Smocking and Authenticity

Last week I was using a linen yarn to knit CABLES

 from Cornish Knitted Smock patterns

I've also been stitching on linen 

using smocking patterns

and the flat embroidery found on the 'boxes', shoulders, collar and cuffs

of stitched agricultural smocks

to create TEXTURED SURFACES

that seem to me to echo marks in the landscape

       these patterns seem to me

 to echo the marks left by ploughing and harvesting

     

      by altering the stitching,

  marks can suggest marks from long ago

   or that are faded by weathering

   

 The tubes of the gathered smocking also reference the fieldscape

   The knitted cables have now been stretched   
 and made into blocks that can be used for 'Rubbings'.

 So over the next couple (of doubtless more-snowy) days

      I'll make the stitched smocking into blocks

 And then the FUN can begin!

     I use the traditional stitched and knitted 'folk art'

     as an 'authentic' reference to the rural history of our culture.