Smocking is an

embroidery Embroidery is the craft of decorating fabric or other materials using a needle to apply thread or yarn. Embroidery may also incorporate other materials such as pearls, beads, quills, and sequins. In modern days, embroidery is usually seen on c ...

technique used to gather

fabric Textile is an umbrella term that includes various fiber-based materials, including fibers, yarns, filaments, threads, different fabric types, etc. At first, the word "textiles" only referred to woven fabrics. However, weaving is not the ...

so that it can stretch. Before

elastic Elastic is a word often used to describe or identify certain types of elastomer, elastic used in garments or stretchable fabrics. Elastic may also refer to: Alternative name * Rubber band, ring-shaped band of rubber used to hold objects togeth ...

, smocking was commonly used in

cuff A cuff is a layer of fabric at the lower edge of the sleeve of a garment (shirt, coat, jacket, etc.) at the wrist, or at the ankle end of a trouser leg. The function of turned-back cuffs is to protect the cloth of the garment from fraying, an ...

bodice A bodice () is an article of clothing traditionally for women and girls, covering the torso from the neck to the waist. The term typically refers to a specific type of upper garment common in Europe during the 16th to the 18th century, or to the ...

s, and

neckline The neckline is the top edge of a garment that surrounds the neck, especially from the front view. Neckline also refers to the overall line between all the layers of clothing and the neck and shoulders of a person, ignoring the unseen undergarmen ...

s in garments where

button A button is a fastener that joins two pieces of fabric together by slipping through a loop or by sliding through a buttonhole. In modern clothing and fashion design, buttons are commonly made of plastic but also may be made of metal, wood, ...

s were undesirable. Smocking developed in

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

and has been practised since the

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire a ...

and is unusual among embroidery methods in that it was often worn by labourers. Other major embroidery styles are purely decorative and represented status symbols. Smocking was practical for garments to be both form fitting and flexible, hence its name derives from '' smock'' — an agricultural labourer's work shirt. Smocking was used most extensively in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.Good Housekeeping, p. 146.

Materials

Smocking requires lightweight fabric with a stable weave that gathers well.

Cotton Cotton is a soft, fluffy staple fiber that grows in a boll, or protective case, around the seeds of the cotton plants of the genus ''Gossypium'' in the mallow family Malvaceae. The fiber is almost pure cellulose, and can contain minor perce ...

and

silk Silk is a natural protein fiber, some forms of which can be woven into textiles. The protein fiber of silk is composed mainly of fibroin and is produced by certain insect larvae to form cocoons. The best-known silk is obtained from the coc ...

are typical fiber choices, often in

lawn A lawn is an area of soil-covered land planted with grasses and other durable plants such as clover which are maintained at a short height with a lawnmower (or sometimes grazing animals) and used for aesthetic and recreational purposes. L ...

voile Voile is a soft, sheer fabric, usually made of 99% cotton or cotton blended with linen or polyester. The term is French for ''veil''. Because of its light weight, the fabric is mostly used in soft furnishing. In tropical climates, voile is used ...

. Smocking is worked on a

crewel embroidery Crewel embroidery, or crewelwork, is a type of surface embroidery using wool. A wide variety of different embroidery stitches are used to follow a design outline applied to the fabric. The technique is at least a thousand years old. Crewel embro ...

needle in cotton or silk thread and normally requires three times the width of initial material as the finished item will have. Historically, smocking was also worked in piqué, crepe de Chine, and cashmere. According to ''Good Housekeeping: The Illustrated Book of Needlecrafts'', "Any type of fabric can be smocked if it is supple enough to be gathered." Fabric can be gathered into

pleat A pleat (plait in older English) is a type of fold formed by doubling fabric back upon itself and securing it in place. It is commonly used in clothing and upholstery to gather a wide piece of fabric to a narrower circumference. Pleats are cat ...

s in a variety of ways. Early smocking, or gauging, was done by hand. Some embroiderers also made their own guides using cardboard and an embroidery marking pencil. By 1880, iron-on transfer dots were available and advertised in magazines such as ''Weldon's''. The iron-on transfers places evenly spaced dots onto the wrong side of the fabric, which were then pleated using a regular running stitch. Since the early 1950s, pleating machines have been available to home smockers. Using gears and specialty pleater needles, the fabric is forced through the gears and onto the threaded needles. Pleating machines are typically offered in 16-row, 24-row and 32-row widths.

Methods

Smocking refers to work done before a garment is assembled. It usually involves reducing the dimensions of a piece of fabric to one-third of its original width, although changes are sometimes lesser with thick fabrics. Individual smocking stitches also vary considerably in tightness, so embroiderers usually work a sampler for practice and reference when they begin to learn smocking. Traditional hand smocking begins with marking ''smocking dots'' in a grid pattern on the wrong side of the fabric and gathering it with temporary

running stitch The straight or running stitch is the basic stitch in hand-sewing and embroidery, on which all other forms of sewing are based. The stitch is worked by passing the needle in and out of the fabric at a regular distance. All other stitches are ...

es. These stitches are anchored on each end in a manner that facilitates later removal and are analogous to basting stitches. Then a row of

cable stitch Cable knitting is a style of knitting in which textures of crossing layers are achieved by permuting stitches. For example, given four stitches appearing on the needle in the order ', one might cross the first two (in front of or behind) the nex ...

ing stabilizes the top and bottom of the working area. Smocking may be done in many sophisticated patterns. Standard hand smocking stitches are: A. Cable stitch: a tight stitch of double rows that joins alternating columns of gathers. B. Stem stitch: a tight stitch with minimum flexibility that joins two columns of gathers at a time in single overlapping rows with a downward slope.Reader's Digest, p. 164. C. Outline stitch: similar to the stem stitch but with an upward slope. D. Cable flowerette: a set of gathers worked in three rows of stitches across four columns of gathers. Often organized in diagonally arranged sets of flowerettes for loose smocking.Reader's Digest, p. 165. E. Wave stitch: a medium density pattern that alternately employs tight horizontal stitches and loose diagonal stitches. F. Honeycomb stitch: a medium density variant on the cable stitch that double stitches each set of gathers and provides more spacing between them, with an intervening diagonal stitch concealed on the reverse side of the fabric. G. Surface honeycomb stitch: a tight variant on the honeycomb stitch and the wave stitch with the diagonal stitch visible, but spanning only one gather instead of a gather and a space.Reader's Digest, p. 168. H. Trellis stitch: a medium density pattern that uses stem stitches and outline stitches to form diamond-shaped patterns. I. Vandyke stitch: a tight variant on the surface honeycomb stitch that wraps diagonal stitches in the opposite direction.Reader's Digest, p. 169. J. Bullion stitch: a complex knotted stitch that joins several gathers in a single stitch. Organized similarly to cable flowerettes. * Smocker's knot: (not depicted) a simple

knotted stitch A knotted stitch, also known as knot stitch, is any embroidery technique in which the yarn or thread is knotted around itself. A knotted stitch is a type of decorative embroidery stitches which form three-dimensional knots on the surface of a te ...

used to finish work with a thread or for decorative purposes.

Organizations

Smocking organizations and groups include the Smocking Arts Guild of America (SAGA), the

Smocking Arts Guild of NSW Smocking is an embroidery technique used to gather fabric so that it can stretch. Before elastic, smocking was commonly used in cuffs, bodices, and necklines in garments where buttons were undesirable. Smocking developed in England and has been p ...

, and the Embroiderers' Guild of America.

References

Bibliography

*The Reader's Digest Association, ''Complete Guide to Embroidery Stitches'', Pleasantville, New York: Marabout, 2004. *Ed. Cecilia K. Toth, ''Good Housekeeping: The Illustrated Book of Needlecrafts'', New York: Hearst Books, 1994.

External links

Smocking Arts Guild of AmericaSmocking Arts Guild of NSWThe History of Smocking

Glossary of Smocking Terms
{{Embroidery Embroidery