project, I ironed on interfacing that was about the size and shape of the stitching. If I did this again, I would make the interfacing about 1/4"-1/2" larger than the stitched piece. I think it would help prevent the linen from fraying.

You can see in my original post about this project, that I clipped the curves. You definitely need to do this, but I would wait until I was upon the curve to do it, again the fraying problem.

Here are a couple of other tutorials to help you:
All about applique here and here.

Once you've appliqued the stitching to the wool, you need to sew the wool together. The good thing about a pocket style finish is that it's pretty simple. sew up three sides of a rectangle or sew two shapes together leaving an opening at the top. So simple, I can't even find a tutorial on the internet.

Still, you might be in the market for help with blanket stitching.
Help handsewing felt using a blanket stitch from Future Girl. You could also look to the Red Brolly.

Some of you may have seen on Pinterest the picture with the person who had marks on her finger to get even stitches. I've not linked it here mostly because it didn't really work for me. If I put my marked finger near the edge I was stitching, I wasn't getting the length of the stitches right. And if I moved it further back to mark the length, I couldn't really see how far over the stitch should go. That's probably clear as mud, but it's neither here nor there. In the end, I prefer my blanket stitches to look homemade.

Lest you worry that this took me four days to do, fear not! Overall it only took a few hours but I just couldn't make the time for it.