SHANNON'Sdresses

18TH CENTURYhanging pocket

January 2010

I made this pocket from a pattern in Janet Arnold's Patterns of Fashion: Englishwomen's dresses and their construction. I bought this book years ago but had never got around to making anything out of it, so I thought I'd start with something simple. This is a pocket that would be tied around the waist and worn over a lady's underskirt, to be accessed through a slit in the overskirt and petticoats of her dress. Quite ingenious really, I hate wearing something that doesn't have pockets to put my things in!

The book has only black and white illustrations taken from the original pieces - this one being from a piece c.1725-50 from Snowshill Manor, but the embroidery is described as being "...carried out in chain stitch in dark green, acid yellow, golden yellow, navy blue, bright pink, maroon, leaf green and pale pink fine wool", so I just arranged the colours as I thought appropriate, although in embroidery cotton instead of wool. The background should really be white too, but I didn't have any suitable white fabric to embroider on. The weave of this fabric is also a little too loose for this use, as it puckered quite a bit during stitching. Though, I should have used an embroidery hoop, but didn't have one big enough.

I'm eyeing up a c.1770-80 polonaise with en fourreau style pattern for my next venture from this book, and have the perfect fabric for it. I'll describe what polonaise with en fourreau means when I post it on the site :).