Smocked Bishop - Lesson 1

I need to start stitching up a couple of projects for more classes, but as I want to teach so many different things, I'm in a quandry as what project to teach next. I definitely want to do a bigger girls dress. Something in the size 3 - 6 range. Need to seriously sit down and make up my mind. Need to make it with a little more advanced stitches. The projects I've done for classes are mainly using two stitches. Maybe something with a little bit of picture smocking on it. Here's the instructions for Lesson 1.

1. This bishop has half space rows pleated. I've scaled the pattern and plate down to fit a newborn. If you've done a larger size you will want to follow the plate for the neckline. Five half-space rows on the sleeves and 10 half-space rows on the neck/shoulders of the dress. On the sleeves, count the pleats, divide by 2 to get where your center is. Then count that # of pleats and mark the center two pleats. Go to my Bonnet Lesson 1 for a pic and to see how to do cables. Also on YouTube are videos from Laurie on how to do smocking stitches. Her videos tutorials are the best. Do not smock on the holding row of the sleeves or at the neckline on this bishop. We will be stitching cables on Row 1 and Row 4. Using white floss and starting with a up cable, smock across sleeve. Normally I turn my work over at this time and go from there. But this time, start back in the middle and stitch an under cable, continue all the was across. (I used pink floss for easy in seeing  the stitches in the pics.)

2. In Bonnet Lesson 1, I show how to start back up smocking when you've stopped in the middle of a row to change floss. Now whatever stitch you ended in row 1 you will start with in row 4. They should be carbon copies of each other, not mirror image.

3. Find your middle again and you can see in the pic I'm now using a darker pink floss. In AS&E the instructions call for using light pink to do this next part. Begin with an over cable. Make an over, under, over combination, poke needle to back of work and then go down to just above row 4 and over one pleat and stitch an under, over, under combination. Trail your thread behind your work, do not tie off between stitches.

4. You can see there are 6 cable stitches between combos across the top. It is the same across the bottom set. You have just completed a sleeve!!!! Yeah for you, you did great!
Stitch the other sleeve and then count the pleats across the neck edge. I usually mark with a straigh pin every 100 pleats, in case I loose my place counting. If you want to mark every 50 that's fine also, whatever works best for you. Follow the same instructions for Rows 1 thru 4 of the sleeves, but it will take longer to smock the neck line.

5. This is what the back of my sleeve looks like after stitching the accent combos.

I'm sorry for the late posting this week, was a little busy getting ready for my class tonight. And I got a late start on smocking so I could take pics for this blog post. Teaching the class is not hard, but I do have lots of prep. I hope everyone is having fun following along, cuz I'm having a great time sharing with all of you! Happy smocking everyone!