May 22, 1997
Website: Garden Fairies Smocking & Needlearts Catalog
Smocking Newsletter - Beth-Katherine Kaiman, copyright 1997, all rights reserved
Welcome to the smocking newsletter from Garden Fairies Trading Company, my name is Beth-Katherine Kaiman. This newsletter comes to you in two sections twice a week, usually on Mondays and Fridays. The first issue of the week (numbered) is the newsletter and the additional issue (a) is for comments and questions which I hope you will feel free to send in. Please address all comments and questions to mainfairy@smockingbooks.com. Also, please find listed at the end of this newsletter some of the books and patterns we carry that were mentioned in this newsletter, we also have available listings of our smocking plates, books and patterns as well as a fabric listing. Give us a try, we're user friendly.
Oh and if you would like to use anything from this newsletter you Must have my permission first so please e-mail me and I'll give it. All that I ask is to know and that I get credit for my words. Thank you.
In This Issue:
From our Readers
Smocking History
Beginner's Corner
Smocking Stitches
FROM OUR READERS:
I got your newsletter from a friend in my SAGA group who forwarded it to me...I have never, ever mastered tatting, though I can do just about anything else with a needle and thread - sew, smock, knit, you name it....I have finally settled upon the reason why I can't tat:
I can't tat because the many threads of my life are so twisted, I can't arrange any more knots on command.....
The Smocking Horse pattern for a Basic Square Yoke has several sleeve styles, not just long. I have used it often and love it; the directions are so concise and well done. I have a number of their patterns and have used them often. My daughter (9) already is eyeing the "Bow Dress" pattern for her First Communion next spring... Put me on your newsletter list! Ellen
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From Sue Adams: "Addition to why I can't Tat - I'm all thumbs!"
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Here's another reason why I can't tat: at 45, I can't see the darn thread anymore! (Not that I was ever interested in learning to tat--it's unfathomable.) Karen Maslowski Author: "Sew Up A Storm: All the Way to the Bank!"
Karen has a wonderful newsletter for sewing professionals. You can contact her at SewStorm@aol.com if you wish to receive it.
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Thanks for the newsletter. It's great! I'm really enjoying it a lot and plan to share it with the friend who started me smocking. In it people were talking about bleeding on a project. The outfit I made my daughter has a white batiste pinafore that I did in a geometric smocking (nothing too hard to start). It had been a long time since my embroidery days. Cross stitch needles aren't as sharp. As you can imagine, I picked my finger as I was almost done. Most of it came out and I'm probably the only person who'll notice the spot, but it still bothered me. A few days later, at work (I'm a children's librarian by day and a sewer by night), We got in a new book called The Goose Girl by Eric Kimmel. In it, the princess is going off on a dangerous trip and her mother is worried about her safety. To keep her safe, the mother pricks her own finger and lets three drops of blood fall on her linen handkerchief. She tells her, "Beloved child, guard this well. Your mother's blood will watch over you and protect you." I figured that if anyone asked about the spot, I can tell them it's part of a charm to keep her safe. :)
A question. I am trying to do some shadow work. It's a herringbone stitch on the wrong side with the stitches close like a satin stitch, right? Thanks, again for the newsletter. I'm really enjoying it. Gail"
I love your rationale on the blood - why didn't I think of it? Yes shadowwork is the herringbone stitch done on the wrong side of the fabric. The closeness of the stitches depends on your design and the type of thread you are using. I prefer using Floche, a wonderful shiny softly twisted, non-divisible mercerized 100% cotton cutwork floss, as it give it a nice rich texture, but you can use regular floss just as well. DMC has come out with Floche, used to be only Anchor distributed it in the USA, and if anyone is interested it sells for $4.50 a skein for 150 yards and comes in 87 colors. See below for the colors of the Anchor Floche I have in stock.
It is interesting to think about how many of our old embroidery traditions have been handed down from generation to generation, grandmother to granddaughter, and that a lot of the old terminology is lost or translated into the new phrases or language. The natural evolution of language is also at fault/work here. For example I found this wonderful old book when I went down to San Francisco for Easter. called The Encyclopedia of Embroidery book pub in 1882, reprinted in 1972 which has a paragraph with illustrations on the process known as Stroking. Stroking is what it was called the smoothing the pleats that had been made by the running stitch. Since this book was written in 1882 I reasoned that this technique descended from smocking and it made sense, but to have a paragraph dedicated to it?
(If you are ever in SF there is a wonderful bookstore on Clement and 6th Avenue known as The Green Apple, in the area known as the upper Richmond district was where I spent my college years attending Lone Mountain College. A real treasure of a used bookstore, everyone from all over the city come to sell their used books and to buy. You would be amazed what you can find.)
I have also been thinking this past week on the development of patterns through out the centuries past. When I was taking the class with Ellen Halputi based on her development of a pattern which is now Folkwear's Russian Settler's Dress pattern. We spent a good section of the class taking measurements and then building a pattern in the old tradition based on rectangles to make a blouse and the sarafin (the jumper). The back of the sarafin was line of 1/4" tucks smocked with a variation of the honeycomb smocking pattern which looks like diamonds. On the head of the raglan sleeves I embroidered Griffins holding a pearl (silk thread) using the Iglochoy punch needle technique (punch needle with single strand embroidery thread, real delicate look).
As I started writing this week's newsletter in my mind I began to expand the history of smocking and then realized that an important piece was missing: that of building a pattern from scratch and I realized that with our dependency on printed patterns so much of the sewing arts have been lost in the past 60 years. The major pattern companies came into existence at the beginning of the 20th century and before that it was common knowledge how to make clothing and patterns. The information was passed on from woman to woman often with the experts being dressmakers who were part of households or owning a shop in town or village, or the local couture house or clothing designer - which was primarily available to the extremely wealthy. Today we rely on the experts to tell us what to do in our printed patterns that we buy from our fabric stores and often times these 'experts' have just graduated from FIT and are 20 years old! The tradition of clothing making was handed down from generation to generation except for these days in America. I have heard wonderful stories about grandmothers who knew how to make dresses without patterns and they fit. This is a skill that we as a generation have lost and so I am afraid it will be lost eventually to antiquity unless we do something about it now. I, for one, have started teaching my daughter how the patterns are built from scratch and how to fit patterns, not that she's interested all that much when she realizes the time it takes to make a pattern but it's a start. It is a shame that home economics classes are not being taught to our sons and daughter's in school anymore and since so many women have to work for a living that the 'home arts' are being sorely neglected in our society in exchange for technology, and also when you consider that many third world countries are willing to work for what is primarily a slave wage to sew clothes for 'discount' clothing stores it's no wonder that people say they cannot afford to sew their clothes for the family.
A balance has to be come to. Human beings are not all calculations and facts. We need other avenues for our creative expressions. I remember that my mother could recite poetry that she had memorized from childhood. The schools back then required it as a way of developing mnemonic pathways. Today I don't even think children see poetry except in songs. I also think so much is lost with our dependency for our information from books and printed matter. I think we loose and have lost the common touch with things that are/were not written down. My suggestion is to take the histories and passed on information and write it down on paper You never know what tradition is lurking in your family. Ok I'll get off my soapbox but there is no more room for our history topic for today.
This stitch is another that is considered to be an old style stitch. In Diana Keay's The Book of Smocking there is a wonderful sampler to be made up of all of the smocking stitches. She mentions three types of honeycomb smocking that are created from the main basic stitch. This stitch is very similar in construction to the Van Dyke stitch (see issue 4) in that you place your needle through two pleats at once and it is worked between two rows. Honeycomb smocking was used at cuffs or at the bottom of a piece of work on a child's dress or sometimes as one row to draw in gathers at the neckline. In the 1930's you would see honeycombing used at the waistline to bring voluminous nightgowns or robes, usually made out of rayon or silk, in at the waist. Another type of honeycomb stitch is called Surface Honeycomb which is actually baby waves stacked on top of each other.
Again I apologize for the lack of diagrams in this format. To work this stitch between two rows:
1. Working on Row 1, bring your needle to surface at lefthand side of the top of your first pleat.
2. Take your needle over to the second pleat and send your needle through both pleats back just a hair below your starting point.
3. Take your needle over to the second pleat again and put your needle into the second pleat but angle your needle down to the row 2 and come out at that point.
4. Repeat steps 1 & 2 but on this the bottom row at step #3 angle your needle up to row 1 and continue the pattern.
Each pair of pleats will have two stitches on the top and one of the pleats will be part of another pair on the bottom row. The diagram below shows what I mean - draw in the pleats please:
The traditional honeycombing is one of the old smocking stitches - you can also do it on tucks very nicely or on knitted ribbing. It is accomplished by repeating the above stitches over many rows. From Diana Keay's The Book of Smocking: It is mentioned in "The Workwoman's Guide" published in 1838. To quote: "This sort of work is much used for the inside of the tops of work-boxes, and sometimes for the tops of heads of beds; it is usually done with silk, satin, or velvet, for the former; and highly-glazed chintz or calico, for the latter. Crease your material in even folds, taking care to have them very regular, and of a proper depth to suit the purpose for which it is intended; with a strong thread, tack the folds together with long stitches, so as to make them lie compactly one against another; then, with sewing silk of the proper colour, stitch firmly together, at moderate equal distances, the first and second folds; afterwards, stitch the second and third folds, at equal distances, taking your stitches, in the he intermediate intervals. The third and fourth folds are only repetitions of the first and second, and by continuing your work in this way, the stitches of the alternate rows will accord with each other. When the piece is completed, and the tacking thread drawn out, pull your work open, and it will form puffings, int he shape of diamonds, on the right side.' Honeycombings gives deep texture and is also very elastic. Work as follows:
1. Work honeycomb stitch across the first two rows as above.
2. The repeat the stitch on the next two rows 3 & 4. Check to see that the spaces form diamond-shaped cells.
3. Alternatively, another effect can be produced by starting on row 3 by this time at pleat #2"
Give it a try if you've never worked this stitch. It can be quite pretty as useful as sometime you may want to take in a garment at the waist.
The feather stitch is known from Ancient Embroideries, or so says, it evolved fromthe chain stitch which is the oldest embroidery stitch in the world - the running stitch being the first stitch for sewing and embroidery. The feather was used almost exclusively on smocks. Last edition we worked through the single feather. It was based on a straight edge on one side. The double and the triple have more movement to them.
(Please note: all of my measurements are for example only - you can make this stitch as large or as small as you want) To work the Double Feather and the Triple Feather is a bit different than the single feather in that you are now working a triangle between points A & B.
a . .b
.
c
To find point C imagine a triangle between A & B and about 1/4" down is where C is. To work a double feather, the second section of this stitch repeats with C becoming A and you move out a 1/4 of an inch to find B. Come up at A put your thread down and to the left of your needle at all times. Go over to point B and slide your needle underneath the fabric to point C. Wrap the thread under the needle and pull through. Repeat with C becoming A once.
a . .b
. .
.
This is what it should look like now. This next part is the trick of the feather stitch. After you have done two triangles outward it is time to bring it in. C now becomes B and you need to work in the opposite direction to find A. It will be aligned with the first stitch.
a . . b
. .
. .
. .
Repeat this pattern for as much as you want.
To work the triple feather work a third arm (as I call it) outwards and bring it in twice to your starting point.
a . . b
. .
. .
. .
. .
HOW TO GET PUBLISHED - information requested by one of our readers
If you have something that you have thought about publishing then this is the section that I hope will answer your questions. There are a few options in getting your work published, the first to consider is what you want it is that you want to have published. Another thing to consider is how prolific are you? Do you just have one design or one idea or is your mind constantly filling up your idea notebook? If you have a smocking plate design and just one, and you feel like that's it, you may consider approaching either Creative Needle, Sew Beautiful or Australian Smocking and asking for their writers/designers guidelines or look in the back of the magazines. Every magazine has a pre-written format for writers and designers to follow so it's no trouble for them to send it to you. The pay isn't that great but if you feel that one is all you are ever going to do they perhaps this is the way. I know that some of the smocking plate designers like Ellen McCarn used to outright buy designs from designers (this is how Laura Jenkins Thompson got started) I'm not sure Ellen still does this but it is worth a try.
If you feel extremely prolific then I suggest you look into printing the design plates or book yourself. A trip to a printer that has web presses is the least expensive way to go. You need someone who is competent with the four color process. You will have to find a photographer experienced with 'product' photography and also someone to do your color separations. If either of these two processes are ignored then your design plates are going to look bad. I cannot stress the importance of good photos. Sometimes the printer you are working with has in-house separations. I suggest you go about pricing these various costs to get a sense of what the final figure will be. Also choosing how many copies to print at once may seem daunting. Sure the pricing of 4,000 is much better than 1,000 but you need to think realistically how many design plates are you going to sell? The next step is to find a way to sell the plates.
I have talked to several designers who have said that the majority of their sales are wholesale and primarily to a distributor. Pricings change as you change in volume so your profit margin differs with each step away from the consumer.
Before this totally depresses you and makes you not want to go into the designing business I have to say this, in the smocking/heirloom sewing world there is a vast audience of interested women who just love to have something new to play with. We all do. Inspiration is the basis of creativity. Good luck and let me know if you've created something that I might be interested in purchasing for my shop.
"When stuck in the river, it is best to dive and swim to the bank yourself before someone drops a large stone on your chest in an attempt to hoosh you there. " -- Eeyore