Sewing with Texture Session 6: Canadian Smocking
National Sewing Circle EditorsDescription
In this session you will learn how to create several different Canadian smocking designs. Ashley will show you how to read a smocking grid pattern, how to prepare your fabric and how to create the stitching pattern.
Well, our last smocking called traditional smocking has sort of a practical use in that you can use it to make a fabric a little more elastic. This kind of smocking referred to as Canadian smocking is purely decorational, and it's gorgeous, and it's really fun to do. And there are so many different variations and different patterns you can do. And I'm just gonna share some of them with you right here. So we have this one right here is called a braid pattern.
And if you can think about if you're braiding someone's hair or something, this looks like how a braid would happen. So that's what this one is. Move over here, and this is a basket weave pattern. You get a lot of depth, a lot of just fun. Looks like it's weaved, but it's really not.
Just made from a square of fabric. And then we have another one up here where these are flowers with a bead in the middle, and it's done in the middle of this lattice work. So if you can picture this on a really large scale, and you have this crosshatched sort of lattice, and you have these flowers with beads. So pretty much no matter what pattern you do when it comes to this Canadian smocking, it turns out are really cool. So I'm gonna show you how to do this braid one here.
And I'm gonna show you that one because that's the one we actually have done on our project also. And you can see I've just done it, and I really just made it as sort of a sampler square 'cause I really wanted to try out this design. And then I liked it so much that I had to turn it into something. And so it makes it really, really pretty decorative pillow. So that's something that you can turn it into or use it on anything you'd like.
So smocking starts with... We need a grid. And I like to do designs, or choose designs, or makeup designs that allow me to draw the grid on the backside of my fabric because I don't want to have to wash this or try and get it out. Especially if I'm using a fabric like this that can sometimes be hard to get fabric marker, pencil out of. But you want to draw a grid, and I have 1.5-inch square grids.
Now I drew this really dark 'cause I wanted to make sure that you could see it as you're watching this. But I wouldn't normally have drawn it this dark. I mean, I really pressed with my pencil. And that's because if I lift this up and look at the light through it, every now and then I can kind of see that grid through it. So don't draw quite as dark as this but just make sure that you can see it, especially if you're using a lighter colored fabric.
Now we need to draw in our pattern. And so when it comes to smocking, what we're doing is we're creating these little tucks in our fabric or little folds. And that comes from... The grid is gonna tell you how to do that. And the grid is gonna have lines in it, and that's the direction we're gonna stitch and where we're going to stitch.
So for a braid pattern, we have these lines that are gonna go from corner to corner all the way down like this. And this is where we're gonna stitch, and I'll show you how to do that in a minute. But this is gonna create one line of braid. We leave a little bit of space, and we can go over. We can create another line of braid just like this.
And I'm not worried about these lines being perfect. I can tell what direction my line's going, which corner it's pointing to and where I should stitch. And then we can fit another one in over here just like this. And however big your piece of fabric is that you're starting with, that how many lines of braids you can fit or just pattern repeats you can fit. And you see all the way around the outside edge I left open.
I'm not going to put any design there. I'm not gonna stitch there. And that means when I'm done, I have this unstitched space that if I am going to put this into a pillow or whatever I wanna sew it into, I have space to do that. So that's why I've left space all the way around the outside edge. Now normally I would pick a thread that matches my fabric.
But I really want you to be able to see what I'm doing, so I have some black thread. Now this is personal preference on whether you start at the bottom and work up or top down. I like to start at the bottom and work up, but you may find that you really move your piece all around while you're working, and maybe you have a different technique. But what I wanna do is I have a line here. This line is telling me that I need to stitch together this corner and this corner, making a pucker.
So how I'm gonna do that is I'm gonna insert my needle right here at this corner, and I am taking the smallest possible stitch. I mean, I've got maybe two or three fibers there. I mean, a very, very tiny stitch. I have a knot in, and pull all the way through to the knot. I'm gonna go over, taking another very, very tiny stitch like so.
And then I'm going to pull them together. I need to tie a knot. You can either tie a knot or some people prefer to simply just go over this area four or five times. I like to tie a knot. That way if at anywhere along the line my thread breaks, I know that only one of my things is gonna come undone because they're all knotted.
I don't have to worry about it being sort of a chain reaction, and then everything comes undone. So I like to do knots. Did a couple, okay, that one's done. Now I need to move over to my next one, it's right here. And you can see it's telling me to take this corner and stitch it to this corner.
Now I could cut my thread, and then tie another knot, and start over, but that's kind of time-consuming. So what I'm gonna do is I'm going to take my needle. I'm gonna bring it over, and I'm going to pull it just until my thread lays flat along the back of the fabric. And I'm gonna tie a little knot. What this is gonna do is it's going to make it to where when I move on to my next stitch up here and I pull that tight, I can create that knot and pull that tight.
But this right here will stay straight. So it's not gonna create a gather that I don't want where I don't want it 'cause that will distort my design. So I have this corner. I need to stitch it to this corner because that's what my grid is telling me. Take a little, tiny stitch again, bring them together.
You can sort of pinch them with your fingers underneath if that helps. Bring this down so I can see a little. And again, I am going to do a little, tiny knot right here like so. And that will be nice and secure. And I'm gonna work my way up.
So now I have to go back over to here. Taking a little stitch. Again, this is my transition stitch. I am just moving from one working square to the next. So that one I want to lay flat against the fabric.
I can take a... And tie a tiny knot so I'm not gathering that thread if I don't want to. And now again I'm following my lines, so I'm stitching this corner to this corner right like this. Bring them together. Stitch them and tie a knot like so.
Move on, we'll do one more. Again, we have a calling it our transition stitch, moving over to where we need to be to start. And you might think well, that's using a lot of thread that maybe I didn't wanna use. But if you think about how much thread you use every time you have to cut your thread and you have a thread tail, then you have to retie a new knot, it's probably about the same. So then again, you follow my line going from this corner over to this corner.
Bring the two corners together like so, and we'll go ahead and tie a knot. Okay, and we'll flip it it over and see how our pattern is starting to form on the front. Go ahead and clip that. Okay, we can turn it over, and you see how our braid is starting to happen. You have our pieces that are being folded over each other and they will continue to as we go down.
And that's because we're following our grid, following the direction that we drew our lines. And if we just keep doing that all along, we will end up with a finished piece like this. Or even larger, however big you've started with. And you can see are two rows of braids. On the back, this is what it looks like.
So again, I can see I drew my grid a little bit lighter on this one, and I used thread that didn't stand out as much. And the reason why, like I was saying, I tied knots. So say maybe your thread breaks right here. Well, I know that okay, this one might come undone. I have to go in and fix it.
But I know I still have a knot on the side of it and a knot on this side. So this whole thing isn't gonna unravel if my thread breaks. So that's why I like to tie knots as I go rather than just loop my thread. So it doesn't matter which smocking pattern you're doing whether you're doing the braid, maybe you're doing the basket weave. It's the same thing.
You're just gonna follow your grid lines. You're gonna follow from corner to corner where you're supposed to go, and then that's gonna create the pattern. One thing that I find helpful as I'm going along is to not keep flipping it over and looking at the front side of it, and expecting it to look perfect right away. Because it sort of takes almost a whole row until your pattern really starts to become visible on the right side of your fabric. So if you're not seeing it right away, don't get frustrated.
Work a little further and then see if it starts turning out like you want it. Now I wanna show you just one other little thing real quick if you're going to be adding beads to your pattern. So I'm not gonna show you this whole lattice design. I just wanna show one little flower and how to add the bead. Now a pattern for a flower, I'm gonna draw this a little bit darker, just looks like an X.
And all it's telling you is that you need to bring all four corners together in one. And on some patterns, you can stitch your flower from the right side. I like to do it from the wrong side because I like to draw my grids on the wrong side. So the way I do flowers is I'm gonna pick one corner, start at it, go all the way over to the other corner, bring my needle up. Take a teeny, tiny little stitch, go back down all the way over to the other corner and up.
Rotating as I go. Teeny, tiny little stitch all the way over. One more time will be the last side of our square. And pull it up. And you will see on the back, we have these four teeny, tiny little stitches.
On the right side, we have our perfect square. Now all I'm gonna do is bring all four corners together like so. Okay, and you kind of get this pucker in the back, and that's what you want. And now I'm going to flip it over. Now it's not quite gonna look like a flower yet.
Again, this is where you have to do a few until you start seeing the pattern. But what I wanna show you with this is how you would add a bead here because if you're doing flowers and you wanna add a bead, you want to add them as you go. So I wanna bring my needle up just somewhere right here in the center. Now I highly recommend whether you're doing this flower pattern that has a lattice which this will be provided as a download with the class. It'll show you the grid, how you make this final product.
If you're doing that or you're doing just a bunch of flowers without the lattice pattern, I still think adding a bead is a good idea because a flower is the one design where you have the most chance of seeing a little bit of thread right here in the middle. So I've brought my thread up in the center of the flower. I've put my bead on. And all I'm gonna do is take that through just another little section. Or even just pick up a thread right here in the middle of my flower like so.
And tighten that down like that. I like to go through them twice because I don't wanna risk this coming off at all. And bring my needle back to the back, and I can pull that tight like so. And then I'm ready to move on. So now I have my bead secured.
I didn't have to cut my thread, and I can move on to my next flower, wherever it may be. Maybe it's right there. And I can move over and start doing that, and I don't have to either cut the thread and start over or I don't have to go back when I'm done and sew all of my beads on after. So if you're gonna do a flower, I recommend sewing your beads on as you go. So again, all of these patterns and there's a bunch of different smocking designs, and there will be some available as downloads with this class, and all of them are just grids.
And the grids will just have the lines on there, and the lines tell you which corners to bring together that will form all of these beautiful designs. And then if you really like one, like I did you can make a big one and turn it into a pillow. You can try a bunch of different ones. Put them together as a fun smocking sampler pillow. There's a lot of fun things you can do with this.
And I really like hand stitch projects. They're really relaxing, fun to do while you're just sitting watching TV, and it's a really great thing to try. So whether you're trying this smocking, the traditional smocking, or shearing, or wave tuck, adding ruffles to things, there are so many different ways that you can add texture to your projects that I hope you give them all a try.
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