I hope to inspire and entertain you with a lot of sewing and a little of everything else!

Wednesday, February 1, 2012

Vintage Smocking Inspiration

I'm so happy to have had so many nice comments about the onesie tutorial. Thank you!

I have been away from bloggerland for a few days because we are battling ear infections and colds here. Poor Davy has 2 ear infections and has been very sick. He is improving now, though! Three of the other kids have had colds, too.

Tonight, I'm sharing some of my vintage smocking transfers with you. I got these very inexpensively, which is good because some are complete and some are not. In any case, I would be very unlikely to pleat something by "dots" instead of my pleater! The first thing I ever smocked was by dots, hand pleated, but that's a story for another day.
 The first four are older than the last McCall's. Notice they don't have the "s" in their name yet: McCall.


These date from the 30s or 40s, since the name changed to McCall's around 1950.


















 This Simplicity transfer is from around the same time.








Here's a picture of the directions that came with one of these transfers and a little piece of the iron on. It has some pretty floral motifs.
I have several ideas that I'd like to start stitching, so if I can avoid this cold, I'll be back to share them soon.

1 comment:

Sewconsult said...

THis is how my mother learned to smock, back in the 50's. It eventually came to be known as American Smocking, which differs from the English smocking which most of us do. The closest thing that I have done to the American Smocking was the Counterchange where the pleating followed the grid of gingham or a drawn grid.
Enjoyed the memmory trigger for sure!
Beckie in Brentwood, TN

pinterest-dffa4.html