My Handy and Creative Hands - Smocking Dress.

Perhaps not many people know what is smocking. Smocking is one of the stictching art and usually is used to make dresses for girls. How to do it? It is so easy and you can learn it within minutes but this is quite an expensive art because involving expensive materials. All you need to have are pleater machine, special needles, treads and fabric. Long time ago oldfolks using templates to make an even pleating but nowadays pleating machine has contributed tremendous assistance.

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How and where do I learn smocking. Dont be surprised, as usual I learned it from a book. You can go to this website http://www.countrybumpkin.com.au/ to get more informations and details about the art. The magazines in this web give you guides and pattern of dresses to complete the project. All you need to have is patience and endurance to gain the interest and enjoyment.

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First you must have a pleater machine. It is a small and qute machine. I bought it six years ago for RM500. Perhaps the price has gone up, or you can get a service from several shops, but only special shops will provide this service. For a normal width of smocking, you will need about 12 to 20 pieces of needles and it also depends on what type of dresses that you are going to do. The needle is also expensive about RM5 for a piece and easily distorted or broken if you pleat it wrongly.

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The selection of colours of the treads will depend on the colour of the fabric. DMC tread will be appropriate since DMC provides multiple colours and types.

That middle bishop dress was first attempt by myself. You can imagine how I am good in damaging the fabric from 4m to become that small size. After such patience and preseverance, I managed to make few bishop and york dressess for my children. And I will make sure that every Hari Raya my daughters will have a pair of smocking dress. Thank god, my wife always be beside me to finish up the dresses if my time is not permiting.

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Do I take orders??? Yes.... There was a teacher use to order york dress for her daughter. But the price is not that cheap coz it is time consuming to finish the smocking and the fabric is also expensive because I only use imported printed Japanese and Americam cotton which are likely suitable for children. The price per metre range from RM25 to RM40.

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At one time I shared with my wife the idea to open a smocking class. The patterns and services will be provided and the customer will be ensured that by the end of the lesson they will manage to complete one york or bishop dress. There were few enquiries about the class and I got few responses. Firstly, they were shocked that I'm a man will teach them and secondly they are not really keen after my detail explanations. Anyway our smocking class not materialise as desired. Never mind...... what I learned is, people only like free service when talking about money. Such a poor Malaysian.

I did the smocking alternating with beads and it is so pretty. I did this dress for Shamim when she was three but now I passed down to her sister Safiyya. I'm using printed Japanese cotton.
Smocking at the chest for this york dress using printed American cotton.

Amboi seronoknya Saffiya bergaya....kan Ba kata cantik...tu yang suka tu.
Shamim bergaya dengan York dress.
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Friends and other people wondering how am I manage wih this work, considering plenty of children surround me? My simple answer is that put your interest in it and manage your time.....here you go.