- 1). Get the smocking area of the bonnet professionally pleated. On a bonnet, the smocking area is usually a band that is approximately 2 inches thick and 1 inch from the bonnet's edge. The first step in creating this band is taking the fabric to be pleated. The thin accordion pleating (approximately 1/8 inch deep) necessary for smocking can be tedious and difficult to do by hand, as stated by Colette Wolff in her book "The Art of Manipulating Fabric." For this reason Wolff suggests taking the fabric to a professional "pleater," a company that uses a pleater machine to lay down the stitches and folds. In the end, the pleater's stitch will be two horizontal parallel lines that will pleat only the band area.
- 2). Start smocking by establishing a double "outline" stitch close to each of the two parallel pleating stitch lines on the inside of the band. The outline stitch goes through each pleat and then loops around to adjoin it to the next pleat, securing them together. Once the outline stitch is sewn in one direction, turn the fabric around and stitch in the opposite direction, coming back to where it was started, thus resulting in a double stitch line.
- 3). Measure down about 1/2 inch and hand sew a "cable" stitch parallel to the outline stitches. The cable stitch goes under two pleats and then loops over to join two neighboring pleats. Thus, it creates a soft X pattern, where every two pleats are pinched together. Once this row is finished, follow it with a successive row of the same stitch, but this time pinch together the other two neighboring pleats (the ones that were not sewn together before). These double cable stitches will create the pucker-like smocking effect.
- 4). Continue to duplicate the decorative double cable stitch about 1/4 inch apart from each other. In the 2 inch designated area, which makes up the bonnet's band, there should be enough room for about three rows of double cable stitches. Furthermore, the rows of double cable stitches should be nestled in the middle, about 1/2 inch away from the outline stitches. Once you sew these cable stitches, the smocking decoration is complete.
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