Maggiebsmocks.typepad.com Website Review

cable 1, trellis 2 a blog for today's hand smocking enthusiast. have you wanted to try to smock but don't have access to s smocking pleater?. want to just try the art before you invest in a pleater? .  did you know that the spacing between rows on the 24r pleater is further apart than the spacing on the rows of the 16r pleater? these two pieces of fabric were aligned at the left edge of the pleater as a starting point, shown at the bottom, r1 in this picture. (normally we count rows from the top!) you can see that by the time you reach r9, the spacing is off by almost ½ space. by the time you get to r16, the difference is almost exactly one full space.  does this matter? only when you are picture smocking for the most part. it helps to know whether the plate was designed for a 24r or a 16r pleater. unfortunately most smocking plates do not tell you this detail. adding insult to injury, not all iron on dots have the same spacing.. there is not an exact measurement to the spacing between rows! now that you understand this, let me introduce self-graphing with plastic canvas. the spacing of the canvas over the dots is not exact either left to right or top to bottom. again, the spacing compared to the pleating is if you do not have plastic canvas, print off a dot grid and mark your fabric that way!. mark fabric on the wrong side of the fabric then pick up dots on the wrong side! now that we know there is no exact science to pleating spacing, there are a few basic guidelines to follow when making your own graph. you need to be consistent with dots. pleating on a pleater uses the straight edge of the fabric at two points, the top and side. therefore, you still need to straighten the top edge of the fabric. here are two samples i drew. this graphing takes you back to math clas* for sure! thread a needle with quilting cotton with a large, firm knot at one end. i prefer to have my knots on top so i can manipulate them as i stitch under the dot on either side of the dot by a couple threads of the fabric.