Honeycomb Smocked Dress

 

I was really excited when I saw this Honeycomb Smocking technique in Burdastyle’s Learning section by Rensz who blogs at ‘The Dress I Made’, she applied the smock to this stunning red skirt.   I knew that I could apply that to make a smocked dress for my little one.

I altered the dress pattern from my Almost a Smocked Dress to accomodate the smock in the front.  Rensz provided a very good pointer whereby “the amount of fabric you need is twice the length your final piece needs to have”.  

Despite the smock looks a bit complicated, the technique is effectively joining two dots on a row and then redoing it again on the alternate row.  It is also not too time consuming because I finished smocking 5 rows in under an hour (yes, by hand!)

I am a bit crazy about piping and covered buttons now so I will try to sneak some into my projects whenever I can. I think I am so old skool. I sewed my first invisible zipper too!

 

The dress looks very vintage-y, something that the Brady Bunch girls would wear! I am really happy with how this dress turned out!

The more popular way of smocking is by the pleating method via hand or machine and then adorning the pleats with embroidery thread – this is more time consuming but I would love to learn this too one fine day.  I would also like to try Lia’s Crafty Journey’s Diamond Smock Tutorial next. If you know of any other good smocking tutorial online, do share!.  I love the sewing community online, it is all about sharing and learning from one another, I do not see the need to attend (pay for) brick-and-mortar sewing classes. So many tutorials to attempt, too little time!

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