Nellapima, a baby clothing brand founded in 2016, has published a guide to hand smocking, the needlework technique behind its heirloom-inspired pieces, explaining how the craft is made, how it differs from shirring and machine smocking, and how to care for it.
-- Baby clothing brand Nellapima is highlighting a centuries-old needlework technique in children’s wear. In a new guide on its website, the company explains what smocking is, where it comes from and why it is still done by hand on Peruvian Pima cotton.
At its simplest, smocking is fabric pulled into tight, even pleats and then stitched across the top with embroidery. Those stitches do two jobs at once: they hold the pleats in place and they form the pattern. That is why a smocked bodice gives a little when a baby reaches or wiggles. Nellapima’s full guide at https://www.nellapima.com/blogs/news/what-is-smocking also covers stitch types and care.
Smocking takes its name from the smock, a loose, sturdy work garment worn in rural England through the 18th and 19th centuries. Over time, the technique moved into children’s clothes. Liberty of London helped bring smocked children’s dresses back in the 1920s, and in the American South, a baby in a smocked bubble is still a familiar sight in old family photographs.
Nellapima’s guide describes hand smocking in five steps: cutting a panel wider than the finished piece, running rows of gathering threads, drawing the pleats up straight and even, working decorative stitches across the tops of the pleats, and setting the finished panel into the garment. Stitches such as cable, wave, trellis and honeycomb build the pattern row by row. Picture smocking goes further, forming small motifs such as sailboats or bows across a garment’s chest.
Smocking is often confused with shirring. Shirring uses rows of elastic thread, so the fabric puckers, but there are no pleats and no embroidery on top. Machine smocking comes closer, though it usually turns out flatter and very even. Hand smocking sits a little higher on the fabric, and up close, each stitch varies slightly from the next.
“We choose hand smocking because we love its depth, and because each piece carries the quiet marks of the person who made it,” wrote Marianella, founder of Nellapima, in the guide.
The company’s hand-smocked bubbles, gowns, footies, dresses and accessories belong to its Heritage line, which focuses on heirloom-inspired pieces for holidays, photos, gifts and keepsakes. The smocked collection at https://www.nellapima.com/collections/smocked brings these pieces together in one place. Every garment is made in Peru from Peruvian Pima cotton, an extra-long-staple fiber that produces smooth, strong thread, and the brand’s children’s products are CPSIA compliant and tested in CPSC-accepted labs.
Nellapima designs its smocked pieces to be handed down, and that kind of long wear is getting more attention across the clothing market. ThredUp’s 2026 Resale Report, produced with GlobalData, found that U.S. secondhand apparel grew nearly four times faster than the broader retail clothing market in 2025. To help a smocked piece last for the next child, the guide recommends turning it inside out, washing it cool or lukewarm on a gentle cycle, never wringing the smocked panel, and reshaping the pleats while the fabric is still damp.
About Nellapima:
Nellapima creates baby and children’s clothing made in Peru from 100% Peruvian Pima cotton, including a Heritage line of hand-smocked and embroidered pieces. Founded in 2016 by Marianella, whose first grandchild gave her the name “Nella,” the company was built with her niece and business partner, Giulliana. Learn more at https://www.nellapima.com/pages/about-childrens-infants-clothing-store.
Contact Info:
Name: Nellapima
Email: Send Email
Organization: Nellapima
Address: 250 Spring Street Northwest Showroom 13W354A, Atlanta, Georgia 30303, United States
Phone: +1-713-904-5001
Website: https://www.nellapima.com
Source: NewsNetwork
Release ID: 89208393
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