Possibility pouch

In this last quilt of my series, I decided to use a very simple design to highlight the simple geometry of the items used by some plains Indian tribes. These tribes had a nomadic lifestyle which did intro favour the production of large works of art, so their decoration was focussed on their tents, horse trappings, clothes and smaller items.  Elaborate hair arrangements included ‘roaches’ of animal hair and feathers, held in place by ‘roach spreaders’, delicately decorated though virtually invisible when in use. To store personal items, tanned skin or rawhide (parfleche) was used to create boxes and bags and these were either painted or beaded, and those designs created by women were often purely decorative. some styles of storage bags were called possibility pouches (or tipi pouches).

I think this name is very evocative, and for my design I have amalgamated traditional designs from parfleche boxes and containers in the form of a pouch. I created the pouch front separately using commercial fabric and wadding, before applying it to a background of indigo dyed cotton and quilting through all layers. At the side of the pouch I added a row of ‘roach spreaders’ with traditional designs that were quilted onto the fabric. Between each of these I used rows of machine quilting to hint at the linear element in many traditional designs.  Between each of the linear quilted rows, and at the base of the pouch,  I added beaded motifs to acknowledge the beading used as decoration in many traditional items. Finally I included the text by using back stitch at the base of the pouch because I wanted to keep the design as simple as possible so as not to detract from the geometric elements.

Detail view: