Embroidery Definitions — definitions of embroidery techniques, stitches and needlework terms from Apparel Search
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. It developed in England, has been practised since the Middle Ages, and is unusual among embroidery methods in that it was often worn by laborers — practical decoration that made garments both form fitting and flexible, its name deriving from smock, a farmer's work shirt.
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 practised since the Middle Ages and is unusual among embroidery methods in that it was often worn by laborers. 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 — a farmer's work shirt. Smocking was used most extensively in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
Materials
Smocking requires lightweight fabric with a stable weave that gathers well. Cotton and silk are typical fiber choices, often in lawn or voile. Smocking is worked on a crewel embroidery 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 inpique, 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 pleats 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. Manufacturers include Read and Amanda Jane.
Method
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 stitches. 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 stitching 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.
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.
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.
H. Trellis stitch: a medium density pattern that uses stem stitches and outine 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.
J. Bullion stitch: a complex knotted stitch that joins several gathers in a single stitch. Organized similarly to cable flowerettes.
Links of interest: SAGA: The Smocking Arts Guild of America
| The above article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/smocking). Modified by Apparel Search August 2013. |
Smocking is the rare embroidery that is also a fitting technology. Elastic did not exist for most of its history, yet work garments needed to close at the wrist, waist and neck, move with the body and survive without buttons that snag or break. Gathering cloth into pleats and stitching across the pleats solved all three problems at once: the stitched rows hold the gathers permanently, the unstitched depth of the pleats between rows opens and closes like a spring, and the pattern of stitches distributes the strain. That the wearers were laborers, and the garment the farmer's smock itself, explains the technique's character — its beauty is in regular geometry worked to a functional tolerance, and a smocker works a sampler first because stitch tightness varies so much that the finished width cannot be predicted without one.
Every smocked piece depends on even pleats, and the history of its tools is a history of making pleats regular. Hand gauging with cardboard guides gave way around 1880 to iron-on transfer dots advertised in magazines such as Weldon's, which printed the dot grid directly onto the fabric's wrong side. Pleating machines from the early 1950s mechanized the gathering itself, forcing fabric through gears onto threaded needles in 16, 24 and 32-row widths, so a home smocker could pleat a dress yoke in minutes. The stitching, however, stayed hand work: cable, honeycomb, trellis and the rest are chosen row by row for how much stretch each area of the garment needs, a judgment no machine in that chain was asked to make. The Smocking Arts Guild of America, SAGA, continues to teach and standardize the craft.
Elastic removed smocking's necessity and revealed its value as decoration: the technique survives most visibly in children's dresses and christening wear, where smocked yokes in honeycomb, cable and trellis patterns signal handwork and tradition, and in heirloom sewing, where the geometry is worked to exhibition standard. Because a smocked panel still stretches, it remains genuinely useful in cuffs, waistbands and bodices — ready-to-wear occasionally returns to it for exactly that reason — so the craft persists as both ornament and mechanism, centuries after it clothed agricultural laborers.
Smocking normally requires three times the width of initial material as the finished item will have, reducing a piece of fabric to about one-third of its starting width, although the change is sometimes less with thick fabrics. It needs lightweight fabric with a stable weave that gathers well, typically cotton or silk in lawn or voile.
Traditionally, smocking dots are marked in a grid on the wrong side of the fabric — by hand, with cardboard guides and a marking pencil, with iron-on transfer dots available from about 1880, or since the early 1950s with pleating machines of 16, 24 and 32 rows. The fabric is gathered on temporary running stitches, and a row of cable stitching stabilizes the top and bottom of the working area before the decorative stitches begin.
Cable stitch, stem stitch, outline stitch, cable flowerette, wave stitch, honeycomb and surface honeycomb stitch, trellis stitch, Vandyke stitch and bullion stitch, finished with the smocker's knot. They range from tight stitches with minimum flexibility, such as stem stitch, to medium-density patterns such as wave and trellis that leave more give in the gathers.