Patchwork Underground

The secret is out!

Here’s what I ended up doing with my canadian smocking experiment…..

His name is Wilbur. (!!!)  I love him!

I started with stay-stitching all around the edges of the smocking so that the pattern wouldn’t get lost or distorted in the seams….

Then I guessed how to make the legs….square plus circle = leg!

Here’s the fabric I used for his tummy….I’ve been stashing this for ever.

Here’s a mid-surgery shot.  I machine stitched most of it together but positioning the legs just right was tricky when they were on the inside of the inside-out circle….does that make sense?!  I dunno…I ended up doing some hand sewing to get some of the things just right.

Basic form complete!

Another shot…note my adorable vintage sewing box in the background… (thanks for getting me that, Deb!)

I added a couple of accents to tie in with the vintage print on his tummy.  (My recent love affair with turquoise is almost as strong as my affair with grey.)  I can’t decide if the lines on his feet are toes or claws…

How can you say no to those eyes??

(I know I’ve been babblin’ on about smocking for EVER.  Just tell my when to shut up about it.)

But….I’m excited to try this technique in other contexts, too, especially purses and maybe in a yoke on a shirt/jacket.  I’m very tempted to incorporate it into clothing but I’m also a little worried about it looking too King Henry the VIII, you know what I mean?  I’m thinking maybe experimenting with it in real lightweight/sheer fabrics and veering away from the more traditional velvets and corduroys….we’ll see.  =)

I finally tried Canadian (aka Lattice, aka north american) Smocking!!!

I started to follow the directions here and BOY HOWDY!  They were trickier than I initially thought when I first read over them…more on that at the end of the post.

So, it all starts with dots on a square piece of fabric.  I used my trusty fabric pen in lovely orange.  I made the dots about 1″ apart from each other, forming a grid.  I left about 2.5″ of margin (seam allowance) around the grid.  The dots are hard to see in this pic but they’re there….

First two attempts: utter failure

(First attempt so pathetic that it is not shown)

Second attempt:

oh no…that’s not cute at all.

Third attempt.  Reading through directions v-e-r-y sloooowly.

Yay!  Finally starting to look like something after the first row….

Second row.  Booya!

Backside…almost as pretty as the front!

Just a couple more rows and then…bam!  Finished square!

Show the backside some love…

Backside glamor shot….

Next steps….shhh…that’s a secret.  (It involves garage sale wool roving, sexy vintage print and smocked square.  More on this later.)

I LOVED doing this - once I got the hang of it.  Following the tutorial at savvy seams proved difficult for a visual learner like myself.  But once I got in the groove this was so much fun.  It had a mathematical pattern component to it - like knitting - but it was hand sewing which is even more relaxing for me.

Though I love the tutorial I followed for canadian smocking at Savvy Seams, I’m going to do up my own tutorial with a diagram so that you can see the over all pattern better.  I think it will work better for visual learners (like myself!)  Hopefully I’ll have it posted tomorrow.  Stay tuned!

Still obsessed with smocking. Haven’t tried it yet because we are packing up the bus and leaving for Santa Cruz today.

I promise to try this really soon and report back on the details. I even found a really sweet tutorial here that I think I’ll try to follow!

More random smocking inspiration:

fabric manipulation sampler bag featuring smocking

cute vintage smocked blouse pattern..

smocked sleeves!

smocked dress. wonder what the fabric is?

vintage smocked blouse I found on eBay…

So I read about Chizimi shrinking thread in a craft magazine a while back and I was immediately fascinated.

You sew with it normally (top or bobbin thread or both) and when you expose it to heat with your iron, the thread shrinks, creating puckers in the fabric. You could go many crafty places with this stuff, seems to me. I started looking it up on the interwebs, wondering if $10 was too much to splurge on a gimmicky thread….

Soon, my search was totally derailed by vintage smocked pillow patterns. I have one of these! I treasure it. Never did I think I might be able to make my very own. Apparently it’s done with a technique called Canadian Smocking, different from English smocking. Feast your eyes….

I think my smocking adventures have just begun. Smocked blouse yokes? Smocked dresses? Smocked pillows, wallets, bags? Yes. Yes. Yes. So much craft, so little time.