This is a sneaky peek at what you’ll be making if you come along to my Smocking Workshop at the Museum of English Rural Life. (It’s on September 19 & 20, and there are still places left! Book here…)
As you can see, we’ll be working the smocking stitches on gingham. For beginners it’s the easiest way to keep everything neat and lined up.
The top panel shows a variety of traditional smocking stitches – like the ones found on the smocks in the Museum’s collection.
The lower panel is made up of more modern smocking stitches that you tend to find on clothing from the 1930s onwards.
I find it interesting that the traditional stitches keep the gathering in very neat little columns all the way down, whereas the modern stitches are almost all designed to form a diamond pattern. The modern stitches are much more stretchy, but they take quite a bit longer to work.
In reality, although smocking looks very elaborate, you only need to know how to do one embroidery stitch, and you can turn it into all of these. If you can get the hang of back stitch, you can be smocking away in no time!