Saturday, June 30, 2007

Smocked Sundress

My latest project in a smocked sundress using a pattern from Issue #58 of Australian Smocking & Embroidery Magazine called "Miss Daisy".

This dress was made for Mia, a little girl from Taiwan being adopted by friends who will be traveling to Taiwan soon to bring her home.

Like many smocking patterns, the bodice pattern is included but for the skirt, button band and sashes the pattern is a list of measurements for rectangles. For example, size 1 requires two rectangles 16 3/8" by 19 3/4" for the front skirts and one rectangle that is 14 3/8" by 27 5/8" for the back skirt.
Here is a picture of the front pieces pleated and a link that shows the pleating process.





I used the lady bug in from this smocking plate and made the rest of the design using cable and trellis stitches around it. his picture is from "155 Smocking Designs" by Theresa Santoso. Smocking designs also come in individual "smocking plates" which consist of one sheet of paper with a picture of the design, instructions and a graph showing placement.



Here is the pattern piece with the one lady bug smocked. Here is a link that gives detailed smocking instructions.





Here is the the completed dress. It buttons down the front with fabric covered buttons and ties at the shoulders. The piping was made from some red fabric with black dots that I had and placed between the bodice and front skirts. I used two rows of the cable stitch in red along the top of the design and black thread for the trellis stitches used for remainder of the rows of smocking around the lady bug.


4 comments:

Brandi Lopez said...

I LOVE this dress. I searched for Ladybug smocked dress b/c I'm looking for something for my daughter and this dress is exactly what I'm looking for. Do you sell your dresses or is this just a hobby?
My email is avon4ladera@gmail.com
Thanks,
Brandi Lopez

Laurie said...

Hi, I just found your blog today - nice! Smocking is just about my favorite thing to work on! I would like to invite you to visit my blog too!

Anonymous said...

hi,,lovely dress.iam a new learner of smocking.ur blog is a nice one which i came across while browsing.for pleating which method will be better pleating by hand or machine one?

suma said...

hi nanoo,,,what happened no new blog entries?