Hand hemstitched pocket square

For Christmas, I made my dad a hemstitched pocket square. Not a complicated project for sure, but a slow one. 

I cut out a roughly 14 inch square, which I then squared by pulling out a single thread along each edge and cutting along that edge. This was good practice for the main event of pulling threads, but I also cheated and cut along the pulled thread as I went to make it easier. 

Then two evenings were spent pulling out threads along each, about 3/4 of an inch in from the edge. After the first side, I used the previously completed pulled lines to determine placement for the other sides by turning in the corner. Pulling these threads took some real time. I used Alexandria Lightweight washed linen from Matchpoint, and which is a slightly looser weave than a lot of my stash fabrics, but tighter than a hardanger or what have you more beginner friendly fabric. 

I went in with tweezers and lifted threads with the point of a pin where necessary. I pulled the entire thread rather than clipping at the corners to make it a touch easier. Eventually I figured out that setting the cloth down and pulling the threads out horizontally, gently holding the napkin down with the other hand minimizes thread breakage. But there was still lots of thread breakage. 

Then I pressed the hem into shape, clipping out the outermost square of the corners out to reduce bulk. But that actually didn't matter because then I decided to mitre the corners. So I pressed the corners down to the outer point of the empty pulled thread squares, then turned those corners out to backstitch along that line, then trimmed off past the line of stitching (bad explanation but I was going by this tutorial more or less). 

Then came actual hemstitching! I used a matching grey polyester thread I had on hand. The hemstitch itself didn't take much time to figure out, though a couple of times I forgot to anchor my stitch bundle (Also the actual functional hemming part of the stitch) or wasn't careful to properly loop the hem stitch part so there are a few stray thread bundles. I just eyeballed the bundles rather than counting threads. 

And there we have a classic (albeit grey) linen pocket square. 

I kind of want to try another, especially since I’m feeling interested in hardanger embroidery. Just got a couple hardanger booklet/magazines from the thrift store so the resources are there. And the baby’s crib is presently in the sewing room so hand sewing is it rn. Hemstitching would be a fun trim for a sleeve hem, too, maybe with a ladder or some such. 

Fabric: charcoal lightweight washed linen from matchpoint