Liberty smocked childs dress 1968

My mother and my grandmother made every effort to dress us beautifully.

This blue and white liberty smocked dress was made in 1968 for my sister, for her second birthday party.  It is size 18mths - 2years and very tight fitting through the bodice.

I think this is where my personal love affair with Liberty began.  The fabric is so pretty with its blue flowers (I think they might be violets?) and so soft, yet extremly hard wearing as this dress has been worn a number of times, first by my sister, and later by other young cousins.

This is my sister at our combined birthday party, looking beautiful but slightly disconcerted, with her matching blue dolly cake...(check out the wonderful Mum's with their great 1960's dresses behind).

 

And here we are together.  I love the short hemlines that were standard for small girls in the 1960's.

My grandmother worked the embroidery on white organza across the front of the dress.  I adore this embroidery. It is worked in a single strand of DMC cotton so is very fine.  Five colours have been used; a soft green, mid blue, soft pink, bright pink and a soft yellow.

The pattern was her own and while it is repeated, the repetition is not exact so I suspect she repeated the second side by eye rather than working over a traced pattern.

My mother worked the beautiful smocking, which is repeated front and back in five different shades of blue.  The smocking is worked in three strands of DMC cotton and includes stem and cable stitch in various combinations.  There are 25 rows of smocking, with the back identical to the front.

 

 

 

The dress is front bottoning, although the buttons are simply for show.  It does up with a series of tiny hooks and handworked eyes.

The neckline and sleeve cuffs are trimmed with a purchased organza trim, edged in blue.

 

 

The back is reasonably simple, just the repeated smocking - no embroidery. 

 

 

 

 

 

The dress was made with a deep hem that has been let down in the intervening years, so it now appears much longer than in the photos above.

 

It comes with matching knickers, in the same blue Liberty, in case your wee poppet is active and wishes to spin around in her pretty dress.