By Deborah Richardson, Nov 10 2018 04:31PM
I really enjoy making fabric boxes, and I've been making some trinket and tissue box covers for a while, using elaborate layers of silk fabric and machine embroidery. A few weeks ago my cousin gave me some fabric and amongst the collection was a few strips of a brocade style in shates of red and old gold. I thought that the panel design would make great boxes so I gave it a go. Apologies for crummy photos- I will improve on them another time.
Stage 1 - I attached the pieces to fusible interfacing. I cut the pieces to size. In this picture you can see I cut one strip of 3 to form the front and 2 sides, and then 3 separate pieces for the bottom, back and lid. These were then stitched close to the edge to hold together more firmly. I then did the same with a strip of cotton velvet left over from another project, this time stitching a random pattern with glitterey thread onto stiff interfacing.
Stage 2 - the pieces are joined together back to back, trimmed to be exactly the correct size and edged with rattail cord. This is couched onto the edge with a zigzag stitch. A tab is added at the front edge of the lid to enable closure by inserting the cut ends of a piece of cord between the layers.
Stage 3 - the pieces are hand stitched together to form a box shape and a button added to the front.
