If you hadn't guessed by my blog's title, I don't like to make samplers. I understand their usefulness and why it's good to practice things to become perfect. But I just have no patience for that. Whenever I make something I want the end product to be useful to me. I thought about studying 2D art in college, but I never want to do still-lifes, or practice techniques. I know that doing so would improve my art, but I dislike doing things just for the sake of doing them. That's why, rather than do samplers, I learn techniques by starting with small projects, like scarves, or baby dresses, or Marie Antoinette style gowns... yeah, I don't really do too many small projects either.
Recently I came across the term smocking, and though I had heard of it, I really had no idea what it was, so off to trusty google I went. I came across two types of smocking, English smocking, and Canadian smocking. English smocking uses decorative stitches on top of pleats to hold them in place, while Canadian smocking gathers the fabric as you stitch. I much prefer the overall look of Canadian smocking. For this I actually decided to make a scarf to learn the technique as I'm hoping to use it later when I make a costume gown for the Shimane AJET Ball in February. I also needed a small lap project to bring with me when The Radish King and I took the bus down to Hiroshima for the day. We were hoping there would be some sweet old Japanese aunties on the bus we could show off our foreigner domestic skills too. Alas, there were no aunties to be seen. I decided to use the lattice pattern for my scarf. The first step is making a grid of dots on the back side of your fabric. This was probably the hardest step as I don't have a straightedge. Instead I had to use my measuring tape and the edge of a folder to make a grid on a sheet of A3 paper and poked holes through it. I tried to use my fabric pen, but it was too light. So I thought to use my white-out pen, but it barely wants to work on paper and refused to mark on fabrics. In the end I ended up using a paintbrush and my white acrylic.
The actual sewing is really easy, you just pinch diagonal dots together and stitch them and knot the thread to hold it. As Radish King and I discovered though, highway buses do not make for good sewing, far too bumpy so we kept pushing the needle through the wrong place in the fabric, or stabbing ourselves. But when not on a bouncing bus, smocking makes for a pretty simple and mindless sewing project to keep your hands busy. I'm planning on bringing it with me to sit through the usually repetitive and boring lectures given at the foreign English teachers' November seminar.
The lattice pattern does eat about 2/3 the width and length of your fabric. But it looks super complicated, but is in fact really easy. Hooray for making people think I put in way more effort than I actually did.
It's gorgeous!!
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