Directions
Principle of smocking
- You embroider smocking on a fabric where you've made small, close gathers that are held in place by some threads.
- Only when you've finished your embroidery can you remove the threads that hold the gathers in place and work with the fabric.
Below is a general explanation of what fabric and thread to choose. In the following pages, you'll find explanations for marking and gathering fabric as well as for the smocking embroidery.
Choose your fabric for smocking
- You can embroider smocking on all sorts of fabric: linen, silk, thin wool, cotton, etc. The essential thing is that the fabric is elastic enough to gather.
- You need to allow for 3 times the width of fabric to obtain the desired side when the smocking is finished. You may need to allow up to 4 times for very thin fabric.
- It's much easier to prepare the gathers in striped or checked fabric (gingham is perfect), because the geometric pattern will guide you, first in making the gathers, and later in embroidering the pattern.
Choose your thread for smocking
- Generally, smocking is done with embroidery floss or stranded cotton. See the embroidery vocabulary.
- The thickness of the thread depends on the type of fabric used. Often, using all 6 strands of an embroidery floss is too thick for cotton. If that's the case, you need to separate the threads before using them, only keeping 4, at most. You'll need to reconstruct your piece of thread, pulling the strands 2 at a time from the main thread and then grouping them together for use.
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