Beaded smocking

Jewellery, beadwork, embroider, free tutorials and recipes -- and cats!

milkmaid smock light blue linen smock blouse with 3/4 front button placket closure, hand embroidered english smocking on the chest, back and sleeves with custom embroidery on the collar and each side of the smocking panels. hand embroidered buttonholes with antique shell buttons made in the kent countryside

When I first saw smocking and shirring it didn't feel like my cup of tea. Too cutesy, too time-consumer (yes, I know I work with time-consuming techniques like seedbeading and embroidery all the time), too traditional, too often done on boring white cotton to make sugar-sweet toddler clothes with pastel embroidery. I could go on, but I think you get the gist... But since rekindling the love of hand embroidery -- via bead embroidery -- I've spent a lot of time contemplating what it is I want…

In portraits gollars can be found during the first third of the 16th century. Most people think about the round type of gollars that you wear on top of you clothing when they hear the term. But there are another type that is common too, the undergollar, made of linen, I have been writing about it before. Often you might dont even understand that its what you are seeing in a portrait, it might look like her shirt. But to few pleats might be a sign, or in this case, to many...or something like…

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