Shocking Smocking

In a previous life I did a bit of smocking. When I was doing my City and Guild fashion course, one of my projects was a bucolic, shepherdess-inspired blouse. It has been lurking in the back of my wardrobe for a lot of years. There never seems quite the right occasion to wear this beautiful but rather unusual blouse? Hubby says it makes me look a bit like a Russian cossack. Surprisingly it still almost fits. It is rather lovely, and took a huge amount of work. One of the reasons I don't wear it is that the fabric is a rather horrible polyester cotton. As part of the course you had to imagine that you had a client, and make your garment to your imaginary client's directions and budget. My imaginary client was clearly a bit of a cheap skate, and gave me a very small budget. I think if I had made the blouse in a really lovely natural fabric, I might be more inclined to wear it now. A bit of a lesson there. (I have some other unusual garments that I might photograph some time: the African-inspired beaded skirt, my 1940's-inspired jacket.)

But I do remember I really enjoyed doing the smocking. My teacher lent me her smocking machine, and you had to feed the material in to make the pleats. The embroidery was hand done, and the design was inspired by patterns found in photographs of crop circles. 

For my craft stall I sometimes make cotton hairbands, which never sell well. In fact I think I've only ever sold two. I can't understand why they don't sell? Perhaps they are hard to present nicely. The fabrics are really nice, and I have made them in different sizes. I think part of the problem is they are difficult to buy as gift for someone, unless you know their exact head size. 

So I have had this idea brewing for a while for a smocked hairband. Smocking would give it a bit of elasticity. I also thought they would look really stunning, and be unusual. I have never seen a smocked hairband, and cannot find one anywhere on the internet. So, after a few attempts here are my first efforts at hand-smocked hairbands or headbands. I may put a few more photos on tomorrow, but my model has gone to Brownies, and the sun (which we are not seeing very much of this year) has gone in. They are really easy to make. You need to use a geometric print, or something with a regular pattern. In Britain a lot of schools wear gingham school dresses, so they could be made to coordinate with your school uniform.

Eating Pineapple

In A House Made Under the Washing

This would be a really good project for someone who has not smocked before, but would like a small project to get started. When I began I did a few samplers to try out different stitches, and your headband could also serve this purpose. The full instructions on how to make your own headband will be available on Craftsy, and I may sell a few actual headbands on Etsy .....
In my new Etsy shop! I will put some links here when they're on.

My Etsy shop still looks a bit rough, as I am having problems making a nice banner. I would really welcome any tips on how to incorporate text into a photo, and then save as a jpeg or png on a Mac. It has been driving me potty all week. The only way to calm down has been to sit and do a nice bit of relaxing smocking.