Girl's Smocked Dress in Liberty Tana Lawn "Milky Way" (Castaway Collection, SS2017)

Girl's Smocked Dress in Liberty Tana Lawn "Milky Way".

Making Made a girl's smocked dress in Liberty Tana Lawn "Milky Way" (yellow) from the Spring/Summer 2017 "Castaway" collection. This little project will be for my niece Claire, though it will only fit her when she's a little older.

For the smocking, I'm using I used DMC stranded cotton embroidery thread in Nos. 958, 959, 964, and white. So far, am fairly happy with how it's turning out, although the smocking is not going as well as I'd like it to be. But well, I was not expecting it to turn out well since it was my first attempt.

Girl's Smocked Dress in Liberty Tana Lawn "Milky Way" (on IG).

Decided to try smocking out of a whim. Smocked clothes, especially those for kids, are so beautiful and detailed. I can see why they're considered heirloom pieces. That was the inspiration to try making one on my own. Plus it's a good excuse reason to use a Liberty Tana Lawn from my ever-growing fabric stash!

I adore Liberty Tana Lawn. Working with it, wearing it, or just looking at it and touching it... The lightness, the cool and crisp but soft, silky hand feel of the mercerised ultra-fine cotton. (More on mercarisation at FiberArts.org, TextileToday, and ScienceDirect.) I sometimes feel guilty using Liberty Tana Lawn. Partly because of its price tag, but more so because of the mercarisation and dyeing processes are not environmentally-friendly. (The Generally, the textile industry and clothing industry are environmentally unfriendly. That said, it seems organic cotton may not be so friendly either.)

The pattern was a PDF copy of an out-of-print vintage pattern, which I purchased on Etsy. Unfortunately it was missing the smocking dots pattern for the dress itself, so I had to manually do the smocking dots. Which makes me wonder why I keep making these projects more challenging for myself. It may have been wiser to get a proper paper pattern and iron-on dot sheets. This made getting an Amanda Jane pleater machine very tempting. Respect for people who did all this manually in the ancient past before the invention of pleaters!

I never would've made it through if not for the many invaluable smocking tutorials online! Particularly Frances Suzanne tutorials, YouTube videos by Sarah Classic Sewing, especially the "Smocked Bishop Tutorial" and "UPDATED How to Smock", which were so informative and educational.

(Post edited on 20 and 22 August 2019.)