English smocking – THINGS I CAN MAKE WITH CLOTH

MAY 13, 2021

When I was a child I had to create things. I was happy to receive embroidery kits with the design printed on linen with all the colours of embroidery floss included for a Christmas gift. I found it was something fun to do while waiting for my aunt and uncle and cousins to come to our house for Christmas dinner or for us to go to their house because we alternated each year. I liked quiet projects but that didn’t mean I wasn’t an athletic girl because I was busy with downhill skiing, skating lessons, dance school, riding my bike and skateboarding, slalom waterskiing and Royal Conservatory piano lessons. My mother and paternal grandmother influenced my interest in needlework. Both women always had a project on the go.

My grandmother crocheted and knitted many outfits for my Barbie dolls that she sent by mail from Montreal along with a pair of crochet slippers for Christmas gifts. Here are examples from her creative soul; a Chanel inspired coat and hat with lips buttons and a short jacket and slim skirt with navy-blue contrast on the collar and hem. Striped stocking stitch sweaters with bateau neckline, a miniature button and matching hats with pompon. My grandmother knit clothes for my dolls but I designed clothes for my sister’s dolls.

My mum was a knitter when it was the style out of necessity to wear hand-knit sweaters, mittens, scarves and hats for both men and women. I think they both did cross stitch, needlepoint, crewelwork and smocking. My mother certainly took my sister and me to a dressmaker to have dresses made with smocked yokes.

Crewelwork detail, rattan chair and geraniums, tapestry wool on linen.

I was receptive to experimenting with the needle arts. I followed what the popular trends were in needlepoint, rug hooking, crewelwork, crochet and knitting. But needlework was a pastime that went by the way because my real interest from a young age always was design.

While on summer break from design school, and with a friend from school, we attempted to sew two smocked Peasant Blouses. The neckline and shoulder of the raglan sleeves have the honeycomb smocking stitch and the sleeves are gathered by running a length of embroidery floss through a channel created by the wave smocking stitch. There are six cross-stitch roses on the blouse. Because of the smocking on the neckline and shoulders the blouse was sixty inches wide at the hemline and fell just short of the waistline. The blouse was not comfortable to wear.

After design school, I was too busy to make anything other than what was related to clothing designs for my business. Years later, after my daughter was born I took up the 1980s quilting craze because I wanted to make a quilt for her and kitty-corner to my store, Janice and friends, there was a quilt store. I took a class once a week to make a twin size quilt.

Infant’s nightdress, smocking on front yoke only and sleeve cuffs, two sets of fabric ribbon closures on the back neckline and waist.

Raglan sleeve dress, smocking front and back and on the shoulders, snap closures on the back neckline.

I was lonely for my mother and grandmother who both died prematurely. Mary, my mother-in-law became the only needlewoman that I knew. She smocked flannelette nightdresses and knitted beautiful baby sweater-sets with hats and booties, works of art in traditional knitting patterns for our children.

Mary surprised us for our daughter’s first birthday with a smocked dress.

Classic Yoke Dress for English smocking on the front and back yokes and the set-in sleeves, button and loop closure with placket on sleeves and the back neckline.

To see that dress style again. I was hooked and asked if we could make a dress together.

I bought the fabric, Mary did the smocking and I sewed the dress in time for Christmas.

Smocking is usually worked on soft fabrics, batiste, cotton, lawn, silk and crêpe de Chine. Smocked dresses require a lot of yardage because you need 3 inches of fabric for every inch of the smocked pattern completed. For this dress the measurement around the hemline for a small child is 72 inches. Children’s clothing remains the best-known use of smocking.

Here is the letter that arrived by post when Mary had finished her smocking portion of our project, Thursday, November 27, 1986.

She shared “a few little tips.”

“I have added the blue as you suggested. I am enclosing some floss in case you need to make button loops or on the edge of the collar. Sometimes they put an edge [blanket stitch] around the collar, but mostly for older children when the collars are larger.”

“The buttons are a good idea, again a button can be used at the wrist if you find difficulty getting her hands through or if too big—you are good at making plackets. I shy away from making them.”

“I ran a red thread on top of both front and back to help the fraying. It can be taken out after you put in the yokes—or left in will not show.”

“You will notice there are small seam allowances under the arm and side seams. Just sew over the smocking needed for seam, keeping the lines of the pattern even. The smocking is done this way so there are no blanks without smocking and the pattern is more even.”

She signed off with hugs to my family with wishing me Good Luck! Decades later on reading her letter again, her words struck me. She deferred to my youthful experience because I was educated in design. She took my suggestion to add some blue thread, enclosing extra floss in case I needed to make thread button-loops, and said, “I shy away from making plackets.” In hindsight I remember that when her father died from pneumonia, her mother sold the farm and moved with her two daughters into town. Her mother took in sewing to keep the family afloat. Mary knew more about sewing than she let on, but was never one to shine a light on her ability. I heard stories about her sewing the curtains and covering the upholstery when the family project was to refurbish a Volkswagen Camper Van—the Hippie Van— and she sewed garments for herself and her daughter. But that was long before I met her.

The last smocked dress that Mary made was a sundress. The hemline circumference on this one is eighty-eight inches. Smocked dresses, intended for special occasions, don’t show signs of wear, because young children grow rapidly and need new clothes for every change of season.

Children gravitate quickly to exploring the world of gathering bugs in the ravine, sand boxes and play forts and painting with mud. The time for fancy dresses is short lived.

Smocking embroidery is a labour intensive needlework art and it’s best to be done when one has time and young children in your life to enjoy it.

When I had my store I made this door hanger for my business. The atelier is OPEN!