Smocking is one of those enduring needle arts that quietly transcends trends. While it’s often associated with heirloom baby dresses and delicate children’s clothing, smocking is far more versatile than its sweet, vintage reputation suggests. At its heart, smocking is a form of embroidery that adds stretch, texture, and beauty to pleated fabric. Whether used for function or flair—or both—this technique has stood the test of time for good reason. Smocking is also often called “shirring;” however, there are differences. Shirring is a sewing machine gathering technique, while smocking is an embroidery technique on pre-pleated fabric.

The technique originated centuries ago as a practical solution for shaping garments. It allows an item of clothing to fit close to the body for a flattering look but also be super comfortable because there’s plenty of give. Before elastic, smocking allowed clothing to stretch and move with the body. Farm workers in England wore “smocks” with stitched panels that gathered fullness across the chest, back, or sleeves. Over time, what began as a functional feature evolved into a decorative art. Smocking, aka shirring,

English smocking is worked over a panel of evenly spaced pleats. Each stitch catches the top third of adjacent pleats, forming a flexible chain across the fabric. The stitches can be simple or elaborate, depending on the design. Pleats are usually created using a hand-crank pleater, which feeds the fabric through a set of rollers and onto threaded needles. These gathering threads form a grid that serves as the guide for embroidery.

A popular method of smocking in the 40’s, 50’s, and 60’s was the “pick up the dots” method. This technique involved transferring dotted patterns onto flat fabric, usually by ironing a transfer on the fabric, then stitching and pulling the threads to form pleats as you worked—a process that felt like cutting-edge technology at the time.

Then, in the early 1980’s a true game-changer arrived in the form of the hand-crank pleater. Smockers would feed a flat piece of on-grain fabric (usually batiste) through the geared rollers, and would carefully turn the handle. Like magic, the gears would fold fabric into crisp, even pleats. The pleats were then pushed onto threaded needles, which held them in place. When the fabric was pulled off the needles, it remained gathered on the threads that were buried partway into the pleats and created something ready for smocking. The thread grid served as a handy guide for stitching charted designs. Today, smocking (or shirring) can be done using your sewing machine.

In the mid-1990s, a new style emerged called “stacking” or “picture smocking.” This technique stacks stitches to form recognizable images—teddy bears, toy trucks, Christmas trees. However, these motifs become distorted when stretched so an additional layer of stabilizing stitches is worked on the back to hold the panel in place. Picture smocking is most often used as a decorative insert, rather than a stretchable garment section.

Classic smocking is rooted in geometric patterns—zigzags, diamonds, hearts—repeated across “the pleated fabric. Traditionally, geometric smocking serves a structural role in clothing—shaping yokes, blouse fronts, sleeve caps, or ruffled dress shoulders. The smocked sections are anchored by flat fabric, which controls the stretch and gives garments a graceful silhouette without losing structure.

Shirrring with your Sewing Machine

Work with lightweight woven fabrics like cotton voile, chambray, or rayon challis. The lighter the fabric, the more it will gather during the shirring process.  As a general rule, a lightweight fabric will shrink to about half its original width after smocking—sometimes slightly more depending on the fabric and stitch spacing.

1. Wind the Bobbin by Hand

• Use elastic thread to wind your bobbin by hand, not with the machine.
• Wind it evenly and with just very slight tension—don’t over-stretch the elastic as you wind.
• Place the bobbin in your machine as usual.

2. Thread the Top as Usual

• Use regular thread in the needle and thread your machine like normal.

3. Mark Your Stitching Lines

• On the right side of the fabric, use a washable fabric marker or chalk to draw evenly spaced horizontal lines. Common spacing is ½” to ¾” apart.
• Mark as many rows as you want shirring. Start with 4–6 lines for a small area like a cuff or waistband.

4. Adjust Stitch Settings

• Set your machine to a longer straight stitch (3.0–4.0 mm).
• Do not backstitch at the beginning or end—just leave long thread tails to tie off.

5. Start Sewing

• Begin sewing on the first marked line. Sew slowly and evenly.
• As you stitch, the fabric will begin to gather. That’s the elastic doing its job!
• Repeat with each marked line, sewing rows parallel to each other.

6. Secure the Threads

• At the beginning and end of each row, tie the thread tails together to keep the elastic from pulling out.
• You can also backstitch, but tying is usually more secure with elastic thread.

7. Steam or Press

• After sewing all rows, use a steam iron to press the smocking.
• Hold the iron above the fabric and blast it with steam—don’t press hard.
• The heat will tighten the gathers and give a polished look.

Smocking or shirring adapts to suit nearly any vision. It can be bold or delicate, sweet or sophisticated. From vintage to contemporary, from baby clothes to bold fashion statements, smocking stretches far beyond its origins and remains a timeless technique that allows fabric—and imagination—to gather, flex, and flourish. And while it requires patience, the end result is a textured work of art that adds charm and craftsmanship to any project.

More Information

• Smocking explanation and examples
• Smocking by Machine
• Machine Smocking Techniques

---

With all due respect to traditional hand sewing techniques, if there’s a faster, easier way to do it by machine—I’m in. So I started wondering: could I replicate needlepoint with my sewing machine? Turns out, I can!”

Full disclosure: I don’t do needlepoint by hand, so if you sense a lack of familiarity with the subject or terminology, that’s why.

You’ll find plenty of simple needlepoint patterns available, or you can create your own. Coloring books offer a great source of easy designs to experiment with or just grab a sheet of graph paper and start sketching!

Machine Needlepoint Basics

Thread

The world is your oyster in terms of thread, but there are several on the market that mimic hand needlepointing wools. These specialties can be acrylic, wool or blends—they are thicker than normal sewing threads and have a fuzzy texture.

Examples of these threads include:

• Sulky’s Filaine (100% acrylic)
• Aurifil’s Lana (50% acrylic/50% wool)
• Madeira’s Burmilana (50% wool/50% acrylic) or BurmalanaCo (50% cotton/50% wool)
• Wonderfil’s Ellana™ (50% wool/50% cotton).

In addition to those fuzzy strands, you can also use this technique with metallic threads, finer pearl cotton, or buttonhole- and topstitching-weight threads for a less fuzzy look to the stitching.

Machine Set-up

• You’ll need a large-eye needle for any of these specialty threads—a 100/16 topstitching needle is a good choice because of its elongated eye.
• As you test stitch, if the fuzzy threads tend to shred, move up a needle size to avoid damaging the thread and the look of your piece.
• Thread a matching standard or bobbin-weight thread in the bobbin, and the specialty thread on the top of the machine. Use a needle threader if you need help to get fuzzy threads through the needle eye.
• Some machines may require slight tension adjustments with the heavier threads, so be sure to test-stitch and adjust as needed.
• Lower the feed dogs on the machine and if you have a darning or open-toe foot, use it for better visibility.
• Keep a tiny lint brush handy as fuzz will build up on the machine’s needle area and in the feed dog area, so frequently cleaning is encouraged.

Canvas

• Choose a canvas for your base. Canvasses are designated by the number of spaces (holes) per inch. For machine work, use a 10- to 14-count mesh, depending on the thread you’re using—a smaller number for heavier threads and a higher number for lighter weight threads.
• Draw your design either directly onto the canvas, or onto a piece of stabilizer that you can secure to the canvas underside so you can see the design through the canvas holes.
• Cut the mesh with enough room around the design for the intended use. If you’re going to frame the piece or sew it into something else, allow extra space for those finishings. It’s also helpful to leave space enough to hang onto as you work.

Getting Started

Note: Test-stitch before you begin your project to get a feel for what you’re doing and the look you want to the finished piece.

This technique is admittedly quite mindless, as all you’re doing is stitching back and forth in adjacent canvas holes.

• Set the machine for a zigzag with a width compatible to the span of the needlepoint canvas holes. The more holes you span, the wider the stitch width. Working with adjacent holes produces a tighter looking design than spanning multiples.
• Stitch the zigzag between the holes to fill the space (5-6 times for heavier threads). Don’t stitch too many times or you’ll create a mound of thread rather than a flat finish. The important part of this test is to count the number of stitches, as you want each set of stitches to be the same.
• If your machine has memory capabilities, save the number of zigs and zags so it will be the same on each set of holes.
• Stitch slowly, as it’s important to stay within the hole openings and not stray to adjacent openings.
• Once you’ve filled a hole pair, move the canvas so that you can stitch again in an adjacent set of holes, moving across the design in a horizontal row pattern.
• Continue filling the hole pairs across the width of one row of the design. At the end of the row, move to the next row and do the same, noting that the needle goes into one of the holes of the previous stitching area each time.
• Be aware of your design, as thread color changes are needed as you stitch the various design areas.

Once you’ve completed the entire design, steam and block the work before framing it or incorporating it into a project.

Voilà—easy peazy!

---

~Linda Griepentrog is the owner of G Wiz Creative Services and she does writing, editing and designing for companies in the sewing, crafting and quilting industries. In addition, she escorts fabric shopping tours to Hong Kong. She lives at the Oregon Coast with her husband Keith, and three dogs, Yohnuh, Abby, and Lizzie. Contact her at .

Sergers can be especially mystifying with their multiple threads, loopers and needles. But we’re here to help with answers to some common serger questions.

My serger has a differential feed, but I don’t really understand what it does. Can you enlighten me?

Understanding a differential feed system is important to get the most out of your serging capabilities.

Fabric is fed under the serger foot by feed dogs—those little teeth under the presser foot. There are two sets of feed dogs that operate independently, depending on the differential feed settings.

For example, some knit fabrics emerge wavy and stretched out after sewing a serged seam—obviously, not an ideal scenario. Adjusting the differential feed ratio can eliminate that distortion, maintaining a flat finished seam. Oppositely, adjusting the other direction can create a ruffled seam, stretching the area as it’s being overlocked.

Depending on the brand, the differential feed adjustment may be accomplished with a dial, a lever or knob and can showcase a number or simply a schematic, or both. At a setting of 1 (or N for normal), both sets of feed dogs move at the same speed. This is usually a good setting for woven fabric seaming as long as they’re not bias-cut edges. But, a 1 setting for knits can be problematic.

Turning to a higher number feeds more fabric into the front feed dogs and this setting can be used for gathering or easing. It can also be used to create a flatter seam in knits that tend to stretch.

Turning to a lower number feeds less fabric into the front feed dogs than the back is putting out, creating stretch. This setting can be used to create ruffled or lettuce edges.

The differential feed settings work in tandem with the stitch length indicator, so test-stitching is imperative to get a flat overcast seam without distortion if that’s the goal.

---

I find threading my serger very intimidating. Is there a proper way to do this?

Sergers can be much more intimidating that a conventional machine because they have multiple threads, multiple needles and the added loopers, all needed to form the stitch patterning.

It’s always best to consult your instruction manual for specific instructions, but as a general rule, thread the machine in this order: upper looper, lower looper, right needle, left needle. Some brands thread the loopers automatically, making it less likely that you need to stand on your head to accomplish the task.

Some brands of sergers also come with threading loops to make threading the upper and lower loopers easier. And, there are likely threading diagrams inside the front opening panel. With the threads shown in different colors, it’s easier to keep the threading paths in order.

If you want to avoid having to rethread the serger when you need to change colors, simply tie the new thread color on to the old color and gently pull it through the threading path. Clip the knots before rethreading the needle(s).

Be sure that all threads are engaged in the machine’s tension discs to ensure proper stitching.

---

What do I do at the end of a serged seam to keep it secure?

The easiest thing to do is to serge off the fabric for a few inches, then thread the serger tail into a needle threader, carry it back under the encased seam edge, then clip off the excess length.

Another option is to apply a seam sealant to the serged seam ends, wait for it to dry, then clip off the excess tails.

Some people prefer to tie an overhand knot with the extended serger tail.

If the seam will be crossed by another seam, there’s little worry about it unraveling, so you may need to do nothing as it will be reinforced with the crossing seam.

*Unless otherwise noted, all images courtesy of Bernina

---

~Linda Griepentrog is the owner of G Wiz Creative Services and she does writing, editing and designing for companies in the sewing, crafting and quilting industries. In addition, she escorts fabric shopping tours to Hong Kong. She lives at the Oregon Coast with her husband Keith, and three dogs, Yohnuh, Abby, and Lizzie. Contact her at .