Hand-Smocked Dresses For Show & Tell Friday...

I'm an hour early for the Show & Tell Friday, at "Kelli's House" Blog!

Thank You Kelli for hosting this weekly fun blogging event!

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First, making it's third appearance on my blog...

forgive me, but it just keeps getting better, "smiles"...

Is my Strawberry Basket I found at a yard sale a few weeks ago!

Today, I found strawberry ribbon and added it to the burlap bow!

I think I am finally done with it...but you just never know!

Last week, I shared with a fellow blogger & smocker, Ivory Spring, that when my daughter was younger, I also smocked....(from infancy, until she was in 2nd grade)! I took a class at a local sewing shop and each week, Ashley would accompany me, napping while I worked, in her little portable playpen. I promised Ivory Spring I would share some of those dresses during this week's Show & Tell...and here they are....

This is the first dress I smocked and assembled, my class project! It is pale baby pink cotton.

The blue dress below is one of my favorites! I saw a dress very similar in a children's shop, while visiting my brother in Arizona. It was priced at over $100, and that was about 11 years ago! I made it for approxiamately $15. The blue periwinkle top is sheer linen, smocked in white, accented with white pearls. It is open in the back and has a seperate slip under it that has a beautiful lace hem.

This is Ashley's favorite smocked dress, sweet little kittys! The rest of the dresses shown, I could make for under $10, at the time!

An Easter dress...periwinkle blue linen with a white cotton lace collar...

Do you see a pattern here...blues???...For my Blue-eyed Baby Girl! "smiles"

A close friend of mine smocked also. She had a daughter about six months older than Ashley, and we smocked for EVERY occasion! I've shared just a small portion of my dresses! We smocked for birthdays, all holidays, even Halloween/Valentines/etc.....

and pictured below...

First day of School....Kindergarten!

I hope you have enjoyed viewing these dresses as much as I have enjoyed sharing them! It was a treat for me, to pull them out of Ashley's hope chest....and all these years later, I can still visualize her as she was in that instant, wearing each little sweet dress! ...the happy little girl that smiled through her big blue eyes!