Having done the embroidery for all five sides of my five-sided box, I now needed to assemble them all into something approximating the box I’d seen online which gave me the original idea for this piece.
First, I cut thin card templates for the sides, and two pentagons (one for the top and one for the base).
Then I made a kind of patchwork template – a card template with an aperture the size of the actual finished side that I wanted, and the outside of the card shape being the size I would cut the fabric to, to allow a seam allowance to fold over the other, actual size, card piece. Are you still with me? It’s easier to do than to describe! The aperture made it easy for me to centre the embroidery on the panel.
This is the Peony and Buttercup embroidered side, cut to size.
On the reverse, I trimmed the muslin I had used to strengthen the embroidery fabric, so that it was a touch smaller than the card panel that I was going to use, to cut down on bulk.
I used the same templates to make an identically sized lining piece, using a lovely cotton print that I’d bought on Ebay, in a bundle of fabrics with yellow tones, suitable for patchwork. Using PVA glue, I stuck the fabrics to each card shape, only putting glue around the very edges of the card panels, and folding over the seam allowances onto the glue.
I slip-stitched a lining piece to an embroidered piece, for all five sides, then with two embroidered pieces held together, lining sides facing, I laced the two together. Having done this one here, I realised I had laced them a bit too tightly, as I couldn’t open them out further than this, so I had to start again!!
When four of the five curved sides had been slip-stitched, the piece looked like this (late at night, as you can see from the terrible quality of the photo).
It was easier to slip-stitch the five panels to the pentagonal base while the piece wasn’t stitched into a round – I stitched the final curved side last.
At this point, I am quite pleased with how it’s turning out. Looks nice, doesn’t it?
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Janet Granger's Blog 
It’s fabulous! Great job. This is a bit like the French skill of cartonnage, making boxes. Will it have a lid?
Yes, it’s a similar technique to cartonnage. And yes, it will have a lid!
absolutely stunning!
Very nice. I love the overall shape that it took on once you had pieced together the sides and base.
Gølin.
I am very impressed with everything you make, where you find your inspiration?
Well, for this project it was partly the ‘Embroidered Flowers for Elizabeth’ book for the designs, and a crazy patchwork box that I saw online ages ago. But generally, I just see things that inspire me everywhere! I’ve got far more things that I want to do, than I have time for, really 🙂