Summer smock dress

I've learn to do smocks on my sewing machine last year. I did golden gaiters for a superhero fancy dress. I used a special foot with a groove to guide and clip the elastic. With an increase pressure of the foot and a bit of patience it went very well.
The stitch is like a zig-zag with midway out of kilter stitches. So long the needle doesn't spear through the elastic, it works. If not the elastic couldn't be pulled to create the gathering.

I've used a double length of elastic, this was a good choice since when I very gently pulled the many rows of elastic few snapped. 

I had a fantastic Italian remnant of fabric from Etro (thank you Daniela). J'avais un superbe coupon de tissu italien du créateur Etro (merci Daniela). I hope the result is nice enough, I don't usually sew big prints. 

The making of the dress was pretty simple since I used the whole length and width of the fabric. I've hemmed the top and bottom. I've roughly measure the length for the smock (underarm to top of waist) and I've traced parallel lines every 2 cm.
Sewing the 14 rows of elastic took the longest.
I then pulled gently each row and made sure to spread out the pleats evenly without breaking the thread or the elastics. The I sewed the two edges to form a tubular shape (pleonasm?).

After wearing the dress once, I realised why such dresses had straps: they travel down the body each time you raise your arm above your breast level...
The second picture show the straps that I still need to stitch on. I made them from a plated brown flat ribbon.

I'm good to go on sunny holidays (a real summer with lots of heat and sun).

Top of the dress