One of my pieces is featured in the introduction to the book.
The combination of the lattice style smocking complemented the crinkled texture of the skirt fabric. It was one of my favorite outfits.
Another garment in this book was one of my early quilting projects.
Didn't a lot of quilters make their own version of "Jacket Jazz"? I had fun making it ... and one for a friend ... as well as helping my mother make hers. That was the first appearance of Elvis in my work. The only place I didn't fracture his image was inside the pocket. He's in the flying geese pattern down the front (I called it the flying Elvi) and his face is on a fish (called Wanda) on the sleeve above the smocked inset.
The last five years of my teaching focused on color and design rather than techniques. During that time I had applied smocking to art pieces. "Convex Dimensions" was the first.
This is one of the last smocked art piece that I created.
The photo taken of the book doesn't do it justice, so here's another picture.
I just now noticed that the published one is upside down.
When we moved to Tennessee twenty years ago a new spread for our bed was needed in our bedroom. Soooo... I smocked a raw silk one.
It was beautiful and elegant in that room. However, it didn't work well with dogs jumping on and off the bed. Consequently, I switched to a washable duvet cover on a down blanket. We've gone through two of those, while the smocked spread is safely stored away.
I thought you'd like to have a closer look at the cape pictured on the cover of this book. It was designed and smocked by Sarah Douglas. It's made of soft wool flannel and embellished with many variations of the chain stitch.
There are many other wonderful projects presented in this book written by Chris Rankin published by Lark Books in 1997. For those of you who are interested, here's it's number: ISBN 0-87374-33-7
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