How do I convert a girls' dress pattern into a smocked dress pattern?

Get a large piece of paper (newspaper will do) and
cut a copy of the bodice piece. Cut it across, about 3 inches down from the neckline. This gives you a pattern for a yoke. You will have to add enough for a seam allowance to the lower edge of the yoke when you cut the fabric.

Now cut down the centre of the rest of your copy, and insert a strip vertically between them about half the width of the complete bodice piece, Stick this on with sellotape. This is now the lower part of the bodice, which you will smock and sew to the yoke. It too will need a seam allowance added where it will meet the yoke.

If you have to add a bit to the width to fit her, add it in the centre of the pattern pieces as you did the extra for the smocking.

I have found out the extra fabric needed for smocking is about 3 times the finished width, so my width for the inserted strip is wrong! The smocked part should be three times the width of the yoke it is joined to.

I’ve been giving this some thought but to no avail! Try asking utube. There’s often very good advice on there.

Ah yes Elegran, I think I get what you have described! I'll try it tomorrow with a bit of cheap polycotton that I have in my stash. Thank you so much!

PamelaJ1 I did try Utube but couldn't find a clear description of what I needed. I think I must be a bear of very little brain!

I would smock a rectangular block then place the pattern on it as you describe. Perhaps mark the pattern shape about 1 cm larger and stitch this so the smocking can’t unravel. Then cut it out. Fabric to be smocked needs to be at least three times the width of the pattern. The tighter the fabric is pulled the easier it is to smock evenly.
Have you thought of using stranded cotton to smock? If you do you can use a different number of strands for different designs and it makes a really attractive design. Have fun.

Thank you granny'sbuttons. I can see I'm going to have a busy day trying out these helpful suggestions! I do have some embroidery thread for my sewing machine, and the machine has embroidery patterns so I will definitely have fun

Sorry AskAlice. I didn’t realise you were smocking on a machine. I only know how to do it by hand so my suggestions might not work!

granny'sbuttons, I do think your idea would work with my sewing machine method.

I stitch lines about 1cm apart with ordinary thread on a lower tension and long stitch and then pull them up. Then I stitch over the lines of original long stitches with a normal stitch to hold them, and use embroidery thread in a contrasting colour and embroidery stitch between the lines. So I could do that in a block and then lay the bodice front pattern on it and cut out.

Your hand smocking looks beautiful, by the way!

Elegran, I tried your method today just with the front bodice piece and it worked a treat! The only problem I can see might be joining a gathered skirt to a smocked, gathered bodice piece...might it be too "boofy", if you get what I mean?

I've just had a thought my brain is still grinding away . If I just alter the width of the skirt front piece to 3 times the width of the original plain bodice and smock the top of that instead? I think that may be what the Sewing Bee dress was like, but I can't find the original pattern or instructions in my stash of patterns! I'll get there eventually

That sounds as though it would work. On smocked dresses, the skirt is usually in one piece with the smocking part, and the bodice is quite short.

You may get the smocking a bit low on the dress if the skirt /bodice join is where it would be on a non-smocked dress, though. Trial and error needed, I think.

For the smocking, you could hand smock between the lines of the drawn-up machine gathering and then remove the machining. Hand smocking isn't hard to do. Hand-sewing the parrallel lines of gathering neatly and accurately takes longer than the fancy designs!