Smocking

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This week I'm working my way through the instruction book for my sewing machine (8 years or so after buying it!) to finally discover what my machine can do!

Over the past two days I have posted about rolled hems and blind stitching hems.

Today I want to share what I learned about smocking!

Smocking is basically 

pretty decorative stitching on gathered fabric.

Smocking provides a way of gathering wide fabric to a suitable width for your needs, and making it pretty at the same time.

So here was my quick try of smocking on my machine!

First you run several rows of stitching across the area on the fabric to be smocked.  Use your longest stitch length and don't run your stitching forwards and backwards at the beginning or end of the rows!

Then pull the threads at the ends to ruffle up your fabric:

Then you use a decorative stitch between the stitch lines on the ruffled fabric:

(Please don't look too closely at my wonky stitching - remember this was just a test piece!!)

Then you simply pull out the threads from the original rows of stitching, leaving you with a piece of smocking!

Ok - so my ruffles aren't exactly even, but you can see the general idea! I think this would be a nice effect to add to clothing, and bags perhaps!

Something else to tuck away for later consideration and use in my future sewing projects!

Although this wasn't a special foot or setting on my sewing machine - it's something else learned !

Have you ever tried smocking?