September 26, 1999
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.
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Bagbed Website URL
From Ginnie: The reference is http://www.bagbed.com/index.html
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Hello! Greetings from Memphis, Tennessee.I just learned a few stitches and want to try something VERY SIMPLE. Can you recommend a few plates?
Also, which type pattern is the easiest to read? I've sewn a few items-jumpers, etc. Which is easier sewing--bishop or basic yoke. I just need a little guidance. All my friends are very advanced and kind of intimidate me.
Please help. Thanks! Larisa Arthur
Dear Larisa,
I would recommend working one of the plates in the Grace Knott Smocking book which you have. I know the urge to buy something else is very strong right now but I think if you hold off and work one of those designs you will find the answers you are looking for. All it takes is practice and soon you will get your stitches down to where your work looks like your friends.
I would send you to my newsletter page on my website to the section which is called The Eleven Rules of Smocking. I sat down one day and wrote down all the things that I've told my students on learning how to make perfect stitches in smocking.
As for which pattern is easier sewing. I would have to go with the bishop as easier to sew but it's tricky to smock if you haven't done it before. Mostly we smock with the same tension all the way down our pleats, as the things we smock are flat surfaces. The bishop however is smocked in the round. You have to adjust your pleats into a circle (or semi circle) around a neckline guide. This is done by tightening the top threads tighter than the bottom ones and combing the pleats into shape. Then you smock tighter on the top and loosen your tension as you move down the pleats, particularily rows 4 through 8. Most designs that are used for bishops call for trellis stitches or more open stitches towards the bottom of the design to allow the pleats to fan out once the pleating threads are taken out. There are some real cute designs for bishops that do have picture smocked figures on the bottom rows but I would stay away from those designs until you have a couple of bishops under your belt.
The basic yoke dress is trickier to sew, if you haven't sewn much, but the smocking is easier. It's just something you will have to try and master, along with piping. It's one of the lessons in smocking, or else you find someone else to sew for you - as a lot of ladies do if sewing's not your bag.
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New Way to Pleat
This was asked on the smocking list but we had no responses to her question. Anyone have any ideas?
Hello smockers:
Can anyone tell me what will be the difference in hand pleating in the english way of going on each side of a dot, and another way of pleating which uses each dot as a single up or down basting stitch. I just bought a new book of pleating designs and it calls for the second type of pleating, but would like to use the pleater to do this type of work. I have done the type using checks as the dots, but there I used the check corner as the english type of pleating dot.
Jane in San Antonio
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Pleater Box Question
<< Good morning - Would you kindly advise me if you sell pleater boxes for pleaters or perhaps I have to make my own!
Thank you. Ann K. Piche >>
Yes Ann I do sell universal pleater boxes. (see below for prices)
They are quite a necessity for pleating IMO. Your pleater sits on top nestled between two half dowels, the thread is stored beneath on spools (or bobbins your choice) and is threaded through a lucite bar. These threads are then threaded from underneath the needle with the tail laying on top. I usually leave a tail of about 4" or 5" and then start pleating. Depending on how many items I have to pleat I usually pleat two on the same threading, moving the first pleated piece down the threads while the other is being pleated. If I have too many pieces on the threads I find it awkward to try and juggle holding the pleated pieces, as they tend to drag downwards along with pleating a new piece. Of course if I am pleating a group of doll dress fronts (22" max width) I tend to pleat 4 or 5 at a time. Beth
Smocked collars have been a tradition in the smocking world since the 1970's when this current wave of smocking took off. The inspiration for these beauties came from the combination of bishops and the large 5 1/4" Swiss Edgings that were being imported which is the perfect width to surround a child's neckline and so the tradition was born.
Smocking Designers took up the challenge and began creating smocking designs with the collars in mind. Lou Anne Lamar, Kay Guiles published smocking design plates with images of collars smocked and embroidered. The variations on the collars themselves ranged from simple french lace edgings attached to the fabric directly or with entredeux to tatting or bobbin lace to the addition of lace insertion within the collar itself - see Chery Williams' Edwardian Dress cover. Debbie Glenn featured a gorgeous smocked Jabot designed Susan York in a Sew Beautiful issue of a couple of years ago (I'm sorry I can't remember the issue). It proved to be so popular Sew Beautiful bowed to the pressure of it's readers and included a pattern for it a couple of issues later. The collar itself had alternating smocking and shadow work panels edged with insertion attached to panels of smocking, with lace edging all around the edges of the collar and jabot panels to tie it all together.
Where or how the smocked collar first began is unknown (at least to me) but I think it was a natural evolution inspired I believe from the fad of ruffs in 16th century Europe which remain today in the collars that clown's traditionally wear. These ruffs were worn by the upper classes and as the pleats were quite tedious to form the ruff gradually fell out of fashion (no pun intended) and the elaborateness of collars extended itself to gorgeous handmade lace on collars. If you compare the paintings during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I and her son James the I you will see how the fads shifted and changed. Needless to say these two styles still inspire us today.
Back to the past twenty years, those without the swiss edging began to smock collars out of swiss or imperial batiste edging them with lace or entredeux and embroideries. Before sewing machines evolved with all their fancy stitches like entredeux and fagotting and pinstitch, swiss made entredeux was used on the edge of the fabric to attach lace to. One of the easiest and most lovely things you can make for your little girl to smock for is a smocked collar.
"My mind not only wanders, sometimes it leaves completely."