How to Smock With Pearls

Freshwater pearls

Add interest and elegance to your smocking by working pearls into your stitches. Pearls can be used with many different smocking plates: on a child's dress, a smocked handbag or a Christmas ornament. Create subtle interest with pearls on ivory or pastel fabrics or a more dramatic look with pearls smocked onto black or richly colored fabric. The same techniques can be used to add seed beads or slightly larger glass beads to your smocking.

Things You'll Need

• Milliner's needle
• Embroidery floss
• Fabric
• Pearls
• Smocking plate or design
• Smocking pleater
• Upholstery thread

Instructions

1. Cut and pleat your fabric using a smocking pleater threaded with upholstery thread. Pleat as many rows as are required for your planned smocking design. Pull up the threads to the desired size and knot into place along each side of the pleating.

2. Decide where to place the pearls. Use cable stitches for small, round pearls and wave stitches for elongated freshwater pearls.

3. Thread a milliner's needle with three strands of embroidery floss. Knot the end of your thread and come up through the pleated fabric at the center two pleats on the top row.

4. Smock across the top row from the center out to the edge, first in one direction then the other. Repeat this process for the bottom row.

5. Add pearls to cable or wave stitches. Pass the thread up through the fabric, drop the bead onto the thread, then bring the threaded needle down through the fabric. Avoid pulling the stitch too tight to keep the pearl nestled on the surface of the pleating. Continue smocking, adding pearls as desired until your design is finished.

Tips & Warnings

• Choose pearls that suit the scale of your design. Larger pearls are a good choice for bulkier fabrics and adult garments, while finer ones are best for baby clothing.

• If you do not have access to a smocking pleater, use smocking transfer dots and pleat by hand.

• Check that your needle is fine enough to pass through the hole in the pearl before beginning.

• Use affordable and washable fake pearls if you plan to launder your smocking.

References

• Frunces Y Bordados: Cable Stitch
• Marie Grace Designs: Smocking By Hand