Snowballing

These are evidently country children, as at least two of them wear the traditional smock still in use by working men and boys in country districts of Britain in the 1860s. Smocks for everyday wear were usually of a strong brown or grey cloth, and all the pieces used in their making were rectangles, squares or triangles. The construction was therefore very economical: it needed no pattern pieces, and wasted no fabric in curved shapes.