Craft technique

Fabric manipulation

Fabric manipulation is the creative process of reshaping, folding, or altering a flat piece of textile to give it three-dimensional texture, volume, and structure

The process

Common Techniques

Smocking: Gathering fabric with tight, repeated stitches to make flexible, honeycomb-like patterns.
Pleating: Folding fabric back onto itself in sharp, regular patterns like accordion or box pleats.
Trapunto: Padding or stuffing specific stitched outlines from the back to create raised, puffy shapes on the front.
Shirring: Gathering fabric using multiple rows of parallel stitching for stretchy, ruffled textures.
Slashing: Cutting open specific layers of multi-layered fabric to reveal frayed, textured designs underneath. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]