Appliqué and Laskning

Lay out the pocket

The Skansen pockets center on a heart-flower with tendrils (“hjärtblomma med slingor”), with small hearts and triangles along the edges ^{1 2}. Keep the layout symmetrical about the center line:

1. On the paper pattern, mark the U-shaped opening at the top.
2. Place a flower of four hearts below it, in red, yellow, and green.
3. Add curled tendrils (slingor) on both sides and small triangles of felt along the edges.
4. Mark where the herringbone fills, star stitches, and a date will go; the MOIFA pocket has its date above the central heart ³.

Trace each shape onto paper for templates.

Cut and baste

Cut the black front and back from the felted wool, and the hearts, tendrils, and triangles from colored felt. Felted wool doesn’t fray, so no turn-under is needed. Pin and baste each piece in place with long stitches.

Hold it down

ASI’s workshop teaches wool felt appliqué and couching ⁴. The Skansen pockets show both ways:

• Blanket stitch (langettsöm) around the edges of the felt, on SKAKLK.0019070 ¹.
• Couching (läggsöm): lay a thread along the edge of the felt and tie it down with small stitches across it, on SKAKLK.0021468 ².

Couch in a contrasting color, yellow around green, for instance, so the outline reads.

Laskning

Herringbone is laskning in the Leksand dialect ⁵, and Manni lists it first among the costume techniques ⁶. Fill the spaces between the hearts with it:

1. Work left to right between two imaginary parallel lines.
2. Take a small stitch from right to left on the top line, then cross down and take one on the bottom line.
3. Repeat, so the threads cross in a zigzag.

For double herringbone, as on the MOIFA pocket ³, work a second row in another color into the spaces of the first. The Skansen pockets used shiny multicolored yarn ¹; silk or perle cotton shines like it.

Details

• Stem stitch (stjälksöm) for tendril veins and stems ².
• Star stitches: eight short straight stitches from a center, in white.
• The date, as on the 1979 Skansen pocket, worked in chain or stem stitch ².

Try it

Work a 2-inch band of herringbone on a scrap of the black wool, then a band of double herringbone, before touching the pocket. Keep the stitches the same length; uneven herringbone is the most visible flaw on dark wool.