My little granddaughter Marisa, or Misa as she calls herself, is turning 3 on Monday, and I wanted to make her a special dress for her birthday.. I had always wanted to learn how to smock.. Then at painting class I saw my friend Carol working on a baby outfit with smocking. I was intrigued as the design came alive right before my eyes.This is my first attempt at making a smocked dress.
This was the practice cloth my friend Carol smocked the top part. Right below is my attempt at smocking. Then after more instruction the bottom part with the string trailing was my second attempt. See the vast improvement? At least I saw it.
Here is a mini course on how to do the most basic stitch the cable stitch.
Smocking material has treads running horizontally about 1/4 inch apart. It has valleys and mountains. To start use colored embroidery floss. Floss comes with 6 strands, split into 2 treads.
Tread needle with18 inch double strands of floss, tie knot at bottom.
Insert needle through back side coming up in the ditch. Next to horizontal treads with out touching, the horizontal treads, those treads will be pulled out after smocking is complete.
Go to the left pleat to anchor stitch.
Then go to the right, just above running stitch line.
Tighten stitch. Now for the next stitch notice the tread is going up. That is called an up cable, when the thread goes down , it's called a down cable.
Notice in the next photo the up, and the down stitch.
That's my mini course on the cable stitch, finish practicing across to the end of the material.
The cable stitch is on the top, went on to do the baby wave, more cable, and hearts with the treble stitch.
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