9/5/99
e-Mail: smockingstore@att.net
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.
In this Issue:
I received a little note from Susan O'Connor (wow she went to my website and read my newsletters - cool)
Beth, your blouse design is just beautiful. I can imagine that many ladies would like to make several versions of this blouse as it would be an excellent showcase for many different styles of embroidery. It is lovely to have pieces of antique lace and this wonderful blouse would also be an excellent place to put them to use.Best Wishes
Susan O'Connor
Shucks ma'am I like it as well. I have to work up the variations of Vivian A Dream Blouse and get those up on the web. I designed a tuck in version as well as peplum version instead of the band at the hemline. Also, when I saw my friend's new embroidery sewing machine I realized the collar pieces are just perfect for machine embroidery so I wrote up directions for a new way of putting the collar pieces together with the machine embroidery stitches in mind. If you have one of those neat sewing machines with a scanner attached the pattern comes with 8 original embroidery designs that would look lovely machine embroidered. There are a few variations that I have updated the pattern including a tuck in version and a peplum version. Shown is the band version.
Our Design: Vivian, a dream blouse |
Click to purchase Vivian - A Dream Blouse |
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From one of our Readers, a project for your church group
Memax12: I saw in our college mag an article of a woman who designed sleeping bags for the homeless from plastic bags. I was going to take it to the church for a project. I am waiting to print out the instructions on the color printer at home as it doesn't come out too well on black & white. Address if you are interested is http://www.bagbed.com Might want to pass it on.
Patterns - Design makeups Part 2
One of the hardest stitch patterns to master in smocking is smocking right next to another motif, especially on the half or 1/4 step away. My suggestion to my students is to master the following stitch patterns before attempting picture smocking. Once you have experienced smocking right up against another stitch then picture smocking doesn't seem so challenging.To practice this type of stitch pattern work the wheat stitch for a row, after that everything will seem easier and you will have a better sense of needle placement which will make your stacking easier and prettier. This is where you bend the rule about the needle being always parallel your pleating row. In order to get the outline and stem stitches to line up correctly you will need to angle your needle fo rthe 2nd half of the stitches.
The Wheat Stitch is worked as follows:
Outline Stitch is worked on row 1 with the thread in the up position.
Stem stitch is worked on row 1 as well just a hair below the outline stitch with the thread in the down position. Getting your needle placed correclty with needle parallel is almost impossible. You have have angle you rneedle with the eye pointing downwards at the 5:00 position to get into the pleat. Pull your floss flush against the fabric as usual to tighten your stitch.
Once you have mastered this stitch the next one to try is the addition of three cables above and below a cable row. This stitchis fun as you can play around with the color combinations to vary the look. For a Christmas design I like to work the cable row in green and the three cable stitches in red - looks like a berry wreath upon a vine of green.
To work this stitch combination:
Work your row of cable stitches starting with an up cable and ending with an up cable.
Work the three cables (down cable, up cable, down cable) just a hair about the cable row, so that your stitches are "kissing", starting with a down cable. Shoot your needle to the back through the center of the last stitch and come up below the cable row on the next down cable stitch. Work and up cable, down cable, up cable and shoot the needle to the back and come up above the cable row.
Be very careful to make your stitches even. Don't angle your stitch on this one but try to get your needle as close to the placement of the cable row as possible.