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smocking plate

    Tutorial: Designing Geometric Smocking Plates in Illustrator

    Posted by on Jun 23 2011

    This is the third lesson in my series of tutorials on how to use Adobe Illustrator to create smocking plates. This geometric plate features some of the most common geometric smocking stitches, including cable, wave and trellis.  It also features a simple cross-over design to introduce working with multiple layers.  It seems counter-intuitive that creating a geometric […]

    Book Review: Simplified Smocking by Helena Buehler

    Posted by on Jul 23 2010

    I picked up this interesting book, “Simplified Smocking” by Helena Buehler from Abebooks last year for a song. My copy was published in 1916; I’ve since since re-prints issued by several online sellers on Ebay and Etsy. This book is notable because while several of my Victorian-era embroidery books mention smocking among other techniques, it […]

    Do You Know This Man?

    Posted by on Jul 13 2010

    It’s been a very hot few weeks in Ontario and while it eased a little over the weekend, according to our weatherman, we’re once again due for a nice mix of mugginess and thunderstorms. So, given all this heat and stickiness, what am I working on? Something cool and seasonal? Hardly. Guess: This is an […]

    O Canada

    Posted by on Jun 28 2010

    It’s been a couple weeks since I’ve been able to post any thing really new beyond an article update. Between school wrap up and home renovations and four – yes, four! – Christmas articles, I’ve been swamped. I’ve finished a raft of play shorts for the boys but busy as I am haven’t had a […]

    Free Vintage Smocking Plate

    Posted by on Jun 09 2010

    I have a hodge-podge collection of vintage smocking booklets, picked up from Ebay, yardsales and friendly donations (the classic “You smock?! Here, take these!” followed by a thrusting armful of paper). Many of the designs are very basic – a few rows of cable and wave stitch in a couple of simple colours that were […]