What embroidery technique is to gather fabric so that it can stretch, and was commonly used in cuffs, bodices, and necklines in garments where buttons were undesirable before elastic?
Smocking Smocking Smocking is an embroidery technique used to gather fabric so that it can stretch. Before elastic, smocking was commonly used in cuffs, bodices, and necklines in garments where buttons were undesirable. Smocking developed in England and has been practised since the Middle Ages and is unusual among embroidery methods in that it was often worn by laborers. Other major embroidery styles are purely decorative and represented status symbols. Smocking was practical for garments to be both form fitting and flexible, hence its name derives from "smock" — a farmer's work shirt. Smocking was used most extensively in the eighteenth
Bead embroidery and secured with couching stitches. Many people use a needle and thread to stitch beads to the fabric, usually a fine needle with a small eye to facilitate easier passage through the small holes in many seed beads, a second technique uses a fine hook to chain stitch thread to the fabric, in Europe this technique is known as Tambour or Luneville embroidery, and is commonly used to bead haute couture garments. In India the work is called Zari or Moochi Aari, or just Aari and is used on garments and furnishings. A hallmark of Tambour or Luneville embroidery is