Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Inspirations come from Storybooks


With all the current interest in Alice in Wonderland, I thought I'd share this picture smocked design. It was for a Smocking Arts Guild design competition soon after I began designing in 1985. It was, to my knowledge, the first true "picture" smocked panel. There is no fabric showing (hopefully)....the entire piece of fabric is covered with stacked smocked cable stitches. It was a crazy idea I had to do a group of this type design....Alice in Wonderland, Cinderella, Goldilocks and the Three Bears. Needless to say, this is the only one that was completed. The fabric that was pleated was 90 inch wide muslin and I have no idea how many hours of stitching to complete. I have had request for the instructions for this design to which I usually laugh. Just the thought of graphing all of the characters makes me wonder......"What were you thinking?"