Flower Fairies

Cicely Mary Barker was the illustrator that created the famous flower fairies. Michael Miller fabrics came out with a line using her illustrations. They are very beautiful. I wanted to make something with this fabric but I wasn't sure what. I decided on a smocked bishop style dress. The thing about this style dress is that it needs to be partially constructed before going through the pleater. The edging on the sleeves (in this case lace) and the pleating on the sleeves if any also have to be done before pleating the main dress. The seams make the pleating a little more challenging. I will document the whole process the next time I do one. This fabric is a heavier weight cotton which just added to all the pleating fun. By that I mean I had to do it twice. Smocking was also not as nice as when done on a fine cotton batiste because there was a lot of friction on the threads when passing through the fabric. This required that I keep my thread lengths relatively short to minimize fraying. I can't say the process was a fun one and I even considered tossing the whole thing but I pushed on. Here is my smocked flower fairy bishop dress.