X Smocking, Feather-Stitching and Lazy-Daisy Stitch
Smocking is such a fashionable trimming this year that I am sure you will not be contented till Sally Ann has a smocked dress. Why, one cannot take a walk in the park without seeing several little children and some grown-ups, too, wearing smocked dresses. Sometimes they are made of fine lawn or pique and then again they are China silk, crêpe de chine, or cashmere.
Stamped patterns can be had for smocking but they are not at all necessary. Nearly every little English girl knows how to smock without buying a pattern and why should not you?
The simplest form of smocking is the honeycomb or diamond (Figure 106). It can be any size you wish. A good size for Sally Ann’s dress is the half-inch diamond smocking. The beauty of the work lies in its regularity. To keep it so, the dots must be spaced evenly. A good way is to have a marking card. Take a piece of heavy paper or thin cardboard about six inches long by an inch and a half wide. With a ruler draw a faint line one half inch down parallel with the long edge of the card. Draw four other lines below this at quarter-inch intervals. Be sure that the space between each two lines is a quarter inch, no more or no less. Along the top line measure in one half inch. From this point make dots at quarter-inch intervals all the way across. Each line is dotted in like manner, letting each dot come directly under the upper one in straight rows. If mother has a card punch ask her to lend it to you and where the dots are make holes. A stiletto will answer the same purpose as the punch; or an orange stick may be pressed into service. Your marking card is now ready.
Measure the length you wish to make Sally Ann’s skirt. Select a piece of material that will show pencil marks, such as lawn, pique, China silk, or crêpe de chine. It will not be necessary to gore the skirt, as the smocking will form a sort of yoke for the dress. A little frock smocked in blue or red will be nice enough for all occasions. Take the material and smooth all the creases out after it is cut the right length. You must allow about the same amount of material for the width of the hem as you do for ordinary skirts. Place the smocking card so that the edge of it is on a line with the top edge of the goods. The smocking must be done before the belt is put on. Through each of the perforated holes make a dot in lead pencil. After every hole has been dotted, move the card so that there is only one quarter of an inch space before commencing to dot again. In other words, place the card so the dots have the appearance of being one continuous design.
Thread a No. 6 sewing needle with a piece of red or blue cotton. Make a tiny knot at the end. Start from the topmost left-hand dot from the under side of the material. Draw the first and second dots together. Three stitches on the right side will suffice to hold them together. Between the second and third dots let the thread span the material on the wrong side without pulling it. The third and fourth dots are drawn together and then the thread spans the space between the fourth and fifth. Do you see how we are working? First a dot, then a space, a dot, then a space, until the entire line is finished.
The second row is worked exactly the same only instead of starting on the first dot of the second row, start with the second. The third row corresponds with the first and now at last we have formed a diamond.
If a little more colour is wanted than just the dot alone, pass a thread along the edge of each diamond under the dots. A suggestion which may prove helpful to you if the material has starch in it is that it is easy to crease each line of dots before starting to smock. If the material is soft the smocking should be stroked or gauged. There is a new term to learn, “gauge.” It is the same as stroking in sewing. The English women have all sorts of complicated patterns in smocking, but the one that is most popular is the diamond smocking I have told you about. After you know the principle you can make the smocking as deep as you wish and then try and smock in points. (See Figure 107.)
Feather-stitching is almost as simple as smocking. It has various other names. Perhaps you know it by the name of “brier-stitch.” The first and simplest form is the single feather-stitching. A thread as fine as No. 60 sewing cotton or a heavy Germantown wool can be used for it. Baby blankets or a blanket for yourself are pretty feather-stitched in wool.
Like smocking, patterns can be had for feather-stitching. But the best embroiderers never use them, as their mechanical correctness makes the work too much like machine work. I do recommend, however, a faint line drawn so as to have something on which to guide your line and gauge your stitches.
Let us thread our needle with a piece of coarse blue thread. On a little piece of muslin draw a faint pencil line across it. Commence from the upper right-hand side of the line. Take a short stitch about three sixteenths of an inch on the right of the line, slanting to the line. Let the thread come under the point of the needle in each stitch. The second stitch is taken on the left side of the line the same distance over and the same in slant (Figure 108).
Double feather-stitching is two stitches to the right, two to the left and so on till the line is finished (Figure 109). In fact you can make three, four (Figures 110 and 111), or five stitches or even more if you wish on each side. The prettiest little border can be made of feather-stitching in circles. Take a quarter or a fifty-cent piece and draw a faint line around it on the material about one inch from the edge. Move the piece till it overlaps the pencilled circle and draw another circle. Repeat as many times as necessary to go around the skirt, sleeve, or section you are decorating. A row such as this makes a pretty decoration around the sleeves and neck of a night dress or the ruffles of drawers. Marking cotton No. 20 or No. 25 should be used for feather-stitching underwear.
Infants’ dresses, bibs, or petticoats of lawn or any very sheer material of cotton or linen should be worked in fine marking cotton, either Nos. 25, 30, 40, or 50.
Just a word about threads. There are several different kinds. The most popular and best known are D. M. C., Madonna, Royal Society, and Utopia. The numbers run about the same. Some teachers recommend one certain kind, but the result obtained from using any of them is almost identical.
There is a pretty little stitch that can be made with a foundation of double feather-stitching. We used to call it “seaweed-stitch” when we were youngsters. I remember I made a white cashmere coat for my doll and used the seaweed-stitch along the hem and above the opening, and on the cuffs and collar of the coat. It was embroidered in rose coloured filo silk. A row of double feather-stitching was worked in the usual way. At the end of each stitch a little Van Dyke point or V was worked. Try it yourself and see how dainty it is (Figure 112).
A good way and something new for decoration is the feather-stitchery used like festoons on the hems. The way this is done is to take a compass and make a circle about two and a half inches in diameter. Cut it out in heavy paper or thin cardboard. Baste the hem in place and then trace one-third of the circle. Repeat in like manner till the hem has the appearance of large scallops. Along the lines work the single or double feather-stitching in No. 20 marking cotton through the two thicknesses of the material. Pull out the basting threads from the hem and then carefully cut away the material within each scallop on the wrong side of the hem. In other words, the upper part of the under hem is cut close to the stitching. Cut right down to the feather-stitching.
Only thin materials are pretty worked like this, as the doubled material gives a milk-white appearance, while the upper or single parts are transparent. A lazy-daisy stitch worked in the centre of each scallop adds further beauty to a feather-stitched hem such as has been just described. The lazy-daisy has been aptly called because it requires a stitch to connect each petal to the material.
Another name for this lazy-daisy stitch is the “bird’s-eye” stitch (Figure 113). It is used to represent clovers, daisies, or leaves. The stitch is made, if for a daisy, from a common centre. Bring your needle up from the centre of the daisy and take a stitch the length of the petal. Let the thread come from the left under the point of the needle. Pull the needle through the material on the right side. A short stitch at the end of the petal catches it down to the material. The needle is now brought back to the centre and the next petal made in the same manner. Any size daisy can be made like this from the quarter to a two-inch size. Remember that the larger your daisy is the more petals it should have. As fine thread should be used for the little flowers and the heaviest silk or lustre for the big ones, it is a wise plan to faintly mark in pencil the daisy. One line will be sufficient for each petal. If you do this, you can then be sure that each petal will be the same length as the last.
A charming little yoke can be made of groups of fine tucks and rows of the daisies.