Our Christchurch store manager Emily has made an incredible custom smocked Mabel Dress in Liberty Glastonbury cotton! Check out the cutest detailing and floral embroidery in the photos below, and follow Emily over on Instagram.

Emily says "I was super lucky to get a Sally smocking pleater machine in an op shop for a steal, and have been dreaming of smocking some Liberty ever since!"

Emily's Notes - Mabel Dress by Tilly and the Buttons in Liberty Tana Lawn Glastonbury B

There was a lot of trial and error in this process! I have made the Mabel Dress a couple times before, so used one of these to help figure out the smocking panels for the neckline. The neckline of the pattern is at an angle, so I had to straighten it out to get the pleating to work. It is originally designed to have elastic in a channel to gather up the front neckline, with a decorative tie. Each side of the centre front is a full width of Liberty fabric (135cm), which meant the smocking gathers pulled it in over 5 times the finished width. It has rows of shirring elastic at the waist, which helps bring in the extra volume the smocking created.  

For the embroidery I used a vintage smocking A-Z guide, as well as the ‘Rocking Smocking’ book for techniques and step by step tutorials.

I wanted the stitches to reflect the motifs of the print and used a selection of DMC stranded embroidery thread in colours to match. Even though I have been doing embroidery since I was 5, this part was harder than I expected, as the fabric moves while you are stitching with the play in the fabric from the pleats, and it is very important whether the thread is pulled through above the needle or below the needle as you construct each stitch. The second side was much faster than the first as all of this experimentation was already done and I was more confident in the stitches. I tried initially to use a thicker weight variegated thread, and also topstitching thread, but it definitely needs to be DMC stranded embroidery thread to get the stitches to sit nicely. I used 4 strands of thread at once.

"Perhaps a bit ambitious for my first smocking project, but I absolutely love how it turned out, and am excited to give it another go following the lessons I learned here!"