Honeycomb smocked apron

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Who doesn't need a smocked apron?

I took some inspiration from here, and went in with my usual overconfidence. What's the worst that could happen? Where she references A or B smocking, I decided to try technique B. 

http://www.medievalsilkwork.com/2010/06/smocked-apron-tutorials.html 

I took a piece of linen, about 40 inches wide and I'm not sure how long. Rolled the side seams, then hemmed the bottom.

One side always looks better than the other!

I used silk thread and I just love how it looks. Then, I centred the smocking, 10 lines, and drew the dots 1cm apart.

The dots started to disappear much more quickly than I was prepared for, so that was a drama. I followed Katafalk's tutorial on honeycomb smocking using linen thread (https://katafalk.wordpress.com/2010/02/05/honeycomb-smocking-tutorial/). Overall it will look ok, but I didn't "nail it". The first time I did honeycomb it was around wrists and I had gathered the fabric to my wrist size using thread, and then did the smocking. It had sharper lines due to being gathered already. But here's the current project in progress:

Here's a lumpy "in progress" photo, and then below is where I "set the smock" using steam from the iron - easy to see what part is done and what isn't:

And finished setting...

For the ties, I made 4 inch strips out of the leftover linen that was cut off for length, and then folded everything in attached one piece to the top of the pleating. I used the silk thread which is lovely to work with, although very slippery.

I attached more tie length like so:

And lastly did a running stitch to finish the ties. I marked it so that my stitch length would be nice and even.


And then it's done! Just like that. This took about a week overall in my spare time.

Perfectionism is the thief of joy. I try to let go of perfectionism but it's hard with this one. It just didn't line up as neatly as I wanted in the end. Some stitches were pulled too tight, bunching up the smock. And maybe next time I will space the holes a little further apart to make the effect deeper. It's a bit too wide and a bit too short. I give this a 7 out of 10 on outcome vs. vision. The smocked apron is still a developing skill but I learned lots in trying this one. Overall I'm very happy with it.

YIS
AW

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