September 3, 1997
e-Mail: mainfairy@smockingbooks.com
Website: Garden Fairies Smocking & Needlearts Catalog
Smocking Newsletter - Beth-Katherine Kaiman, copyright 1997-2004, all rights reserved. Please respect my creativity and hard work and ask permission before you copy something from these newsletters for your non profit goup, I always ask that you quote me correctly and give me credit with a way for people to get back to me. Thank you. IF you wish to quote me in a venture for profit please contact me separately concerning royalties
From Our Readers
Question about Back Smocking
"Beth, Thanks for all the work you do putting together this newsletter. I'm a beginning smocker and have learned a lot from your tips.
I have seen the term "backsmocking" in several articles in Sew Beautiful but have not seen an explanation. What stitch should be used for this? Are you supposed to smock the entire back or just the area not smocked on the front?
Also, is there a book that contains all those wonderful quotes from Eeyore? I enjoy reading them each time and think that they would make a great Thought For the Day for my fourth graders. They would be fun way to teach some of life's little lessons. Thanks again for all you do, SMann49@aol.com"
One of the rules and simple logics of smocking is that if you leave a pleat un-smocked it will come un-done when the pleating threads are taken out. It has also been found that you really need to catch a pleat (either on the front or back) every row otherwise it tends to buckle or flatten out if not caught. Backsmocking is a process of containing these pleats that are not smocked on the front by either smocking across a whole row or judicious smocking in places, such as behind bullions or within a big trellis. The idea is to smock lightly so it doesn't show. This is done by either using one strand of floss or using the same colored sewing thread to smock with and by not grabbing as much of the pleat as normal.
Many designs, especially in the style know as picture smocking, incorporate the look of open space by not smocking on the front, they leave (for example) rows 2-5 un-smocked on the front. This area would then need to be backsmocked on rows 2, 3, 4, & 5 in order to retain the smocked look on front. If you don't smock these rows on one side or the other then the pleats will puff out. (Now this puffing out has been used in several designs and looks very nice - Smocking Horse Collection's Puffing Strips comes to mind, as well as an old blouse pattern by Little Miss Muffet where the smocking was done vertically in between the puffing rows.)
Remember that once you take out your pleating threads that every pleat that has not been caught by embroidery will just flatten out. Little Sunday Dresses utilizes this in a couple of their designs, Smocked Jumper pattern and Caftan. Looks very nice and solves the too much fabric problem with usual smocking patterns.
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Review of Debbie Glenn's Smock a Plate
I had asked Micky to give us a review on Debbie Glenn's Smock a Plate
Dear Beth,
I did in fact work with the smock a plate. I found a pretty print fabric that had 4 different teapots on it. I was able to get one really good copy of the teapot (yes, I tried it more than once). The smock a plate was not as easy to work with as I would have liked. My thoughts are that if it costs a dollar per sheet, you should be able to use it more than a couple of times. I tried to do the dot process as described in the Sew Beautiful magazine, but it didn't work so well for me. I will say the suggestion of xeroxing the fabric was brilliant, but you don't have to use stabilizer on the fabric. Anyhow, I found I was more successful if I lightly traced the design onto the smock a plate and then used the stacked cable paper to count out the stitches and refine the teapots. Rather complicated. Also, I found that the fabric used black lines to outline the design, while I had to use shades of the same color. When it was done, there were 3 teapots: yellow, plaid, and blue. Yes I said plaid! What a trick this one was!!! Lots of half stitches, but it ended up perfect. It was purple, light pink and rose. In order to duplicate the yellow and blue pots, I finished with silk ribbon rosebuds (on the blue) and larger flowers on the yellow. I am pleased with the actual outcome, and I did it in less than a week, so it wasn't too time consuming. I think in the future, I may make a transparence copy at Office Depot and use the erasable markers as the lines on the smock a plate were so dark the it was tough to see where I had made my lines. I think with the markers I could get a better idea where the design should go, but would still be best refined on the other paper. I think I may have a picture of the finished product, if I do, would you like me to send it to you? I hope I helped. Has anyone else done any work with the product or run into similar problems? Looking forward to hearing from you again. Micky
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We had several people send in helpful hints form Meg Ross's problem with her German washer in Japan. I thought you might be interested in reading one very helpful suggestion. (Nancy I forwarded it directly to Meg)
Hi, Beth!
I do have a suggestion for Meg Ross but I didn't see her email address anywhere! You can either send it to me, or send my hint to her: It's Tide. Don't know if it's hard to get in Japan, but I have sometimes (although not always) gotten bleeding out by soaking in Tide (regular solution) in the washer for awhile - at least a couple of hours, usually overnight. Nancy Eddy neddy@bcm.tmc.edu
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Dear Beth-Katherine, May I add my 02¢ worth to your answer for Alicia? I found that when I began to smock, my cable rows looked so much worse than my waves! Every stitch is right next to all the others, and if any aren't perfectly identical it stands out like a sore thumb. My solution was to try to choose plates which do not have too many cable rows, perhaps just one at the top with some geometrics below. To keep my stitches parallel to the gathering thread, I take the stitch, let go of the needle before I pull it through, and look to see if it STAYS parallel to the gathering thread. If it stays straight on its own, I go ahead and complete the stitch. It is time-consuming to do this for each stitch, but after some time it won't be necessary. Got to conquer the cable if you want to do those pictures!!! As for those top-of-the-plate cables, if you can do them in the same color as the fabric, they stand out even less. Don't give up, Alicia!!
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And Loretta kindly shared with us her way of combating SENS (Smocking's Empty Nest Syndrome)
"Beth, I love to smock and have neither children nor a husband. I do have a little great niece who I keep in dresses. Before her birth, (since my sister's boys are teens) and still to this day, my sisters and I have a nice assortment of smocked nighties. Also, every new baby girl in my church gets a nice smocked bonnet. Loretta Gaschler in Hermitage, TN"
"When someone says, "How-do-you-do," just say that you didn't.." — Eeyore