Smocking a Shepherd's Shirt- Part 6

 

Dots and dashes. Dots and dashes. Dots and dashes.  I find myself thinking about dots and dashes since my smocking seems... incorrect.  Feels like Morse code and that, while wrong, also feels apt. 

 

Ms. Armes mentioned dots but drew dashes.  My 6 inches of pleating resulting in a quarter inch of tubing. That seems wrong. I know Ms. Armes warned of a thin fabric having a smaller compass, but maybe my dashes also carry some fault...  So I decided try using dots on the front and back panels. 

I still have to work out that pesky neck opening... How deep should that be? I think erring on the side of too long is better than on the side of too short. After all, I saw many a smock with a button on the openings.

But before I gather my pleats or reeds, I need to determine my box depth. No real instructions were given, but I decided that what I need to do is take my shoulder straps and fold them in half, take my sleeve and fold it in half, then lay these pieces down to figure out where the body of the shirt lies in relation to them, then lay the armpit gusset next to that to find the bottom of my box. I have to keep in mind that I'm assuming a half inch seam allowance.

This is a picture of my layout.

Based on this I'm estimated that my box should be 10 inches on the side seam. I have in my notes that I think I have to gather 14 inches. I'm not sure why I wrote that, but when I hold up the shirt front to my body, that looks right. So I am going to make my box 10" x 11". (The width is 36", so minus 14" of tubing, giving us 22" for the boxes. Take 22" and divide it in 2 so you have a box on both sides of the tubing.

Ms. Armes says to embroider the box before you make the tubing, so I'll have to figure out what I want to embroider in my boxes first. I believe all 4 boxes are supposed to have the same design so that's something to ponder- along with the depth of the neck opening... I might have to hit the books again!