Folk Sewing and Smocking- Hand Sew a Smock Shirt or Dress

1. Introduction: In this class, you will learn how to make your own smock, Shirt or Dress completely by hand. You will learn how to measure yourself, how to cut all the pieces and all the stitches you will need to create this beautiful garment. Hi, my name is Laura. I'm a folk musician and Seams dress and I design and make my own clothes and toys for my little boy. I love making and wearing clothes I've made because it really makes me appreciate clothing and clothing production. Each piece takes hours and hours to make and fits into the ethics of slow living with everything available so quickly now, it can make us become impatient and lazy. And through hand sewing, I've learned to patience and hard work. In this class, you will be shown everything you need to get started. This is not an expensive hobby and you can get all the basics very affordably. You don't need a sewing machine for this class, but if you like using a sewing machine, you could use it on parts of this garment. In this class, I film close-ups of each step and talk you through the process. You can sew along with me. This class is for those of you with some basic experience of sewing or loads of enthusiasm and patience. If you are totally new to sewing, you might like to take my Gathered Skirt Class first or my Palazzo Pants Class to get you started saying that I have broken everything down step-by-step. So if you're completely new to sewing, why not give it a go? By the end of this class, you will be equipped with all the skills to design, measure, cut, and sew your very own smock. You will require some imagination and willingness to give it a go. A growth mindset is definitely required. Once you learn how to make your own smock, you can let your imagination run wild and create your own designs. Okay, I'll see you in the first lesson where I will explain why I Love Smocks so much and the inspiration for this design. I'll see you in the first lesson. 2. Why I Love Smocks!: Why I Love Smocks. I had been looking for a way to connect with my heritage and learning to make historical clothing seemed like a fawn way to connect with my ancestors and a slower pace of living. I Love Smocks and when I first discovered how to make this design, I got completely obsessed, as you can see, and I've made it in so many different styles and colors. This Smock you will learn to make is part inspired by my English heritage and Part inspired by my partners Slovak heritage. The shape is inspired by Eastern European folk costume and white linen shirts they wear, their Lenin shirts are cut in a style called polonium, which is four rectangles of fabric which get gathered together to form a loose shaped Smock. The smocking on the Neckline is inspired by the traditional English Smock, which was a loose over garment worn for work where in the cheat sheet and tips document which you will find in the resources section of this class. I have added some website links and some books if you'd like to learn more about smocking and these beautiful garments. I Love Smocks because they are loose and comfortable yet so stylish and puffy. I also love the underarm GSA. I don't understand why he's ever got removed from clothing. Make your Smock really easy to move in and you don't get that horrible, pinched feeling under your armpits where all your clothes are squashed in under your armpits. Once you learn how to make a small can learn the technique of smocking. You can go completely wild with it. So in the next class, I'm going to show you my collection of Smocks. And it will inspire you for the Smock you will make. See you in the next lesson. 3. My Smock Collection: Hello and welcome to this lesson where I am going to show you my beautiful Smock Collection. Enjoy. I hope that seeing my Collection will inspire you and it comes to making your Smock. This orange two-piece, the trousers made using my Palazzo Pants Class and have plates at the front. The shirt. And the trials are made from a 210 GSM pure linen fabric. Smoking is using Van **** stitch and you can see the gussets there in the armpits at a very Gathered Sleeves. This pink dress Smock. I've added a tiered Skirt at the bottom, which is when you get a much wider piece of fabric gathering to get a super Gathered Skirt. The Neckline has three rows of wave and trellis smocking. And you can see the gussets in the armpits there. I also made a tight belt. This piece to Gathered the Smock in at the waistline. This red to piece. Again, the trousers have been made using my Palazzo Pants Class. The Shirt has just one row of smocking. The Sleeves haven't been gathered in, they've been left open with the gussets in the armpit. Again, it's from a very heavy red. 210 GSM. This blue on might be my favorite. Looked how puffy sleeves are. Again, the trousers using the Palazzo Pants Class. The Shirt features embroidered Sleeves that have been inspired by Victorian work where the symbols indicated your job. These symbols have been inspired by a milkmaid symbols. Using blue on blue embroidery. The neck coin isn't smoked, It's just heavily Gathered. It's just creates a notebook. And then this white smoke, which is the one we're going to make in the class. I've made it from a very light, almost sheer white fabric, white linen fabric. It's got three rows of wave and trellis smocking on the Neckline, gussets in the armpit, and nice wide, heavily Gathered Sleeves. In this class, I'm actually going to show you this mini one I made for my two-year-old son. Following the exact same design. He moves a lot, so it's hard to capture him wearing it. Got a lovely feature here, the Button, one feature which you can put on the back or the front. And here is me and my son in our matching rainbow Palazzo trousers and Smock Shirt. Hope this little video has inspired you for the smock you're make. This is the white smock that we are going to sew along together in this class. Right? Now you know everything that's possible. I'll see you in the next lesson where we'll give an overview of this class and find out exactly what You Will Need. See you in the next lesson. 4. What You Will Need: Welcome back. In this lesson, we are going to run over everything you need to complete this class and how to navigate it. The first and most important thing you're going to need is patience, because this is a new skill and it's fiddly. So be patient with yourself as you run through the class. Unless you already have a sewing kit, there will be a few things you need to buy. In the about section of this class, I've provided a list of everything you need to buy. If you'd like to understand that in more detail, you can go to lessons of my Hand Sew a Gathered Skirt Class. I recommend heading over there now and watching that so you can find out a bit more about everything you need. And the only thing extra You Will Need that's not included in that video is a teeny tiny button to fasten the front or the back of your Smock. In this class, you will also find in the resources section a measurements and calculations document and a cheat sheet and tips document. I recommend downloading those now and you can use them as you follow along the class. Just a little note, if you can't see the resources section and you're using the Skillshare app, you will need to go on your browser, either on your desktop, on your phone. And there you will be able to access all the resources in the measurements and calculations document. You will also see the exact measurements and calculations for all the Smocks I showed you in my Smock Collection. It will also show you the composition, weight, and width of the fabric I used to make each of the garments. In this class, you will need a woven linen or cotton fabric or linen cotton blend. I've even used a linen viscose blend in the past, depending on the style you're going for, you can get a lighter fabric or a heavier fabric. If you'd like to find out more about choosing a fabric, you can head to less than five in my Hand, Sew a Gathered Skirt class where I go over the five things you need to think about when choosing a Fabric. Also, if you're interested to know the fabric I've used for my projects, they are all listed in the measurements and calculations document. For example, this pink linen dress is made from a linen cotton blend. And the fabric is 120 GSM, which stands for grams per square meter. So it's quite a light fabric in comparison to this orange to piece which is made from 210 GSM. And it's 100% linen, which I find creases a bit easier in this class you will get to see me make every single step of this Smock. You learn by sitting with me and going through each step, which makes it an experiential class. If at any moment you get confused, especially when it comes to numbers, please refer to the measurements and calculations document where everything is spelled out step-by-step. Recommend watching this whole class through and understanding the process of how to make a Smock and then get all your fabric together and get started and sew along with me. And while you sew along, make sure that you've got the cheat sheet and tips document and the measurements and calculations document handy as that will really help you. I'm a self-taught seamstress and everything I've learned is from YouTube, books for museums and from my own imagination. And for this reason, I really love hearing your feedback and ideas. And there is a Discussions tab where you can ask me any questions or leave any comments about the way I am making this Smock. One of my favorite things about Skillshare is the community aspect. So that's why I loved the Discussions tab where we can discuss different bits of this class. One of the abstract skills we learn, we start to Sew is our imagining and visualizing faculties. And this is something that will develop as you start to sew your own clothes. Next, we're going to get into the lesson where we measure ourselves and understand a bit more about the construction of the smock. See you in the next lesson. 5. Understanding Construction and Measuring Yourself: Welcome back. In this lesson we're going to learn the basics of Smock Construction and how to measure ourselves so we can work out all the pieces that we need to cut from our fabric. This style of Smock we're going to make is made out of four main pieces of fabric. The front, the back, the right sleeve, and the left sleeve, as well as this, we also have the gussets and small strips of fabric for Neckline and Sleeves. Throughout this project, we will always be using a 1 cm seam allowance. First of all, let's explain the Construction. He is my first ever drafts Smock. You might like to make a draft if you are new to this, you do is you use a Muslim fabric or an old bedsheets to test out all your measurements so that you know you've got it right before you cut into your precious linen. In this Panamanian style Smock, the wide Smock gathers in it the Neckline to create a loose but stylish smock, and then the Sleeves gather into. Now let's get into how to measure ourselves. A reminder, if you want more help with this, do go to the Resources section and download the measurements and calculations document, which will really help you with this bit. Firstly, the width you can measure around your widest part, which is usually your bust if you are making a top, but if you are making a long-term or Dress, this could be your hips. Once you have this widest measurement, you will need to add at least 5 cm. And that's what makes the Shirt have a bit of space to breathe. You'll also need to add a four centimeter seam allowance because we have 12 here and then 34 here. For example, around my bust is 92 cm. And I would like a loose fitting shirt like this. So I will add 10 cm and then I will add my 4 cm seam allowance. That total comes to 106. And the last step is then dividing that number by two so that you get your front piece and your back piece. So each, my front piece will be 53 cm wide and my back piece will be 53 cm wide. An extra note, if you're going to make a dress, you want to have plenty more width so that you have space for your legs to open as you walk. You might even like to do a bit walking and measure around the width of your legs because when I made my first long Smock, I didn't think about this and then I ended up having to walk like a penguin when I wore it. Have a look at the calculations from my pink Smock, which we'll see is really wide. So I've got lots of movement for dancing and walking in. Then the length of your smock measure from your collar down to how long you want your Smock to be, and then add 2 cm for seam allowance. For example, if I was to make a Smock like this, so the hem just can be tucked into my trousers. I would take this measurement of 52 cm and then add 2 cm, so 54 cm in total. Or if I wanted to make a dress, then I need to measure how long I would like my dress to be, for example, reaching right to my ankles like this, like my pink dress. Then onto the Sleeves. Firstly, we need to measure the length of the Sleeves. We measure from our Neckline at the top of our shoulder where the color of our Shirt will be too, where you want your sleeve to end. And then we add 2 cm. You might like to get someone to help you with this as it can be a bit fiddly. For example, my measurement from neck to wrist is 64 cm, so I will add 2 cm for seam allowance. So 66 cm in total. Then the width of our Sleeves. It's a weird mathematical feature that the width of our smock here at the front, if you fold that in to, that is actually exactly the same width as the shirt sleeves. This normally works as quite a good guide for how wide you like your Sleeves. But another way you can do it is just measure the widest part of your arm and then add a large number. In this case, I've added 24 cm so that I have lots of puffiness and an extra 2 cm for the seam allowance. I recommend gussets to be 9 cm by 9 cm. You might like to do them a little bit smaller if you're making a garment for child, for example. So for Bobby Smock, he's two. I used a seven centimeter Gosset. Then onto the Neckline. You can measure an imaginary Neckline or use an existing top for this Neckline on measuring 58 cm. And then I need to add 2 cm for seam allowance. So it will be 60 cm and the strip will be 3 cm wide. Then the risk cuffs, as with the Neckline, you can imagine your ideal sleeve width or use an existing garment for this Smock, I would like the risk to gather in 220, 4 cm. So I need to add 2 cm for seam allowance. So 26 cm. As with the Neckline in this design, the cuffs are just 3 cm wide. That 3 cm allows you to fold around like this and make these very small and neat cuffs. Next we're going to measure neck to armpit. This will determine the first seam that we saw, which is this one here that goes from neck and down. You will particularly need this measurement in the attach Sleeves part of this class. When you take this measurement or you need to do is go from your color down to where you would like your armpit to sit. Right. So that's all the measurements we've need. Let's picture what we have done. By the end of this, we will have all the measurements to cut all of these pieces. Head to the measurements and calculations document to see the measurements for each Smock style and my measurements, if you just so happened to be the same size as me, which is a ten to 12 in the UK, you could just go to the measurements and calculations document and use the exact measurements that I have used to cut your pieces for your Smock. Now, if you don't already have your fabric, it's time to go to Lesson five of Hand Sew a Gathered Skirt. We get some more idea about the fabric you will choose for your project. And if you've already got your fabric, then head to the next lesson where we will start to cut off fabric. See you in the next lesson. 6. Cutting Fabric: In this lesson, you will be cutting your fabric if you'd like a more detailed lesson on how to prepare and cut fabric, I recommend heading to Lesson six in the Gathered Skirt Class, which will give a more detailed method of how I like to prepare and cut my fabric. But for now in this lesson we will just be cutting. In this lesson, you will need the measurements you made in the last lesson handy. And if you haven't already make sure you've downloaded the measurements and calculations guide and that you have that with you. Okay, so here is my white fabric. All I'm doing is using my tape measure to mark out the link so I need, and then I will be using the method of pulling a thread or drawing a thread, which you will find more about and more in more detail in lesson six of the Gathered Skirt Class. But basically involves pulling out a little thread and using that to create a line and your fabric so you get perfect straight lines. So here I am with my needle carefully pulling out the thread along the full length that I need to cut. And using it to pull, pull, pull along the fabric and it creates a little small line that you can see. You need to do this in very good light. So either you need an open window with natural sunlight or make sure you've got a good overhead lamp so that you can really see your fabric close up. I recommend that in general, in this project actually when you're doing really fine hand sewing, good light is crucial. So there I can see that line. And I follow that along with my trusty Fabric scissors. Then we will have, our four main pieces will have alright sleeve or left sleeve or front and back of the Smock. I recommend marking this on your pieces now because it can get very confusing later. You will also see that I'm drawing an arrow on each of the pieces. You will definitely need to do this as it will help you line the pieces up. If you'd like more instructions on what these arrows mean, head to the measurements and calculations document. So here we have our four main pieces plus or too little under arm gussets. Okay, I'll see you in the next lesson where we will be attaching the Sleeves to the front and the back 7. Attach Sleeves: In this lesson, we will start to construct our garment by attaching the right sleeve and the left Sleeves to the front and the back of the Smock. The first thing we will need to do is mark on our neck to armpit measurement. For Bobby's Smock, that measurement was 17 cm. Head to your measurements and calculations and get your measurement. You will notice here that the pieces are facing so that the arrow is pointing downwards. So you will see there that's the back piece. Now the arrow is pointing downwards. And I marking from the top of the piece down 17 cm on both the front and the back of the smock. On both sides. Once you've completed that on both sides, you're now ready to start attaching your pieces. Here I've got the left sleeve and the front of the shirt. And you can see my 17 cm, that'll mark, I've drawn there. What we'll do is pinch those two pieces together. This might be a point where you would use some pins. If you like to use pins to attach your piece. Also, if you're a machine Sewing Machine user, you could be just running along this, this part on the sewing machine. But I will be using running stitch. In one of my other Skillshare classes, Somebody commented about running stitch and they said it's not a very strong stitch that I should be using backstitch, but I use running stitch in all my garments and in all the toys I make. And I did see a Bernadette banner video where she explained that in historical garments they did often use running stitch. I find running stitch just absolutely perfect for fixing my garments together. Like I said, you might like to use a sewing machine. Or if you really like backstitch, you could use backstitch to attach these two pieces. But for me, I use running stitch and I find my garments last perfectly well. And wearing a dress right now that has been through the washing machine many or many a time. And it was constructed using running stitch, so I have no worries. So here we go is my lovely neat running stitch. Running along. I do tiny little stitches about a millimeter each. I go all the way to that 17 centimeter mark. And then I will be doing a fastening not to fix that night one nice. Not actually. Why the heck not? Why not do 2 kt for any of those people out there who say running stitch isn't strong enough. That's why I like to do 2 kt to be extra secure. So there we go, my 2 kt on my running stitch. There we go. The left sleeve and the front of the Garment are attached. So now we need to work around. So now we get all right sleeve and we are attaching that to the front using exactly the same methods. So we line up, we pinch those two pieces together. Again, this might be a moment that you would use pins or you might like to use your sewing machine if you are a machine lover and want to speed up this process, I do everything by hand. So we will be attaching this front piece and this right side piece using running stitch again in exactly the same fashion. So there we go. Now the left sleeve and the front and the right sleeve have all been attached using running stitch. Now, one more piece, we've now got the back piece there. And we are going to attach that to the right sleeve. So using the same method, we've got that mark with this 17 cm and that's where we're going up to. So we'll do that again. Here we go. We have left sleeve, then the front, then the right sleeve, and then the back. And then you'll never guess what, you attempt attach the back to the left Sleeves so it forms almost like a circle. Here I'm pulling up, there's the left sleeve. And then I bring the back piece around and I will attach those to using my same $0.07, 17 centimeter marking. And using running stitch, again, fascinate with one or 2 kt, either end. There we have it, the to Sleeves attached to the front and the back of the garment. It starts to already look like a Smock. There. You can see it from both sides. I'll see you in the next lesson where we will be attaching the gussets and sewing the Sleeves together. See you in the next lesson. 8. Gussets and Sleeves: Welcome back. In this lesson, we will be sewing the Sleeves together and attaching the gussets. The garment is taking its shape. We have here the left sleeve and the front of the smock. And that's where we're going to. So in our first Gosset, we take our small square Gosset piece and we place it in this space. And what we need to do first of all, is we need to fold a 1 cm seam. If you're new, you might like to actually measure out 1 cm because I always work with 1 cm Seams. I have 1 cm memorized and just be able to see 1 cm when I see it that you can use a little tape measure and measure 1 cm from the end. And then you want to attach this gas that you see, I've left that 1 cm gap there on the right. And then the Gosset is right into that 17 centimeter gap. I'm doing not there. So you'll see we've got those 7 cm coming down and then straight away from there, the goseq connect, so there's no gap. It ends up looking like one scene heading all the way from the neck down the Gossett and then down the sleeve. So you'll see it there, that 1 cm gap. And then same at the other end, we leave 1 cm gap. So again, if I think my thumb might exactly be 1 cm and width thermodynamic. Anyway, let's leave a 1 cm gap at that end as well. So fastening off with a not in cutting it. There we've got one side of the Gossett attached. We now attach the next side. So we've got the front seam. We did that first side which was attaching to the left sleeve and now we attaching it to the front part of the Smock. Just showing you again where we are. So that was the left sleeve, this is the front of the smock. And the same thing will happen here. Because we've wedged about Gosset right in there. That's seam now can continue on down into the Gossett. I'm going to leave that 1 cm gap from this side of the Gossett and doing a 1 cm seen with doing my nice secure fastening not I don't know why gussets ever went out fashion because they really are a brilliant having a bit of a gap from your armpit rather than having your clothes right wedged up in your armpit doesn't feel very nice. I'm doing running stitch along here. My favorite stitch for constructing garments. And always doing these tiny little 1 mm stitches. And then I'll come back here and I'll meet that 17 centimeter neck armpit seam. And it will just all match up their seamlessly corner to corner. Getting right in that corner and then doing a fastening. Not again, you might want to do too. I've just done one here. And this shirt has lost it pretty well. So we're okay. Now we're carrying on with our Gosset twin. You need to attach it to the back. We've got it attached to the front and the left sleeve. What we're going to do first actually is we're going to attached exact mirror image. Attach this right Gossett, the front to the right Sleeves, doing the same methods. So we fold that 1 cm and we tuck it right up to where that seam ended. We get that really neat all matching up. At this point, you might like to use pins. As you know, I'm not a fan of pins, but that's something you might like to do. So here we go, both sides done a mirror image with these two sides of the gussets sewn on each one. Now, we need to attach it to the back. So what I'm doing here I'm actually going to, so this Sleeves shot first and then go back and complete the other sides of the Gossett. What I want to do is once the sleeve is sewn up, then it's much easier to slot in the other side of the Gossett. As with all of this garment, I'm using a 1 cm seam allowance. I'm going right to the end of the sleeve. And I'm going to tie a fastening not there. Then I will do running stitch all the way up the sleeve Back to meet the Gossett. So there you go. Lots of tiny, tiny little stitches coming all the way back and you'll see I've I've folded the Gossett there so that I can get in to that point so that it ends up looking like all one scene. But it's specific illusionary and because we've done it in lots of tiny little Seams. But in the end, it will be all one seam going away from the neck down this theme, and then all the way down from the neck down the body. So getting right to that point there and doing one or 2 kt. Let's have a look at what that looks like now. Unfolding what we've done. So now we've got the left sleeve is there is all sewn together. And we've got two sides of the Gosset. It's now we can carry on to the back. First of all, we're just doing exactly the same. In reality, I normally do one side and then complete the next side. But to stop confusion here, I'm doing the mirror image of each thing. So first of all, we did that sleeve and then the right sleeve. Now attaching the front and the back together. And meeting back at the gussets, you see that seam goes all the way along with my tiny, tiny little running stitches. And then a bit like before we fold that Gossett, we get the angle so that we meet where the Gosset is. So it's like a illusion of one scene going all the way that we go. So now we've sewn two sides of the Gossett sleeve and the front and the bank. And all that's left is the other two sides of the Gossett. It should start to look a bit like this. Now, when I first had a go and making gussets, it somehow went completely wonky and did not look like this at all. So be patient with yourself and just give it a few go's and just re-watch this video to see how to do it step-by-step, step, and slot it altogether. So now I'm off doing that front and back seam. I've gone right into the gussets and now I can just carry on along the next side of the Gossett. Always leaving that 1 cm gap, 1 cm seam along every edge. And if it's all been measured correctly and all lines up, then all four sides of the gussets should have that lovely 1 cm allowance and meet nicely in the corners. So there we go. That's the third side. And then when we come back to this corner again, just folding the Gossett in half so we get that corner point. And then we want to get all the way right up to where the Gossett meets the scene. Sometimes when I turn at a point like this, we'll do another not just to make it secure. We've done three sides of the Gossett now. Coming back into the fourth side. Then we do running stitch all the way along there. And there we go, 1234 sides of the Gossett. You'll see that last corner there where the Gossett meets the scene. From here, I will do a little knot to secure that one or 2 kt. There we go. That is the front and the left sleeve complete. It will look like this. Left sleeve. Then you've got to, when you flip it up, you should have this square, diamond, round and round, all four sides. That side is all done. Then let's have a look at the other side. We're going to do exactly the same on the other side. So rewind the video and follow those steps for the other side. Now I like to do is I like to check that I've got those corners meeting up really tight because this is where there will be some strain on the garment. When you're first time doing this, you might not get right right in the corner. So then what I sometimes do, what I'm doing now is I'm reversing the garment the other way. I'm just adding a few little reinforcement stitches. First one was a naught and then just doing a few more to close up that gap where I may have left the corner, not exactly sewn right in tight to the corner. So you can see where there's this. We're talking about millimeters here. I've missed it by a millimeter. But to make your garment really precise, you can go back in and just double-check that. I'm happy with that now. And then you'll see then hide the high the thread is. We do so push it through and then cut it off that will hide that thread once we get to felling. Let's just have a look now. Oh, yes, looking very, very neat. Right up to the edge. Spotted a little stray thread. Let's get rid of that, but that is all looking good. All that one. Can you see you again? Tiny, tiny little 1 mm could correct that. But generally this is looking good and I've done both sides. So that is the gussets attached and the Sleeves all together. Well done for getting this far. I will see you in the next lesson where we will start cutting in preparation of felling or garment 9. Cut to Fell: Welcome back. In this lesson, we will be slowly and methodically cutting our Seams in preparation for doing felled Seams. Let's get stuck in. You will see here that we have the garment with the front-facing us and then that's the left sleeve there. And what we're going to do is we're going to separate the two Seams here. So we've got to 1 cm Seams. And then the top one, you'll see, I'm just cutting nought 0.5 cm, 5 mm off. If you're new to this, you might like to actually measure out that looks like but you're basically cutting the scene in half. We're going to do this in a very specific pattern so that when it comes to filling, it all fits together beautifully. So if you watch this video slowly through and follow along with me. So whether you are sewing along with this, or maybe you're going to watch the whole video, whole Lesson, whole-class through, and then go back and do it. But this will give you an idea of what we're doing. If you have your own methods for how you like to finish Seams, you could even do that, but this is my favorite way to finish themes as a felled seam. If you're unsure of what felling actually is, in the next lesson, we will be showing that step-by-step. So if you're a bit confused about why we're cutting off pieces like this. Then you can go and watch the next video and you'll see what felling looks like. I'm showing you how I've methodically done it. So I've gone all the way along the front, from the bottom, along the Gossett and up, take a nought 0.5 cm off the front. And now I do exactly the same on the back. So I flipped the back. But this time we're going to do this sleeve rather than the side. So there's the left sleeve, There's the back. I'm going to cut nought 0.5 off all the way along the length of the sleeve, along the Gossett and then up towards the neck. You will see as you get to the gas that you have to cut a little notch like this, and then that one comes off. Then we do the Gosset. Next. I've done along the bottom of the left sleeve. Now I'm cutting nought 0.5 cm off the Gossett, straight along there. And then we go up from the sleeve up to the neck. So again, cutting a little notch into it exactly at that corner point so that it meets up there. And then going all the way along here, nought 0.5 cm. You've gotta be careful with this. They don't cut both sides. You might like to use smaller scissors. Or what I'm doing with that left-hand is I'm holding that other seam out the way, so I didn't cut both of them at the same time. So there we go. That one is cut so the 1 cm exist at the back and the naught 0.5 at the top, ready to fold over. And then the last thing we need to do is the last two sides of the gussets. So we've done the left and the right there you can see now I'm gonna do the top and the bottom. So because what you want is all of the Gossett felled Seams will fold inwards. You will see more clearly what I mean in the next lesson. Carefully only taking that top layer and leaving the back at one centimeters. So let's recap on what we've done. From the font there. We've taken nought 0.5 off that front, 1.5 of the Gossett nought, 0.5 up to the neck. And then we flipped it over. And from the front one we've taken nought 0.5 off the Gossett of the sleeve there. And then we opened up the Gossett and we did the last two and took nought 0.5 off the two that were opposite each other. So just seeing it more close up there, there's that nought 0.5. You can check this. And then we do exactly the same opposite a mirror, mirror image. So you'll see there, there nought 0.5 is off the top. And then at the back. What I recommend doing is carefully methodically watching this video through as you prepare to Fell, you're Seams. And you might like to watch the next lesson first where you see what felling looks like and then you might more clearly understand why we're doing this. This is what it will look like at the end so that you'll be ready to Fell. You're Seams. Having one last look at what we've done. Okay, I'll see you in the next lesson where we will be starting to Fell off Seams 10. Felled Seams Part 1: Welcome back. In this lesson, we are going to Fell are Seams. The felled Seams portion is split into two sections. So in this first one, we're going to Fell one side of the garment. And in this second video we're going to Fell the other side. Let's go. You'll see here, I've got my garment already from how we prepared it in the last lesson, where we cut off all the pieces that we need. So the first thing we're going to just double-check those notches. Look, okay, because we're going to start with the Gossett. So notice which way round the garment is. We're going to start with two sides of the Gossett first. So just watching this and close out how we do this, going in. As always, doing a nice secure fastening not and working our way along with a Fell stitch. So this is the first time we've done Fell stitch in this class. So I'm doing a nice close-up here. What you do is you scoop a couple of threads, go along a bit and pull through. Scoop a couple of thirds, go along a bit and pull through. And the more you do this flat Fell stitch, the neater it will get. And the more even. So, I've been doing this stitch for a long time. I think it's two years now. Not that long is it? I guess some people have been sewing their whole lives. But in just two years I've managed to get this stitch absolutely immaculate, so it looks very neat and even I'm sewing along the whole length of that gas it and then doing a fastening, not one or two as you wish. So that's one side done. Check. And then twisting the garment around against, you can see what we've just done. So there's the front, there's the left sleeve. And I have sewn that side there. That was the first one I've done. And now I'm going to do this one here opposite the other one. We did. So doing the same method, checking Oh look my notch, I didn't line it up exactly with the gussets, so I'm going to take a tiny bit more off. There you go. It should be right on the corner there. Before you do this, but you might like to cut off all your loose threads. You'll see here I'm a little bit of loose thread chaos water, all these threads hanging around. Okay, So exactly the same method we just did. In the opposite, a nice fastening, not. Then we're going to practice that flat Fell stitch all the way along to get a nice neat finish on this garments. There we go. I've gone all the way along and I'm going to do a nice not at the end. Okay, so now we've done those two opposite each other. So let's just get a picture again of what we've done to holding the garment like this. We have done these two and now we are going to go, we flip the garment upside down. Now we're going to go from the neck all the way down to the bottom of the garment. Starting off with a nice fastening, not as we always do. So if you've not done flat felled Seams before, you might be watching thinking, Oh my gosh, this is so fiddly, but it is really worth it because at the end, your comment has such a nice finished, you could actually weigh your garment inside-out. And interestingly, when you went a smoked garment inside-out, you get the lovely effect on the Neckline. So here we go. Let's see that Fell stitch. I did one not underneath and one not on top. On 2 kt here. We're going to travel all the way along. So I turn and hold my comment like this. Another thing to mention with this Fell stitch, it might take awhile to get away of holding your garment in a way that feels comfortable. But just gently persist with it and you'll find a way that is easy for you. Also, I find if I'm doing a lot of flack felling, I can get better cramping my left hand were in pinching the garment together. So maybe don't plan to do all of your flat filling in one session To break it up. That's normally how I so I do a little bit every day, half an hour, an hour every day. Now we're getting to where the gussets starts. You might like to do a couple of notes here because there will be more strain on the Garmin here again, but always at the scenes at the edges there's more strain. So we're going to now travel along the gussets. So we've done from the neck to the Gossett. Now we're going along the Gossett with our same flat Fell stitch. My favorite all stitches. Okay, so I've run out thread here, so I'm going to show you what it's like if you want to end and start again. So what you want to do is do not. I'm actually going to do 2 kt one, not two nuts. There we go. And then you hide the thread by threading it through and underneath. So it will be under the felled seam. That is what that looks like. And then to get the next one and you look at where the next stitch would be. So I've been leaving. I don't know each one of my stitches about nought, 0.5, 0.7 mm. So then we go into the next stitch and then we do and not here. And then it's your choice if you want to do another not there as well. I've just done one it looks like. And then we're coming around this corner bit again, which as I said before, you might like to add some notes here just because we're gonna get more strain on these corner corners of the garment. I'm just talking all the loose threads out of the way. You may like to take a moment to trim off any loose threads. Before this stage. I normally save all the trimming for the end. But it could be a bit of a neater working process if you trimmed off any loose edges here so you don't get confused. So now we've done from Neckline to gas it. We've gone along the Gossett and now we're going from Gosset down the side of the garment. Here I am doing a not there where we switch from Gosset to side just to make sure that's already secure. Carrying on the method of folding that top piece around and working down. And then we will get to the end. Finishing off as we always do with a nice not there. Let's do two one-to-one do. There's no right or wrong with all of this. I learned all these methods from studying garments, from studying books, and from studying YouTube videos. I'm self-taught artist. So if you see something, a thing actually I've got a better way of doing that, then please do it your way because rule just making it up and figuring it out. Now we've felled all the way along there and look how pretty it looks. 0 is my garment inside or outside, nobody knows. Now. We've done the two sides of the Gossett. Then we've gone all the way along here. Now we're going to flip it and we're going to do the left sleeve from the neck onto the Gossett and then the left Sleeves. So there's the back. And I'm going to carry on exactly the same fashion. So flip this around. Just showing you again there's the back and this where we start. So watch my knot method again. So I do one naught underneath, and then I flip it around and do the other not on top. There we go. There's the second not going through the loop and pull. Now we're going to travel down from neck to Gosset. We've done it. Again, getting to this corner, the goseq, just maybe we'd like to secure it with one or 2 kt here. As this part of the garment will get more strain. Now on to the Gossett. I'm doing another note here. So I've done one not one side, one not the other side. Like I said, I don't have a specific rule with this. You can try what you like. I found that these garments actually wash pretty well. The thing they don't like is the tumble dryer. So you are okay putting them in the washing machine. But it's the tumble dry that really, really throws them about and I'm puts a lot of strain on a garment. So if you want to keep this Garment lasting, as long as it can, I recommend not to tumble dry this comment. Okay, now we're getting to the last bit, which is the sleeve. So I'm doing, I'm gonna do another not here. We get to the sleeve. There we go. Nearly finished this side. So we're just going to tuck this and go all the way along the left sleeve in our same Fell stitch. So we scoop a few, we go along a bit and pull, scoop a few, pull along a bit and pull. There we go. And look how pretty this next now, there's the Gossett, There's the front as the back. And now it's time to start on the next side. Let's see you in the next lesson where we will sew the other side 11. Felled Seams Part 2: Welcome back. In this lesson, we will be flat felling the other side. So it will be an exact mirror image of the right sleeve. But let's just work through it a little bit so you can see how it's different when we reflect it the other side. So just having a look at what we've done, that is the first leave we've done. And then now we're going to do this other side. So we always start with the gussets. We're going to first of all to one and then the one opposite. So it's just have a look where that is. It's this one. We're going to fold it under and do Flatfile seam here. Always hiding the tail of our thread when we attach Nazi, you see there I've hidden it under that seam which will be flat felled, so that will disappear later. So starting with R naught and then we work along and flat Fell the first side of the Gosset, finishing with a nice fastening, not 1.2. Then we are going to do the one opposite. Why did I do 3 kt? They're feeling of it really going for it. So there's two opposite each other. So once we've done the two opposite, then it's very obvious how we travel along because of the way we've prepared it by cutting. So we're gonna go along from the bottom. There we go. Look. Can you see all the way to the Neckline? That's that part done. So we've done the two gussets and then all along the front, and then we flip the garment all around. Once we've done that nice front. And then we work. You see here with arrows facing that I'm at the bottom of this leave. So we worked from the bottom of the sleeve and we travel all the way up. If you are confused, you might like to go back and watch the first flat Fell Lesson again and follow it through. I'd also like to say that if you're just watching this and you're not actually doing it, it might seem a little confusing because you might think, how am I going to work out which one goes where? Once you start doing it by following along, it will be very simple and easy. You just need to follow with me. So here I am going from the bottom of the sleeve and then we're going to work all the way up. And in the end it will look like this. So there's the first slide we did. All beautiful and flat felled. And then here's the other side. Lovely, lovely, lovely. Looking, absolutely gorgeous. I will see you in the next lesson where we will be working on the neck Slit opening. See you in the next lesson? 12. Neck Slit: Welcome back. In this lesson, we'll be cutting and sewing or opening at the Neckline, vast Smock. Let's go. Okay. So here is my Smock laying out and that's the back there. I'm going to do my opening on the back. You can choose whether you like to do it on the back or the front. So first one, I'm getting exact center here, the exact back center by folding it in half meetings seem to seam. That line. I've done down there is I measured how long I would like my neck Slit to be. So now we know where it's going to open from and then how long it's going to be. In some of my comments, I've done a really long one. And then I wear a little vest underneath. Or you might like to do a very small little neck Slit. Well, you might even like to not have one at all. If you're Neckline is big enough to slip over your head. But I do think this adds a really nice pretty feature. So now we're doing similar to flat felling, but it's a kind of rolled opening. I rolled. It's probably only two or 3 mm each one. The way this is different. So first one just doing a nice fastening not there. The way this is different is to flat failing is rather than going right at the edge. You'll see in a second. I so this might be a point. We'd like to use pins, but I just really like to pinch it. I scoop under and instead of scooping up at the edge, I go in a bit further to the middle of it. Let's see that again, some scooping. And instead of going right at the edge, I'm going into the middle of that rolled opening. So it's really secure. That's watch that again, really close up here. Scooping in these look nice. I'm using my little finger to hold it in place and then going for the middle of that. And working alone. Just like with our normal flat Fell stitch, it will take awhile for this to get neat, to get even. Just be patient with yourself. What I start doing as I get closer and closer to the bottom of the Slit, I graduated in. So it's going from here, which is about two to 3 mm wide, the opening, and then it goes down to nothing. Which just the open Slit. You see that slow fading. We just carry it on a long, this is just a tiny little role at the end. I've let my fingers and I've just the tiny, tiny little roll I can millimeter now as it graduate's down. Then what we're going to do is once it gets really skinny, we're going to switch to buttonhole stitch. So we go under, pull through to get a loop. When we get the loop we pull away. And that makes our first buttonhole stitch when we carry on along in the same fashion and what you want to do, you want to do the stitches so close to each other, they're nearly touching or they might be one thread away. So you go down, you pull through the loop. So you can go either way. You can go down and pull through the loop, will come up through it and pull through that right down. I'm about 2 mm from the edge. And each stitch there right next to each other. Because we're working white on white. It can be a little bit harder to see. For a more statement. Finished, you might like to use a different color. Now you'll see we're getting to Where the Slit ends. And what we're going to do is we're going to work around in a U-shape. Like so. Doing the buttonhole stitch to reinforce this would be a very weak part of the garment. The buttonhole stitches go all the way around in a U-shape. So watch me, I'm going in. You might even like to draw a little you with your iron off pen that you follow and work around. All the stitches are right next to each other because I really want this to be very secure. Can you see where we're at? Teeny tiny stitches all next to each other. We're working around. It's about too many to 2 mm from the edge. And watch how I pull away from it. And that's what forms the nice not. So now we've done that curved U-shape around. Now we head back up. The other side of the neck Slit. With all of these techniques is just trial and error. You've got to give it a go on your particular fabric. If you haven't even lighter fabric, you might want to do your button hole stitches even longer than 2 mm might want to do them, for example, 3 mm. So just give it a try. You might like to even practice on a little piece of fabric, cut a slit in it and have a go doing that U-shape on the button hole. So you you get used to what that feels like and what it looks like. We're doing the same now in reverse. So we've rolled Slit and it's going to slowly go from a tiny, tiny 1 mm rolled Slit, which we're doing the button hole stitches around. And it will gradually progress to a two to three millimeter rolled stitch. I'm and we will switch back to the variation of flat Fell stitch. So you'll see, I'm just coming back up and what You Can Do, you can line it up so that this is where my buttonhole stitch ended on that side. And I want to meet up with that so that they're in a mirror image. Going round and round and round. Have a look, see here. Yes, creating a lovely mirror image. When you see sometimes I switch from going down or coming up with the buttonhole stitch, it really doesn't matter. So now it's time to switch back to the variation on flat Fell stitch. There we go. We roll it a bit more. And then we start working our way up in the same fashion. So scooping little bit then coming through to the middle. And I will be traveling all the way back up to the Neckline. Rolling as I go. You can't really use pins on this part because it's so fine. That is why I prefer hand sewing machines sewing, you can just get that really fine detail that you can't get with a machine. It I just can't see how it be possible to get these teeny tiny stitches. I'll get this beautiful Neckline on a machine. So there we go. We work all the way to the top. Look how nice That's looking. Lovely, lovely. Few more stitches to get to the end. And then as always, on ice fastening not to make that nice and secure. This part of the Neckline will be gathered into our smoked Neckline. So we'd have to worry about this loose bit thread. We're going to leave when we cut it. There we go. Look how beautiful that looks. I will see you in the next lesson where we will be starting to mark our garment in preparation for smocking. I will see you in the next lesson. 13. Marking to Smock: Welcome back. In this lesson, we are going to draw out our own ruler in preparation to mark our garment. And then we are going to go ahead and mark or garment for smocking. Please download the measurements and calculations document to see the exact measurements for the ruler. And then you will know how to draw your ruler. You, depending on how thick your fabric is, you might do your smocking dots in a different widths. I explain this all thoroughly in the measurements and calculations document. Let's get stuck in okay, so here we are. I've got a piece of scrap cardboard here. And I am first of all going to make a long thin ruler. Head to the measurements and calculations document for an idea of how long your ruler should be and also how wide your ruler should be. The width of your ruler is very, very important. In this project, I actually made this ruler slightly too wide. And it caused me some problems later because if you've got your gathers too wide apart, it can make it a bit tricky, but you can read about that in the measurements and calculations. So for this particular Smock, I'm doing my dots 4 mm apart. So you will see me here doing little marks at 4 mm apart. For my thicker Smocks. For the orange top and the red top, I did nought 0.5 because the fabric was a bit thicker. But for this project is a very light and thin fabric. So I'm doing nought 0.4. You might like to do a smocking test on your fabric and take a small piece of fabric about 10 cm wide and just Smock a little bit of it. So you can practice smocking before you do it on your garment. Or if you're like me, you just go for it. You can always unpick what you've done when you do smocking. So nothing is set in stone when it comes to fabric. So you now, you can see now on my ruler there exactly opposite each other, those marks. So we've done 4 mm all the way along and then opposite. And now I've got my garment and we're going to use that ruler to actually mark on. So we will need or iron off pen. I've got my blue one here. What I'm going to do is holding it right on the edge of the fabric. I am going to draw the little dots on one dot to dot, three dot for dot. This is very relaxing and meditative. It's not something to rush. If you've learned anything so far. This is a slow project. It takes time. Takes me at least six weeks to get one of these finished. Just doing a little bit here and there. It can all be very relaxing if you do it that way. If you're trying to rush, it is not going to be PFK-1. So take a moment to relax your jaw, relax your shoulders, relax your temples, soften your gaze. Make this relaxing and enjoyable because this, this little bit does take a little while because we've got to go all the way around with this nought 0.4 dots. Here I go, traveling around the garment from the Neckline. I am marking on the inside of the garment. So the garment is currently inside out. And we are working inside out for this. Doesn't actually matter which side you draw the dots on. But I'm doing it on the inside of the garment. So you see now I've worked all the way around and then I'll come back to the neck and the other side. So I go dilly, Dilly, dilly, Dilly do all the way around, all the way around, all the way around. And back. There we go. And then we just need to repeat that with our rows. So the width of our ruler will determine how high our rows are. And that's why it's really important we get the width of our ruler right? Like I said, in this project, I made my ruler slightly too wide. And if you go to the measurements and calculations document, you will find out the best size for the width of your ruler. So do go ahead and download that. Now we're on our second row. We're lining up those dots that this is the reason why there's dots on both sides of the ruler because we want them to be matched up. So we match up the dots, not the top. And then we are drawing the dots at the bottom. And we carry on and on and on the same. So now as your creative choice, how many rows do you want? So you can use your ruler now to get an idea of how much smocking you want, do just want a few centimeters with smocking or do you want really big Smock to Neckline? And that will determine how many rows you do hit could also be determined by how much patients you have. Because sometimes I might occur, I've done enough dots now, that is enough Rows. Here I am in this project working around. I am doing three rows and we just need to do exactly the same as we did. There we go. Mine is just under 5 cm. But that remember that the first centimeter will get swallowed up in the edge of the Neckline. There we go, three dots all the way around. Three rows all the way around. That is ready to go. Now, one more mark we need to do. We need to work out the halfway point on the Sleeves. The halfway point on the front and the back of the garment. We already know the halfway point at the bank because that's where the neck Slit is. But we need to mark on these other ones. So that is half of the left sleeve. So I just folded it in half and I've got that point. There we go. And then I'm going to do the front of the garment. Like I said, I've already done the back because the back's got the neck Slit and that indicates where exactly half is. There is the front, the halfway point for the front. We will use this later to make sure our smocking gathering is even because it can be easy for it to go uneven if you don't have some guide marks. And then lastly, the final Sleeves. We want the halfway point for that one. So we'll do the same. Fold in half. Get the halfway point. Let's leave that we go. So that's our Smock all marked up. Head into the next lesson where we will start gathering or Neckline 14. Gathering: Welcome back. Now it's time to start gathering in preparation for smocking. Let's go. Here's my garment laying out. It's still inside out. And I've got the slit at the front there and I'm measuring a long piece of thread, the whole width of the garment so that this thread can go all the way around. Then I'm going to do what's called a big hairy not. We do that by wrapping it and then we use our fingers to twist, twist, twist, twist, twist, twist with. So we get a really, really nice big not because that is what's going to, we're going to use for gathering. Also want to stress that this thread needs to be really strong because it's going to get quite a lot of strain on it as we pull it through, as we gather. Then I've folded, I've thread my needle and got it already to start going in these little dots. I really enjoy this step because you don't have to think about it. You've already done all the marks. And now you just very neatly going through and going into each dot, up, down, up, down. Remembering again, elegance patients. Nice relaxed shoulders, relaxed jaw. Enjoying the process. Going through dot-dot-dot. Pulling through as we go to the not will be right at the end. We just slowly work our way all the way around. Now when you get to the flat felled Seams, then a bit of a bump. But we just treat them exactly the same. When we Smock this bit as well. It will be slightly thicker because of this scene. But I don't think it's a problem. It all adds to the character of the garment. Continuing to travel around, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot. Same again, we've got to another seam. We treat it exactly the same. We go right in the middle of it whether daughters, this process can be very slow and meditative. Just following the line along straight. Now I'm getting to the end. And I'm going to, You see how my thread comes out exactly where my rolled edge ends? I want to replicate that on this side. So what that means, I'm going to slightly cheat it with my dots. I'm going to have to slightly cheated on each line so that the thread comes out exactly the same point on both sides of the garment. All I've done is just literally nudged along very slightly where those gathering stitches are. And I'm going to have to repeat the same. I wanna do the next row. So now I'm gonna do another one on my big hairy nuts. I wrap it around. Pinch my fingers. I want you to lick my finger so it sticks. Twist it, twist it, twist it, twist it, and pull. There we go. We have another big Harry Knox want one big hairy not both ends. Then guess what we're gonna do now. We're gonna do the next row. So what we need to do, we do the same thing. We cut the full length of the, the full width of the garment twice plus a little bit extra for naughts. And then here we go. We're going to thread your needle. Oh no, not for alanine or naughty, naughty first, we got to that big, big hairy, not so twisting, twisting, twisting or look at that. You might even like to do it twice if you want. You're not really, really big so that it's not going to slip through the holes. So there we go. Now we're going to follow along the next row. What you might like to do just to make sure that everything's all evened up. Is that as you travel along this second row, you really want to make sure it's lined up with the first row. So once you've pulled it through, you can use your needle as a kind of measuring line to check because these are gonna be our Smock Crows yes. Looking good. Straight. Next one, yes, I can go straight. Yes, I can get and you might want to just check that it after every time you pull the thread through, just to check all your smocking Rows are going to be nice. And even here I am traveling around Again, check, check, check straight, straight, straight. Lovely. Finding a nice comfortable way to hold my garment and enjoying this slow process. Getting all the way to the end. And like I said, I kind of cheated it a bit. So I just went slightly longer than the dots just for these last few stitches because I wanted it to be a mirror image of the other side. If you're like, What are you talking about? Just ignore that and just carry on the same. I really like it when the Smocks measure up exactly on both sides of the garment. So there we go, That's Row two down. Here comes another big hairy naught. And then guess what? You never would've guessed. We're carrying on the same again. So we need to get that nice long length of thread and carry on. Here we are right at the end. Need to see me do it all over again. Every time you just start a row, you start with a big hairy. Not every time you end a row, you end with a big hairy not so that your thread is not going to slip through either end of your gathering. So there's our last Harry naught. Now what we're going to do, like how lovely it looks. Now we're ready to actually start gathering. So what we do is we hold the three threads together. Or it might be more if you've done a wider, wider amount of smocking and you just slowly pull it along. This is where you will notice where my smocking ruler was a little bit too wide. And why that is, is there's two, each of the channels in-between. Each row of gathering is too long and it means it's not gathering perfectly. You will see in the next video I've actually gone back and added another row because it was really annoying me that the channels weren't really smooth because you need the the width between each row to be just right, so that your channels and nice and smooth and easy to work with. I just go round and I gather from both sides, like in this fashion, until the garment is Gathered to the width of the Neckline that we want. Really don't want to pull too much in one go and just do this very slowly because we don't want any of our gathering threads to snap because that would mean we'd have to redo it also just being very slow gathering a little bit at a time until our Neckline is at the right width. Okay, so that's all our gathering done. I will see you in the next lesson where we will attach the Neckline. See you in the next lesson. 15. Attach Neckline: Welcome back. In this lesson, we are going to attach the Neckline to our Smock. In the measurements and calculations document. It will show you how to work out your Neckline or refer to the video lesson where we do the measuring and calculations, but I'm just measuring it against my son's T-shirt. It's very DIY option. And then adding 2 cm. Then once I have that measurement, I need to mark out onto my fabric. And I'm going to make the Neckline 3 cm wide, which allows me to be able to fold it around and attach it. So I'm going to use the method we used very early on in this process where we pull a thread or draw a thread so that we get a straight line. For the Neckline. In more modern garments, they use a bias cut. Sometimes four edges like this, which would be cutting the fabric at an angle. But I always use, I just can't imagine ever doing that historically because it'd be so wasteful to cut right along an angle like that if your fabric so much gets wasted. And the very stiff neck client, I think, adds to the look in the field of the garment. Then I'm now marking the 1 cm seam allowance at the end. Sometimes I just do this by, by guesswork, but in this case I'm, I am going to measure it. Then I'm going to get the halfway point. We know the halfway point. Then once we've done that one, we're going to do it in quarters and these will line up with the quarters that we measured out on our Smock. If you remember earlier, we marked halfway on the sleeve and halfway on the front and the back of the Smock. So these, these notches are going to match up so that we get a nice even gathering our Neckline. If you want it to be even more precise, you might like to do it in eighths and do the same on the Smock. But I find quarters to be just fine, especially in this case when I'm working on a very small smock for my two-year-old. When I'm doing it for myself. Much a much bigger Neckline, a much bigger Smock. I might do eighths. So something to consider, just trying to get that gathering nice and even. There we go. So now I have the quarters marked out on both sides, front and back, and also at top and bottom. So they're marked all the way along what it looked like at the end. So 1 cm seam, halfway quarters, etc. and then what we're going to do now, we're going to fold that in preparation for attaching it to the Neckline. I'm marking the halfway point this way now. Then what I'm going to do is I'm going to fold that 1 cm. Then I'm going to meet in the middle. We're going to meet in that halfway point like that. And they get a nice stiff Neckline and then it attaches like so we sew it all the way around. So we are starting to get into more fiddly territory here. So just be patient with yourself and no, you can't really do it wrong. Like I explained earlier on, self-taught. And you can always just go back and add more stitches and figure out. First of all, just attaching the very end of this Neckline to the smock. And we really need to be careful of these purple threads, of these gathering threads because we don't want to sew them in, because they are going to come out. We're going to pull them out. So just always being careful to avoid those, those purple gathering threads. I'm working all the way around this and I'll be doing quite a few notes here because this is where we're securing it at the end. And then we're going to work along with a form of I guess I could call it Fell stitch. I'm not exactly sure if it's cold that when it's used in this way. But we are just attaching this Neckline to the gathering. So again, if you're not sure about what how much you need to bend this over. I drew that halfway point at the end and then I'm just doing it by eye. If you want to get it really specific, you might like to measure that all the way along So another thing you could also do is you could also use an ion and you could also use loads of pins now, but what I'm basically doing is I'm getting that first mark that I drew on the first quarter and marking it along the first quarter of the Smock. Then this bit, like I said, is if Italy bit. What you want to do is you want to get your gathers even. So. The way you do that is by practice. And you do it by eye, because you're not going to measure each two millimeter gather unless you really want to make this an even more slow process. As you can see that it could be useful to do eighths, do the Neckline in eights, and do the smocking eighths so that you can be more precise. But basically what you're doing is you're squeezing it, you're taking the top of the other gather and you're attaching it to the Neckline, that is one. And then we carry along like this. And you'll start to get a feel for how far apart each gather is. Whether it's 1 mm or 2 mm. You just start to feel what it'll be like. You'll see here. That's the the thick seam between the front and the Neckline. Just treat it exactly the same. Can see mine are looking really even and lovely there. That is just practice. So if you do it the first time and it seems like they're uneven, just go back, unpick it. That's what you've got your seam Ripper for and just redo it. We travel all the way along like that until we get to our first notch. Then we remove the pin, and then we need to see where the next fixing is. First one, I'm just going to get this as close as possible to that that notch or sewn up. I can really nice. And even so here's my next notch. And here's the next mark on the Smock, I can see it lining it up. You may also notice that extra row of gathering I added in at the end because it was really annoying me that the the pleats were so wobbly because my ruler was too wide. So I added another row of purple just in there so that they, they gather nicely. You can also use these lines as a bit of a ruler to follow along as you attach or Neckline. So you'll see that there's, say a four to five millimeter gap from the, from that row, that purple Row could even be less. That could be like three mill. In this kind of sewing. It's, it's not so specific in the way that you measure. You know, with modern garments, you really cut out very odd shapes and it's all by the very, very fine. This style is very fine, but it's, I feel like it's more forgiving. And any imperfections and wantonness or add to the character. So my thread run out, so I do a little note on that, gather and push it through here. Then reattaching I just attach to the next gather and do or not. There's me pulling the loop through doing a not. So that's is losing one thread and starting another. I'm just traveling along the same, along to the next notch around and around. And using my purple line as a guideline for where my Neckline needs to be. If you want more specific numbers, I've really gotten into detail there and the measurements and calculations. So head over there if you want to see any more detail. But the main thing I'd like to reiterate is I'm winging it and you can wing it. And I've made many a beautiful smock by winging it. And people making these beautiful Smocks before they were computers. What very precise measuring devices. And they still came out very beautiful. So trust your own eye. So we're getting to the end of this side now. So I just carry on with my folding, make it nice and neat. And then we're getting all the way to the end. So I need that end folded over the same as I did at the beginning. So I'm folding over that 1 cm to get a nice neat edge at the very end of the Neckline. Take a moment to regather everything and just even out the Gathered so they look nice. And even for when I saw them There we go, get all the way to the end. In the same fashion, just scooping up under one gather and pulling it around. And like I said earlier, just being really careful those purple threads of your gathering thread because you really don't want to sew them in because that'll make it much harder at the end to remove them because we will not they will not be existing on the garment. They just what we use this as a ruler for our smocking. You see now I'm pinching this bit in and attaching it right to the end. So just really making sure all these purple ones are out of my way, get out of my way. Purple ones. This bit is fiddly. There's no way around it really either because you've got to have your, your marking threads there. Just got to work around it very carefully. Relaxing your jaw, relaxing your shoulders, relaxing your eyes. Enjoying this slow and meditative process. So I'm just cutting, I've knotted my gathers, my gathering threads, and I've just cut a bit off the end because it's annoying me all these extra threads. So you can do that. Now we are heading back the other way. This way is much easier because you've already made the Gathered even. So you're just following along what you've done on the other side. So I'm just folding that in half the Neckline and attaching it. Get out of the way you pesky gathering thread. Then we go exactly the same as we did, but heading back the other way. So we scoot under a gather and we pull it up. Carry on. We scoop under a gather. We pulled up. We scoop under one gather, and we pull up. And we repeat this all the way around. So now we've done the front. I find the back is much easier because you've already done the hard work of getting them even. So now you're just doing the closing on the other side. Another question you might be asking, hang on. Is the garment inside or outside? I like to attach the Neckline on the inside first and then do the outside second. There's no right or wrong with this, but that's just how I like doing it because I find that you get a need to finish on the second row around. So now with, now we are doing the outside of the garment. We did the inside of the garment first and now we're going around the outside. So we need to get into the end of the Neckline. Now, we're just, this is again another fiddly bit when we get to the end trying to stay away from all those pesky threads. Tying a knot on making this disappear into the Neckline. Snip. Voila. This is really starting to look pretty now and, and starts to take shape. And now we already in the next lesson where we are going to start smoking. Yes, that's going to take this Smock to the next level. See you in the next lesson where we're going to start smocking is garment 16. Smocking Row One: Welcome back. In this lesson, we will start smoking or Garment. Just a little note, when I do smocking, I like it that the zigzag pattern meets at an exact central point at the front of my Smock. That is why you will see me start in the middle of my Smock. The other way you can do it is start at the end, the way that we do in the second and third row of smocking. You can head to the next lesson where you'll see me starting from the end. But for this part, I will be starting right at the middle. So you will have a perfect center point For your zigzag design. So first of all, here I am at the exact front and center point. And I, that's the mark we did earlier. We drew that notch for the front center point, so we already have it marked out on our Smock. The right now the Smock is inside out and I'm making a little invisible, not the back, To start the smocking. High, then very sneakily hide this thread down the back of one of the channels, ready to start. And I'm going to pop out just here on this line where we're going to start the smocking from. The way we start is we first of all join two together. That is our first Smock. Congratulations, you have now done your first smock. And then we work down. This stitch is sometimes called wave stitch, sometimes called Trellis stitch. This is what makes the lovely zigzag design. And you can do whichever variation of this that you like. You will see the way that I complete the design and you can exactly copy me. Well, you might like to adjust it a bit for your own design. So the way it works is we go down for five stitches and then up for five stitches. And you'll see what I mean. I'm just now tightening the purple thread so that all channels are all even and ready to go. For this. I do recommend watching both this lesson and then smocking one. Here we go into count stitches 12345, and then that bottom one now becomes one again. So now we're on to coming back up one to adjusting the channels again here. Three, For every time I'm just going up a tiny notch, 12345, and then that comes one. So now that's 11 234-511-2345. And just every time I go down, it's barely even a millimeter. It depends on what you want. Your, your zigzag will your wave to look like. You can practice this. Also like to know that the first time I did this, I found that it looked really wonky and bad. And then I, I sort of unpicked it on sauces again. But actually what I realized is you just need to finish a whole row and then you need to do the row after it. And that is when it starts looking good. It doesn't look good when you've just done a little bit, you have to get it all, all done. In the next video, in smocking. In the next video with smocking rows 2.3, I show my technique for how I hold it and get an even tension. So do you make sure that you watch the next video before you actually start your smocking. So now we're getting to the end of this side and you'll see, I'm going to do a little not at the end. And I'm just going to make sure that everything's nice and tight as well. So there we go, pulling that not. And then after that, who ipsi all got a bit of that angle there. Loosen that out, and then make that thread disappear through the back there. Now we're going to rejoin from the middle and carry on the other direction so that the other side of our Smock get smoked. Heading to the back again to do a little fastening not I'm going to do the same technique before I sort of sneakily go down the back of the channel to meet up with where I was. Let's just wiggly, wiggly, wiggly. Come through. I'm going to come out. You'll see where I come out under that first first Smock so that we're ready for the next one. So we've done that counts. The first one was already done that counts as one. Now we're doing 2345 and then we're going to flip back and go. There's exactly gonna come back down the other way. Here is close up, near the end. So I've now got to the end of this side. Now. We go. Let me just need to get the last few stitches and then we will do a not. Here. There we go. All closed up. Then make that disappear. Let me trim that off. There we go. That is all first row of smocking, complete. Row starting to look pretty already. I'll see you in the next lesson where we will do the next two rows of smocking. See you in the next lesson. 17. Smocking More Rows: Welcome back. In this lesson, we will add further Rows to our smocking. So here's where we left off. We've done our first row of smocking. It looks very even and beautiful. This time, rather than starting from the center of the Smock, we're going to start from the end. And we're going to use the last row of smoking as a guideline for how we are going to zigzag this time. So starting with a couple of fastening knots there. At the end. You'll see my comments the right way round because we can see the smocking at the front there. Then we're going to create a diamond effect. So we're going to zigzag in, watch out for those purple pesky threads. Notice how I've tightened or the purple threads so that the channels are really visible. So first of all, I'm coming down towards that zigzag, then that last stitches almost touching the point of the last zigzag. Then we traveled back out again. So that counted as stitch one. Now we're gonna go up a bit and along one. Notice how I sometimes a bit fiddly to get in-between the channels. You will get it in time. So that counts as stitch do. That's three. That's four. The last one there, that is five. See how it's starting to close off the diamonds and then we go back. So that was one. Now we're coming down 234. Then the last one lines up with the top. The other Row, 55 then becomes a one. And carry on and on like so. Here I'm at the end lake. I'll see you could just leave it like that. It looks really nice with just one diamond running all the way along. I just going to finish off now. So we'll just get to the end again making sure those pesky gathering threads are out of your way. Pulling it tight. So the channels are easy to see, an easy to get to. So we're going to do our last few stitches to close off this Row. Little bit fiddly at the end, trying to tighten up all the channels. Last stitch. Now at the end, you can see here how it got a bit loose. So then I just go through and pull last thread and it will tighten it up much tighter. Now hold it, pull it one more time. Getting the tension is something that takes a little bit of practice. Practice makes perfect. We all know that one. Don't we? Just have to put the timing. Finishing off with that last not there. And then making that thread disappear. Abracadabra, one off. Now it's time for row three. So in this project, I just do three rows. You could do a lot more than that. You could do a lot less. It's totally up to you. This design is yours and you can choose how you want to do it for this last zigzag. Rather than do another diamond style, I'm going to zigzag along in parallel. You will see what I mean in just a moment. So tightening up again, pulling the purple gathering thread so we get nice tight channels. And then I'm just doing that first, not to get started on this Row. I do find it much easier when you are just working from end-to-end in that first row where I started from the middle, it's definitely more fiddly. But for me it's worth it because I really like having the, the zigzag to be at a central point. But if you don't mind about that, then you could just start at the end for all of the rows, including the first row So there's that first not, and then I'm going to tighten all the channels and traveled back the other way. And that will be our third and final Row. As always, this is a slow and meditative activity. You will encounter frustration. I still encounter frustration on the daily. And it can become a bit of a metaphor for life because we just breathe through the frustration. Relax your jaw, relax your shoulders. Might need to unpick if necessary. Start again. Just carry on. So you'll see this time I'm running the zigzags in parallel. So first of all, I've gone down to reach the button and now I'm slowly traveling back up. And I'm going to use Row two as a guide for how I want this zigzag to go, you'll watch me slowly. I don't think it's even a millimeter. It's such a tiny dash every time that you move up the zigzag. And you'll get this in your own time. Get it nice, looking nice. And even because you could choose to do really big, tall zigzags or barely there zigzags. It's called wave stitch, so it doesn't need to actually even be appointees exactly. It could be waving up and down. This is an experiment, but this is the way I like to do it. I like the very sharp zigzag look, and I like the diamonds. So that's how we've done it on this design, but you can do it as well as you wish. Little reminder to relax your jaw, relax your shoulders, breathe, and enjoy the process of smocking. Learning to Smock your clothes, how we do anything, how we do everything. We need to pay attention to this moment right here and now. So that's the last one that's number five or number One of the next one. Hold it Calvert. He is looking so we carry on in just this way, tightening up all the channels as we go and zigzagging up and zigzagging back down. This is how I keep the tension. I've done a bit of a further away shots so you can see. So I scooping or so I'm going to do, I pull it and then I use my left hand to get an get it nice and tight before I do the next one. There, zoom out view here just shows you how I get the tension, get it nice and tight for each stitch. Look how lovely It's looking. Nearly at the end. Now. Gets a bit fiddly or doesn't hear the end. So we pull that purple gathering thread, makes sure it's out of the way. To do those last few stitches. Using Row two as a guide for this third zigzag Row. Making sure it's You see, what I was doing there is just making sure I can get that tension. And when I film myself, I find it much harder to get it nice and tight because I you'd normally have that using my left hand to pull that when I'm filming. It's just a bit trickier, so it will take while to get the tension right. Be patient with yourself, keep trying it out and you will get there. And the reward is a very beautifully smoked shirt that you will most definitely get compliments on. People always notice my Smock shirts. Think people can just sense it on a level that it's been so carefully handmade. So now we've done all the rows and then this is my favorite bit. This is really satisfying. So we get our purple big, hairy naught and we just snip, we don't need you anymore. Goodbye purple. All finished. And then the other end, we just pull it out very carefully because it might get caught if we were a bit of a silly sausage and caught that purple thread anywhere, this is where the truth shall be revealed. How much did you avoid the purple thread? Sometimes you'll hear a little popping noise as you pull it through, which is a bit scary thing. Oh no, is it got caught? I do find that normally I have caught it somewhere and I'm I have to go back and double-check LET there. That's feeling a bit tight in here. There we go. It's coming through. This bit is just my favorite bit ago that oh, it looks so pretty. There's the back. I'll see you in the next lesson where we will be adding the button Loop and the Button. See you in the next lesson. 18. Button Loop and Button: Welcome back. In this lesson, we will be attaching the button Loop and the Button. Here's my little Button. And this is how using the button, I measure how much length I need for my button loop. Basically the loop needs to fit around the button that you're going to be able to slip it through that loop. And then you can have a little bit extra to fix it to the Smock. This is how I measure it by hand. And we want our loop to be pretty narrow. If you go to the measurements and calculations document, you can find out the exact width of this belt loop. So head over there to get that information. What I want to do is the same as the Neckline. I'm folding it in half and then folding those two pieces into the center to make a little sandwich. But nothing is going to go in the middle of this sandwich. It's just the two pieces of bread and no cheese. It's just the loop. So you see it just folds like this and then we're basically just making a strong piece of string. Alternatively, you might have a pretty piece of ribbon or something that you might like to use as your loop. But to make it match the fabric of the garment. This is the technique I use. And now we are going to use blanket stitch to fix this little loop of fabric together. I think blanket stitch looks really nice when you do it in a contrasting color. It can be such a statement. Look about because this is just a tiny little detail on the garment. I am keeping the same color thread for the stitching as for the fabric. Just watching along here. As I do, the button is basically the same stitch as buttonhole stitch, but you're leaving more of a gap between each stitch. So you go in between. If you're someone who really wants something explained in a different way, you might even like to Google blanket stitch that are so many videos of people on YouTube doing blanket stitch on the edges of blankets, etc. so this is just my personal choice here that I've, I've chosen blanket stitch and I like it for this little loop. Because we want to make this a strong little piece of fabric. Because it's going to be under strain as it's going to hold the button. So this stitch not only looks neat, it is also really strengthening the fabric. So you can see here I'm just trying to get the Zoom, write little tiny stitches going all the way along. And then at the end, good old fastening not and that is the Loop complete. Beautiful scenario. We've got our Smock facing the right way round. So you can see all the smocking detail there on the front. And now we're going to attach, firstly, we are going to attach our Button. So we're just going as close as we can to the edge of our Smock without the button hanging over the edge. And as I've said many times in this class, I am self-taught and this is my own way of doing buttons. And my buttons have stuck on pretty strong. But if you want and a different kind of Button technique, you could go onto YouTube and search button techniques. I find this way to be pretty strong. So basically I'm going all the way through the Neckline and then coming back up in the same point. And I'm just going to do that a number of times till I've gone. Both crisscrosses of the buttons. So my particular button has four holes. Yours might have to. Or sex. Do you ever see buttons with six holes? I don't think so. But someone's got four, so I need to go round each crisscross. You can see there I've done two of that cross and now I'm going to do another one. So there's the end, there's three stitches on each cross. This button. This is a bit fiddly. How many times have I said that as well? This whole process is a little bit fiddly. You are learning and growing as a person in patients. Perseverance. Perseverance is a very good skill to have in life. I think that's another skill that she sewing has taught me perseverance because sometimes it doesn't work the first time and just do it differently next time. So after doing three stitches on one way of the cross, now, I've done the three stitches on the other way. Then I come up just where the hang on one more. I think that's the third one. Now, I've lost count. I was giving you a motivational chat and I lost count of how many stitches I've done. So now I come under, am I poke out where all those stitches have come through? You'll see just here. Mind your fingernail. I have gone onto my fingernail before that way is not nice. Then we will wind around here, Windy, Windy, Windy. And that just creates a little bit of space between the button and the garment and also just strengthens all those threads holding them together. Then once I've done that, we need to fasten it with a nice strong naught. And I am doing it like this by bringing it back behind, pull it nice and tight. And then I will do or not. That is a pretty secure button there. You have another way you do buttons. Have you seen other ways I'd be quite interested. You can pop a note in the Discussions tab if you have any, any thoughts on on my buttons skills. So as always, making that thread disappear by just pulling it through, snipping it off. There we go, There we go. Looking lovely. And now to attaching our loop, so we've got our button on this side. Now we want to attach the loop around the Button and then fix it. The Smock. Like. So. I'm measuring, rather than using a tape to measure this, I'm doing everything by eye and by working with the button because basically you don't want it so loose that as button is going to fall out and you don't want it so tight that you're not gonna be able to fit your button through the hole. So this is a little bit of trial and error to get it right. The way I fix the loop is I fix it on the wrong side of the Smock so you won't see it sewn on the back there. So now I've got my position where I'm going to do it. Now, I just need to stitch this firmly in place. And I will do that just by going around and around these two ends of the loop and securing it with a fastenings stitch. So I just travel pinching the button Loop and I just travel around like so. Scooping a little bit of the neck line and then pulling it around the loops and I've got one side of it fixed. I'm just going to double-check and confirm. I'm happy with my loop size. Before I say the other side, okay, That's looking good. So now I will say the other side down. I'm saying method just going under the Neckline and then around the loop and pulling it down. And you can do as many stitches until you're satisfied that your loop is held securely. Let's just test it again. Looking a little bit too big now. So that's the great thing about this when you do it by hand is quite easy just to make little adjustments. So I'm just going to pull a little bit more down and make my loop at millimeter smaller so that my button is not going to slip through the whole. So here we go, Just pulling that down and around Now, where we've attached that loop to the back, It's a bit ugly with lots of stitches. I like to attach a little rectangle of fabric on top to hide all that mess. So I just fold a small rectangular fabric to the right size of this button loop and go around. Another thing I've done in the past, which you might like to try it as an idea, is the very end of the Smock. You can see where the loop is poking out. Now, I've just left that open. Then talk to in there. And it's all sewn it into the hole at the end of the Neckline. I forgot to do that at the beginning, you need to leave that gap there because if you start unpicking your neck line, once you've already said it altogether, you're in danger of weakening your garment. So I wouldn't unpick that and slot that. And I think this looks perfectly neat and lovely with this, this whole rectangle on top. So just traveling all the way around it. So it's nice and secure. Then a little not at the end. Abracadabra, the thread shall disappear. I actually know that what before I caught it offline, going to do one more check. Measure twice, cut, once, checked twice before you finish. So I wanted my loop that tiny bit smaller. What I'm actually going to do is I'm just going to close the base of the Loop little bit to make it smaller that way. So just adding millimeters worth of stitches just at the end here. Just to pull that loop in tighter. Because we are Hand Sewing, we can do everything was such precise detail and we can just adjust things as we go. Why I love about hand sewing. So I'm just making that loop, that tiny, tiny 1 mm smaller. Let's test it again. Pop. That is looking much nicer, fantastic. There we go. So there is our belt loop and belt loop or button loop attached beautifully, Making, doing another naught and making it all disappeared. I'm really pleased with that. In some of my Smocks, I've chosen to put the button at the front. This is a bit of a statement to have it there, or you can just have it at the back. In this particular design, this Smock is for my son and it's to go at the back. There we go is looking so lovely now. So now we are going to just all I'm doing a little bit of clean up here. Noticed a few little threads hanging around. Now we are going to head to the next lesson where we will be working on the cuffs, so well done for getting this far. And I will see you in the next lesson. 19. Cuffs: Welcome back. In this lesson, we are going to be cutting and sewing our cuffs. So make sure you have your measurements and calculations document handy with your measurements for your cuffs. Here I am measuring out the cuffs for my Smock for my two-year-old son. If you would like to know the exact measurements that I used for this particular Smock. Head to the measurements and calculations document. And you will find that all there. You'll see me using the same method we used when we cut our original Smock pieces that I am pulling a thread. So I get a nice, a straight line for cutting my cough. In this style of Smock, I'm making a very small, neat cuff. There's no reason why you can't make a more wide statement cuff, but that won't be shown in this particular lesson. This is a nice small cuff that's designed for your wrist. So here are my two pieces. And first of all, I'm going to join the pieces into a circle. This is a 1 cm seam I'm following here. And my usual method of running stitch. So I will do a fastening naught and then running stitch to create a loop for my cuff. As always, keeping nice, neat, straight stitches and following the grain of your fabric so you get a straight line. Or if you're finding that a bit tricky, might like to measure 1 cm line to follow along. That's the first one done. Tying it off with a fastening not then we need to repeat the same on the other cuff. So there we go. Now we have both of them done like that. Now we can mark them. So we do that by festival, marking a halfway point on both sides. Like so. And then my Fabric is really a share so I can then transfer it through to the other side. So on both sides. On both sides, if that makes sense. And then we do the quarters. So we do that by meet, meeting the half to the same point. This technique is the same technique with that we used for the Neckline to get nice even gathering. When I first started doing this, I didn't do this marking of notches and my gathering was very, very uneven and looked a little bit silly. So we do need to make sure that we put these marks. That's both the cuffs marked up. And now we need to mark our Smock. So my Smock is currently inside out. And we'll start with the first, first sleeve. And we need to make a matching quarters that we will match our notches up with using the same method. First of all, marking the halfway point using the same, then matching the seam to the halfway point. And that is how we get our quarters. And once again, doing it on both sides so that we definitely can see it. Same as with the Neckline. I like to attach on the inside of the cuff first and then the outside later. Now we have our contrasting gathering, gathering thread. Again, this is a bit like the Neckline process. So making a big hairy naught to start with by twisting, twisting, twisting and then pulling. Now, when with these particular cuffs, we're not smocking them, we're just gathering them. So we're not following an exact we know we haven't done dots on this on these cuffs like we did with the Neckline. We're just roughly doing about 2 mm. And we really don't need to be too specific with this. Is just gathering it all up. But you'll see my stitches or 2 mm approximately. And we work our way around the whole sleeve like so If you didn't want to Smock your Neckline, you could actually gather your Neckline in this exact way that I am gathering the Sleeves right now. I've actually done that for a few of my garments. I don't want to do a full Smock Neckline. It's nice just to have a nice Gathered Neckline like the Sleeves being Gathered. So we twisty, twist the, twist it, twist it, and then pull. Lovely. Then here are, here are notches. I'm just making mine a little bit longer so I know definitely be able to see them. We are going to line them up with our cuffs, so we line up seam to seam. See I've turned it inside out, so we've got that seam running along there. And then a bit love with the Neckline. We those two points meet in the middle and then we fold it in half, like so. This is another sandwich. This time, the Sleeves shall be our cheese for our sandwich. That's that halfway point if you want to measure it exactly. So seam to seam, line it up. Get all white thread going. And we want to match these two up and join them with our trust, the fastening not. And then the gathering shall begin. Relaxing jaw, relaxing, shoulders. A little sigh. Enjoying the long slow process. What it's like to make something by hand. Enjoying the whole journey. So we're going to fold this all the way along and attach it in the same style that we did for the Neckline. What we need to match up is there notches. So we've matched up seam to seam. So now we need to match up notch one with notch one so that we know that our cuffs will be Gathered Gathered evenly. So that's the first one matched up. And then what we need to do is pull the gathering thread and hold it in place. Now, this method of these notches makes our gathering more even, but we still need to do a little bit by I and check that the Gathered are looking good. So I just spend a moment having a little fiddle around so that they look pretty even. And then using a similar technique for the Neckline. With the Neckline, it was really obvious because we did one stitch for each gather. And we're basically doing the same here. Just following around, going under a gather and then attaching it to the cuff. If it starts to loosen up, just pulling that gathering thread, just rejecting it. So they're all even and just working our way around like so. So with these cuffs, I'm doing it in quarters and I'm, I've done the Nazis in quarters to get it even if you're new and you want to get it even more, even you could do it in eighths. Just another suggestion for when for new beginners. So we've sewn all the way up to that notch and then we just need to carry on around doing the same thing. So folding it into the center, matching it up a notch to notch. I'm using my technique of using my gathering needle to match those two notches. You might have some pins handy. You also, if you're a pin user, you might like to pin the gap, the Gathered evenly. That might help. But as you will know by now, I'm not a big fan of pins. Then we do exactly the same method and we go from that notch to the next notch, checking that the gathers or even as we go, we are doing so well and have got so far. Whether you're just watching this and you're planning to make it later or planning to make something similar later. Or whether you're sewing along, well done for getting this far. And these final touches are really satisfying and you can enjoy and where you're gorgeous garment, so don't give up now Say you will see me looping under and attaching that cuff. And just as I go read gigging, getting everything even. And now I'm on to that third notch. Always making sure that the gathering thread is out of the way because we do not want to. So that gathering thread because it will disappear later. So just leaving a tiny gap so we don't so right next to it. Giving you a little bit more of a demonstration and a feel for what it's like to keep working around. And then eventually we will get back to the beginning. There's where we started. So now we just need to do from our third notch back to the beginning. And lake. How lovely That's looking. A little not. Then we flip through because we're now gonna do the other side. So we just bring the needle through to the other side. And then we need to flip our garment round. What I do is I just put the needle there just to hold it. So it's all connected. And then flip it around. You've got ones leave. We haven't even started yet. And then this is our sleeve that we have half-done. We can get on needle. And then we can take this purple thread out by cutting off the not on one side and then pulling it on the other side if it gets caught anywhere. Oh, that's because you sold it. You might be able to pick around it and get it out. But ideally, you really just want to avoid that gathering thread. So it doesn't get stuck. This bit, as you can guess, it's pretty simple that we're just following back around the other way. So just to secure it this side, we're gonna do a couple of knots. And then we travel around and exactly the same fashion. Folding the cuff in half and matching it up. When you look really closely, you will be able to see a few of your stitches coming through from the other side. And you can use them as a little bit of a guide Marker for the line you want to follow along so that your cuffs are nice and even looking close up there, you can just see tiny tiny stitches coming through from the other side. And they on my markers for traveling around nice and straight. I also want to make sure that I fold my cuff evenly as the stitches for me to follow along. Using the grain of my fabric as a bit of a ruler as well. So it's really straight. You can see those little stitches there. And I'm travelling along like that. All the way back around. How lovely it looks. There's something so sweet about making small garments as well. I do love making clothes for my little one. So they get this teeny, tiny, very sweet, puffy sleeve. Coming back to the, well we started and a couple of knots make the thread disappear. And now we just need to repeat the same with the other Sleeves. You might like to rewind the video and watch that back as you do. The other sleeve. Here's one I made earlier. Oh, sweet little Sleeves. So gorgeous. I will see you in the next lesson where we will be hemming are smock. See you in the next lesson. 20. Hem Shirt: You are getting near to the finish line of finishing your Smock. Well done. In this lesson, we are going to hem, are smock. Here is how beautiful our Smock is looking right now. What we're going to do is we're going to get right to the bottom of our smock and roll it over. In this lesson, I'm just going to make a very, very small as long, narrow hem like this. If you'd like more wide statement hem. If for example, your Smock is actually a smock dress, you might like to go to my Gathered Skirt Class. And in there there is a lesson with a very wide statement hem, which is quite a nice look. But for this, for this example, I am making a Shirt. I only want a very narrow hem. And what I'm doing. So when you have a linen fabric like this or a cotton, you, if you're in good light, you should be able to see the lines running along, particularly with this white linen I'm working with because some of the threads are slightly different thickness, you can follow the lines very easily and that makes it very easy to stay on track when you're doing your hand because I'm just following a thread all the way around. But if you're new to this, you might like to actually measure your hem with the statement hem. In the Gathered Skirt lesson, I definitely recommend measuring it because you're doing it a lot wider. But in this case, I'm just doing it by I. So look how crisp and lovely that looks. So we're just getting to the end. Now. Like all steps of this Smock practice makes perfect. And if you do it the first time, you don't like it looks a bit wonky. Don't be afraid to just unpick it and try it again. Rome towards not built in a day. So here we alright, the end now, so we just get to the end. And as always do a couple of nice fastening knots to get that nice and secure. Making that thread disappear as we always do. And a snip. Wow, it's looking so beautiful. So I'll see you in the next lesson where we're just going to use some absolutely final finishing touches to finish our Smock. I'll see you in the next lesson. 21. Finishing: First of all, having a close up look at our garment to notice if there's any loose threads. And removing them carefully. You might even need to snip some. Then pressing, this really makes our garment crisp and it also removes any of the marks with our heat erasable pen. So I go over and I I press the smocking and then I press the the front back, the Sleeves, getting rid of the marks and making it smooth and crisp. You'll see my marks here on the cuffs. So we press them and get rid of them. Pressing the Neckline, it's really makes this smocking look nice when it's all evenly pressed. Noticing more threads, getting rid of them. Sleeves. We did some marks on the Sleeves, so pressing them and getting rid of them. And then admiring your beautiful smock well done, fills me with such joy to complete a hand sewn garment. And I'm very pleased with this beautiful smock for my son. You are complete, well-done for watching this class all the way through. And if you're sewing along with me, well done for making your Smock, it's a great idea now to take a moment to celebrate and reflect on the process. To celebrate, can you wear your smock out to a party or picnic to show off what You made or go out and do your hair and makeup for a little Photoshop with a friend to show off what you've done. And then to reflect, you could write down in your journal what worked, what didn't work, what did you learn? Is there anything you'd adjust next time? Would you make it longer or shorter? Or would you make the Sleeves wider or narrower? I also recommend making a note of all your measurements and calculations so that when you want to make your next Smock, you can use that as a reference. Every time I make a new Smock, I learned something new. So now we've celebrated ourselves and reflected on the process is timed to say goodbye. Thank you so much for taking part in this class with me. Skillshare is all about community. So if you've got any questions about this class, please do pop your questions or comments in the Discussions tab. It also really helps me if you write a review of my class. So even if you haven't got around to making the Smock yet, but you enjoyed watching all this through. Please take a moment to write me a review. You could just write a comment about my teaching style or about what you learned from the class. If you have made a Smock, I would absolutely love to see it. Please share a photo in the project section, or you can tag me on Instagram using the hashtag, folk Sewing with laura. And also if you search that hashtag on Instagram, you'll see all my folk Sewing pieces. If you'd like to stay in touch with me, you can go to my teacher page and follow me, and that means you will get updated on future classes on my teacher page. You'll also find links to my website and my social media. I have an email list where I send out inspiring newsletters once or twice a month. So if you'd like to stay in touch with me and find out what I'm teaching and also what I'm learning myself, please do, sign up over on my Skillshare teacher page. May the magical Art of sewing bring more intention, piece, patience, and BUT into your life. Thanks for watching. Bye