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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.
Oops, Dyslexic brain at it again
I have been telling everyone that I am dyslexic as sometimes my synapii stop synapping because sometimes I have a hard time figuring out what goes where, not all the time but once in a while it happens my brain twists and I can't figure out how to put things together. My twisted awareness is on a spacial level, . Like the time I put the straight edge of the armhole curve along the top straight edge instead of the side straight edge and proceed to ruin a beautifully smocked dress front with TONS OF BULLIONS. (Had to cry on that one.) Anyhow, I have to apologize to you all for the typo of the smocking design I included with the last issue. Kathe found it. Anyhow if you find a typo please, please let me know so I can change the archives.
Dear Beth-Katherine,
Thank you for including a smocking pattern in your newsletter this time -- that's what I look for along with the tips. I think you'll want to re-look at you written instructions, though; the "down" and "up" cables seem to be backwards in some spots. It's messy to go from an "up" cable to a wave that goes up -- the thread would cross. I think I am going to use the pattern for the christening ensemble for my niece. It seems a little more interesting than most of the small ones that are out there. I'll been smocking on white broadcloth with white rayon thread and will let you know how it turns out. --Kaethe Pittman
Ah well that's what happens when one is dyslexic, things go up when they should go down. Sorry about the typos, better than the one that I made about the description of the Doll book which should have been "Chock full of patterns" except I left out the H in Chock. Tee Hee, it even slipped by the spell checker. Only one lady caught that or else only one mentioned it to me.
Beth
P.S. I am intending to include more designs in future issues.
Anyhow here is the corrected smocking design:
Row one, outline stitch (floss up)
Row one, stem stitch (floss down)
working these two stitches creates the wheat stitch
Row 2 1/2 to 2 work a baby wave starting with a down cable wave up to the 1/2 space, then a 3 cable combination starting with an up cable, down cable, up cable wave down to row 2 1/2.
Row 2 1/2 to 3 work a baby wave 3 cable combination, starting with an up cable, wave down to row 3 work a down cable, up cable and down cable, wave down to row 3
Row 3 at the first cable of the 3 cable combination make a down cable, 1/4 wave down to row 4 make a cable, 1/4 step wave back up to the last cable of the next three cable combination. The bottom cable of this 1/4 step wave should be equal with the single cable. End this section on the last cable of a three cable combination.
Repeat Row one - wheat stitch if you want a border or work the pattern in a mirror image for two rows or more.
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" Every morning is the dawn of a new error. "
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I am a bit confused. I don't know anything about smocking. What are smocking plates? How do you use them? Are they difficult to use? Do they attach to any type of machine? Thank you. Deb
Dear Deb,
I hope that my answer to your question regarding smocking plates isn't too late. A smocking plate is a piece of paper which has a copyrighted smocking design. It usually has a color photograph on one side and a graph with instructions on the other side. With smocking 'plate' in hand and a piece of pre-pleated fabric you are ready to start your hand embroidery.
Hope this answers your question.
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I am a novice to smocking, I've been trying to teach myself...I did take a small short class in Washington state a while ago...but we never covered anything about back smocking...I know from what is stated in a couple of instructions in the magazines that it is done on the back side of your work...and I figure it is to keep the work tightly worked pleat wise....but just what is it? ...how do you do it? ...is it like half of a cable stitch across the work? like so^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^or like so~~~~~~~~~~~???this is the best I know to illustrate what I'm thinking it is...could you e-mail me at Shirley
Dear Shirley,
The best stitch for backsmocking is the outline stitch as it holds your pleats singly instead of the cable stitch which holds your pleats in pairs.
Backsmocking is done to hold pleats in place in areas that are not covered on the front. Usually I do backsmocking when I have a several pleat gap in-between picture smocked motifs or bullion roses and sometimes in the spaces of wide trellises. Backsmocking is worked on the back only catching the top third of the pleat just above the pleating thread.
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Do you presmock piece of fabric for bishops and pinafores or whatever. I am a beginners-beginner and am not even close to thinking about getting a pleater, but I do like the hand work.
Thank you, and any suggestions for teaching books to the pre-smocker would be appreciated. Happy Spring. kwren
Dear KWren
We are a "full-service" smocking business, offering pre-pleated inserts and a pleating service for ladies who aren't sure yet that they want to buy a pleater or else cannot be bothered with having one of their own (like my senior friend Sally who just doesn't want another toy).
For a teaching book, the best one I would recommend is by Ellen McCarn "On English Smocking". It is like having a teacher right behind you looking at your every move making sure you do things right. It is $12.00 + $2.00 shipping. Another good book is by the Grace Knott company. This one has some lovely full color geometric designs that are perfect for the beginner. It is also $12.00.
I would also recommend that you get one of our pre-pleated inserts for practicing your smocking stitches before you work on your garment. They are $5.50 each. For pleating I charge $3.50 per item unless it's a bishop then the charge is $5.00 (plus shipping). If you want me to cut out a bishop dress for you, construct it for pleating and pleat it the charge is $15.00
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Beth,
I need to clarify my reply on teaching smocking to left as well as right handed students when I myself am left handed. The graph rarely confuses the students because I teach all the basic smocking stitches on a "waste" sampler before I teach my students to read a graph. Once they know the stitches, they know in which direction the needle is to go for each stitch. Since they learned each stitch on any empty space available on the waste sampler, they rarely have trouble with the graphs. Georgina
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Comment on the comment about Martha Pullen
I am enjoying this newsletter "sew" much since joining it a short time ago. I am a new smocker...I guess you have to know how to smock to say that...a yet to be smocker. I loved the comment about Martha Pullen. I have been to her school and agree she is the most wonderful and "beautiful" lady who is not only a fine Christian, but as others said a "HOOT". Nancy
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Hello,
I am looking for a source of "How To" smock. Any information that you could direct me to would be appreciated. From reading your web pages, I assume that you probably have books and patterns available. Thank You for your consideration, Cathy Hume
Dear Cathy,
The best advice I could give you is to find a teacher but if that's impossible you can easily learn it from books. There is a great book by Ellen McCarn called "On English Smocking" which is an incredible instruction manual. I have it reviewed on my website in the smocking books section. If you wanted to I also have available pre-pleated pieces of fabric pleated with 14 rows which can be used as either practice pieces or as inserts in garments. Those are $5.50 and are listed on the notions page right under pleaters.
All in all smocking is very easy to learn. Once you understand the limitations of the pleats (satin stitch embroidery doesn't work very well on the pleats, but we do work stacked cables in pictures which are quite cute) and the type of embroidery stitches that are workable on pleats then the rest of the "rules" are a 'piece of cake' to understand. (See last issue for the first 5 of 11 rules)
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More Smocking on Corduroy Comments:
Regarding the comments on pleating and smocking corduroy, my biggest piece of advice is to have a wonderful husband or friend who will work the garment through the pleater. I naively did a corduroy round yoke bishop dress for Christmas. Needless to say, once I had set in the sleeves the dress wouldn't even fit in the pleater. My dear husband sat with me and fed in the dress while I cranked the wheel and milked the fabric off of the needles. It took us about thirty minutes to pleat the dress. He was a real champ and took corrections and directions from me to "keep the neck straight". I know that I couldn't have done it alone. Kristin
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More Corduroy Thoughts:
Dear Beth,
It seems you have a lot of people trying to smock with corduroy. My suggestions are that you use the finest featherwale corduroy you can find and wash and dry it first. If I am making a dress with an insert, I use the corduroy for the insert but use the wrong side for the smocking. This way when you run it through the pleater the nap will still get distorted but it will be on the inside of the dress. So basically you are doing the smocking on the wrong side of the fabric. I recently finished a white featherwale corduroy dress with a geometric design, did not use the inside because I wasn't using an insert and it was perfect. You could not see the nap distortion because the design covered everything. If you want to do picture smocking, Chery Williams basic yoke pattern dress shows you how to attach the insert directly to the skirt. This way, you can pleat on the wrong side and attach that to the right side of the skirt, the last rows of pleating should be above and below that seam.
Smocking and Embroidery Issue #39 has a chocolate brown velveteen dress that is backsmocked on the entire bodice and it is quite lovely.
My comments on pleaters. The Amanda Jane is the best pleater I have ever used and I have tried them all. It seems to run more smoothly than the others and the thread caddy is a must!
Hope these suggestions help. Brenda Kennedy
Brenda, thank you so much for putting it so eloquently about the corduroy. This is the very reason I only sell the fine featherwale corduroy. Your tip about turning it around and using the backside as the insert is a great idea. The ripples sometimes interfere with the design.
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"Pooh is a real friend. Not like some." -- Eeyore
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