February 9, 2000
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.
In This Issue:
1) Questions from our readers:
a) Laura Spry from Ontario asks: <<Why doesn't my pleating using Knotts dots never look straight like Grace's does in her book English smocking????? Frustration!!!!>>
Laura that is a very easy question to answer, you aren't placing your needle under each dot consistently. In order to have perfect pleats you MUST work each dot identically, otherwise yours pleats will be uneven. I know it's difficult at first to do this but after watching yourself work a few dots this way automatic pilot will take over.
b) I want to make a bishop for my 1 year old daughter as my first project, what do you suggest?
Smocking a bishop is not difficult but present challenges for the beginner you might not be ready for. The main difference between smocking straight pieces vs in the round is you have to watch your tension while smocking in the round. The trick is to loosen your stitches oh so slightly as you move down the rows from neck to bottom of pleated area so as to avoid the dreaded turtleneck look which happens when you smock a round piece with the same tenstion. In other words if you take a round area and smock it the same as if it was to be a flat surface it will end up standing straight upon the neck like a tube. A look that was popular in the Victorian Era but frowned upon nowadays.
There is a great book called The Complete Bishop Guide by Jane MacPherson, $8.00 which takes you from the raw beginning of smocking a bishop (including a couple of pretty geometric designs) through construction. It also comes with a bishop neckline guide for blocking your dress into the round (or horseshoe shape).
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2) A replacement book for The Best of Australian Smocking and Embroidery is here. This new smocking book coming from Australia includes Ten Superb Geometric Smocking Designs suitable for all levels of smockers, all taken from the early and no longer available issues of Austrlaian Smocking and Emboirdery magazine. Each has full color photographs and easy to understand instructions. The outfits are: Marshamllow Ripples, Butterfly Blue, Symphony of Roses, Dreamscape, Sweet Whispers, Dear Prudence, Precious Angel, Forever Young, Unrequited Love, Fairy Floss - $15.00.
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Looking for ideas of unique ways to work heirloom sewing into garments? Take a quick journey onto the net and feast your eyes on some beauties. If you love lace, sumptious fabrics and beautiful clothing please go and see some of the most incredible pieces of vintage clothing.
As many of my readers know I love vintage clothing, in fact it's one of my main addiction in life. I love lace and embroidery and sumptious fabrics. Since moving to Clearlake away from the prime vintage clothing collections of Sonoma county and the San Francisco Bay Area I've had to satisfy my cravings for beautiful things by surfing the net. I'd like to share with you some treasures I found today some pirces which belong in museums but I for one am glad that they are photographed and placed onto the net for all to see. My teenager had the nerve to complain about the length of time I was spending on the net!! She couldn't tear me away from my gawking.
There are many vintage clothing shops up on the net but very few are dediced to museum quality antique clothing. I was lucky this morning to find two such websites, so settle back and cut and paste the following URLs for a show that's not to be missed. Designer names such as Charles Worth, Lucille and McCardell are represented here.
This website has some of the most beautiful examples of vintage clothing I've ever seen on the net. Again I have no affiliation with the site and am not suggesting you go out to buy but rather if you love looking at vintage clothing check out this place as they have some incredible beauties posted. The prices are waaaay out of my league (flea market huntress here) but one can dream can't they? What I like about vintage clothing is that they are jumping off points for my own designs. so for a journey in fashion history take a peek.
Do you love Irish Crochet, tucks and lace? Then check out this beautiful batiste Ladies dress, circa 1880. Worked in the familiar silhouette of the 1880's the look is classic. The bodice is adorned with 1/4" hand sewn tuck and some of the most beautiful Swiss Handlooms I've seen in photographs. I'm pretty sure the embroideries are handlooms and not hand done due to the regularity of the embroidery. Just look at that hemline, easily reproduced in a fancy girl's dress. Irish Crochet as the bodice insert and collar with patterns of shamrocks and roses ending with a couple rows of ruching complete the total 'AHHHHH" of this dress.
http://www.vintagetextile.com/newpage87.htm
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Trying to find common ground with a recalcitrant teenager? Has the little girl you used to smock for now love 'Goth' clothing and costumes? Well lucky you, I've found some incredible clothes on the net to share with her in hopes that you might break through that awful attitude that kids cop known as "Teenager". Who knows all that embroidery you embellished her clothing with in the past just might have infiltrated or wormed it's way into her heart and she'll go oooo and ahhhhh at these dresses and be inspired to create one of her own or ask you to do it. One can only hope.
The elegant Edwardians loved lace, netting, lush fabrics such as silks and velvets. They also loved embroidery and beading and silk flowers. This is handsewing and embroidery at it's finest. Beads were attached with a knot stitch, padded satin stitch was a popular stitch. Designers were not concerned if their garment could be washed in washing machines because most clothes were handwashed back then. They wouldn' t dream of putting their clothes in the unpredictable washing machines of the early 20th century. Also, the ladies who owned these dresses had maids who worried about how to wash and care for the clothing.
Netted clothing became very popular after netting yardage became available. My pattern making teacher told me that net was the t-shirt fabric of that era as it was found to have stretch, perfect for molding and shaping the body, not as good as knits but still it was all that was available at that time.
Oh and depending on the time you surf be patient when you choose the details page as the images may take their time loading in but it's worth the wait.
http://www.vintagetextile.com/edwardian.htm
(this has been updated 11/23/05 to reflect current items ... no guarantee these items will be there after this date.)
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Here is the URL of an excellent article on how to care for antique textiles:
http://aic.stanford.edu/treasure/textiles.html
How to Care for Antique Textiles
American Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works
Stanford Universary
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On a web journey this week looking for directions on how to handle the finishing of seams in cut velvet (any suggestions are welcome) I came across this beauty of a dress. While it's not smocking persea but when I saw this dress I just had to share it with all of you. Talk about beauty. Silk Taffeta, Ribbon flowers and ribbon work (grosgrain) and the tiny cartridge pleating (ruching) on the sleeves looks like it could have been made by a pleater but not due to the age of this dress. If you love beautiful clothes from the opulent era with silks and embroidery and lace treat yourself to the tour of this entire website filled with sumptious museum quality vintage clothing.
(Mind you I have no connection what so ever to this website, just a viewer.)
http://www.antiquedress.com/gallerymuseum1.htm
#500beer - 1900 Beer Designer Silk Taffeta Evening Gown with Extraordinary RibbonDetailing and Lace. It's the 5th item down from the top. Take a detour of the two simply gorgeous battenburg lace wedding gowns - oh boy all that hand sewing!!!!
Here is another beauty sure to inspire you heirloom sewing fanatics out there.
#2025 - c. 1912 - The Ultimate Titanic White Lawn Dress! Absolutely gorgeous http://www.antiquedress.com/item2025.htm . One of the most beautiful example of whitework embroidery I've seen in a long time. Handmade bobbin lace (torchon) adorns the neckline, bodice and sleeves. Lovely lace shaping on the skirt with the torchon lace. Oh to be slender and wealthy!!!!!
Ruching is related to smocking, except that it's pleats without embroidery. You see a lot of examples of it on women's dresses from the 1880's through the 1940's on fabrics ranging from silks to velvets to cottons.
Here is another gown from 1905 the heyday of the Battenburg lace period. It combines princess lace with silk to make a lovely elegant summer dress. This gown http://www.antiquedress.com/item2017.htm has ruching at the waistline, princess lace tape shaped into motifs. This is obviously a simplified adaptation of the smocked Liberty dress pictures in Beverly Marshall's book 'Smocks and Smocking'. The ruching certainly took less time than the smocking. Oh look at those sleeves, aren't they lovely? To my eye it looks like circular ruffles of silks mixed in with the princess lace.
In love with dotted swiss? Here is a pretty from 191e that is real dotted swiss. Delicate and frothy with French Valenciennes lace edging - it could quite easily be reproduced in today's materials. http://www.antiquedress.com/item1753.htm
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Continuing on our journey of vintage clothing I found this site which has a tremendous list of fashion links. It's one page out of the Costume Organization for Early 20th Century Fashion.
Early 20th Century Fashion Links: Edwardian EraÉ (http://www.costumes.org/pages/1900links.htm)
You can find patterns for reproducing vintage clothing of the Late Victorian and Edwardian Eras as well as fashion history pages. Oh you could get lost here forever, I know I did last month - which is why no newsletter!!! hahahhaaa
Here is a link to a 1903 Blouse Pattern (yes pattern) with Lace Insets and Pintucks
c.1903 White Blouse with Insets & Pintucks (http://www.costumes.org/pages/1905blousepattern.htm)
All you heirloom sewing lovebird check out this site
1890's-1919 (http://www.rrnspace.com/1890's-1919.htm) I haven't seen so many ways of using swiss embroideries on petticoats in one spot before.