Smocking

Smocking is an embroidery technique used to gather fabric so that it can stretch. Before elastic, smocking was commonly used in cuffs, bodices, and necklines in garments where buttons were undesirable. Smocking developed in England and has been practiced since the Middle Ages and is unusual among embroidery methods in that it was often worn by laborers. Other major embroidery styles are purely decorative and represented status symbols. Smocking was practical for garments to be both form fitting and flexible, hence its name derives from "smock" — a farmer's work shirt. [Reader's Digest, p. 160.] Smocking was used most extensively in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. [Good Housekeeping, p. 146.]

Materials

Smocking requires lightweight fabric with a stable weave that gathers well. Cotton and silk are typical fiber choices, often in lawn or voile. Smocking is worked on a crewel embroidery needle in cotton or silk thread and normally requires three times the width of initial material as the finished item will have. [Reader's Digest, pp. 160–161.] Historically, smocking was also worked in pique, crepe de Chine, and cashmere. [Gilman, Elizabeth Hale, "Things Girls Like to Do"(1917). [http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi-bin/History/History-idx?type=div&did=HISTORY.GILMANTHINGS.I0026&isize=text] Accessed 5 January 2008.] According to "Good Housekeeping: The Illustrated Book of Needlecrafts", "Any type of fabric can be smocked if it is supple enough to be gathered." [Good Housekeeping, p. 146.]

Marking equipment is also necessary unless the fabric is pre-printed in a polka dot pattern. One option is a "smocking-dot transfer", which is an iron on transfer that places evenly spaced dots onto fabric. Some embroiderers make their own guides using cardboard and an embroidery marking pencil. [Good Housekeeping, p. 146.]

Variations

Typically, variations are done as an art form on clothing or on fabric which is mounted in picture frames for hanging on the wall.

* English smocking is a historic technique of sewing the embroidery over pleats already sewn into the fabric.
* North American smocking is an alternate technique in which the pleats are gathered and formed in the fabric by the smocking stitch-work itself.
* Lattice smocking involves stitching from the back side of the fabric, creating unique effects in the pleats and appearance, and is particularly good for heavier fabrics like velvet.

Method

Smocking refers to work done before a garment is assembled. It usually involves reducing the dimensions of a piece of fabric to one-third of its original width, although changes are sometimes lesser with thick fabrics. Individual smocking stitches also vary considerably in tightness, so embroiderers usually work a sampler for practice and reference when they begin to learn smocking. [Good Housekeeping, p. 146.]

Traditional hand smocking begins with marking "smocking dots" in a grid pattern on the wrong side of the fabric and gathering it with temporary running stitches. These stitches are anchored on each end in a manner that facilitates later removal and are analogous to basting stitches. Then a row of cable stitching stabilizes the top and bottom of the working area. [Reader's Digest, pp. 161–162.]

Smocking may be done in many sophisticated patterns. [Smocking Guild of America [http://www.smocking.org/files/Glossary-Smocking.pdf glossary] (accessed 5 January 2008).] Standard hand smocking stitches are:

A. Cable stitch: a tight stitch of double rows that joins alternating columns of gathers. [Reader's Digest, p. 163.]

B. Stem stitch: a tight stitch with minimum flexibility that joins two columns of gathers at a time in single overlapping rows with a downward slope.Reader's Digest, p. 164.]

C. Outline stitch: similar to the stem stitch but with an upward slope.

D. Cable flowerette: a set of gathers worked in three rows of stitches across four columns of gathers. Often organized in diagonally arranged sets of flowerettes for loose smocking.Reader's Digest, p. 165.]

E. Wave stitch: a medium density pattern that alternately employs tight horizontal stitches and loose diagonal stitches. [Reader's Digest, p. 166.]

F. Honeycomb stitch: a medium density variant on the cable stitch that double stitches each set of gathers and provides more spacing between them, with an intervening diagonal stitch concealed on the reverse side of the fabric. [Reader's Digest, p. 167.]

G. Surface honeycomb stitch: a tight variant on the honeycomb stitch and the wave stitch with the diagonal stitch visible, but spanning only one gather instead of a gather and a space.Reader's Digest, p. 168.]

H. Trellis stitch: a medium density pattern that uses stem stitches and outine stitches to form diamond-shaped patterns.

I. Vandyke stitch: a tight variant on the surface honeycomb stitch that wraps diagonal stitches in the opposite direction.Reader's Digest, p. 169.]

J. Bullion stitch: a complex knotted stitch that joins several gathers in a single stitch. Organized similarly to cable flowerettes.

*Smocker's knot: (not depicted) a simple knotted stitch used to finish work with a thread or for decorative purposes.

ee also

*Smock-frock

References

Bibliography

*The Reader's Digest Association, "Complete Guide to Embroidery Stitches", Pleasantville, New York: Marabout, 2004. ISBN 0-7621-0658-1
*Ed. Cecilia K. Toth, "Good Housekeeping: The Illustrated Book of Needlecrafts", New York: Hearst Books, 1994. ISBN 1-58816-035-1

External links

* [http://www.smocking.org.za/smocking/history.php The Highveld Smockers Guild] history of smocking
* [http://www.reading.ac.uk/Instits/im/the_collections/the_museum/smocks.html The Museum of English Rural Life] examples of historic work smocks