Smocking........

Saturday was Embroiderer's Guild Day, always exciting, but I could have done without the added excitement of a puncture!! It was a Smocking workshop with Heather Spaulding, I arrived three quarters of an hour late thinking that I would never catch up. What a lovely day. Heather was a very good teacher and had prepared packs for us to make a bag. There was a piece already pleated on one of those marvellous (but expensive) little machines. Throughout the day she took us in twos and threes to explain the stitches and to make sure we had understood. Unfortunately in my panic I went without my camera so I can't show you Heather's wonderful examples, but she had flower panels and abstract pieces and the one that I really lusted after was a chatelaine for her sewing bits made in back organza and gold thread.
This is the front for my bag (which I finished off last night).
We just used a couple of stitch yesterday but I found this site which has lots of stitches and clear instructions.
I found the whole day really satisfying, there were many shared stories of domestic science classes at school and my main memories connected with smocking are the fronts of my dresses which my mother made for me, which were so heavily worked they felt like body armour.
Now I just have to pluck up courage to cut the tacking threads and then to find time to turn it into a bag.