I had a plan for this month's Aurifil Artisan challenge. This is not that project.
The September prompt was Stitch It Your Way, with the challenge to step outside our comfort zones and try a technique we'd never used before—or finally tackle something that had been sitting on the someday list for far too long.
I had another idea in mind entirely...until I went thrifting with my mom and found a tablecloth. It was beautiful. It was also stained, which probably explained why someone else had been willing to part with it. But I loved the fabric and its very traditional feel, and almost immediately started thinking about what it could become.
I've been wanting to experiment with fabric manipulation for quite a while, and suddenly my plans for this month's challenge changed. I was going to turn a thrifted tablecloth into a smocked dress. Because apparently trying one new thing wasn't enough;)
Starting with smocking
I wanted to honor some of the traditional character of the tablecloth, so traditional smocking felt like an interesting place to start—but I also knew I didn't want the finished dress to feel overly traditional. That balance became something I wrestled with throughout the entire project.
I started, as I usually do when I'm learning something new, by making samples. I practiced the smocking using Aurifil Forty3, and I really liked the weight of the thread for the technique. Unfortunately, this project was a rather late change of direction and I didn't have Forty3 in the color I wanted for the actual dress. So: change of plans number one.
For the construction, I switched to Aurifil 40/2 in color 2314. The color was exactly what I wanted—a subtle contrast against the tablecloth that worked beautifully for the topstitching while still coordinating with the smocking thread that would peek through in places.
If I were starting over, though, I would absolutely use Forty3 for the smocking construction itself. That's one of the things I love about these challenges: sometimes the experiment doesn't just tell you what does work. It tells you what you'll do differently next time.
Making the first dress
Of course, I had another slight problem.
I had never drafted this dress before.
Before cutting into the tablecloth I'd just fallen in love with, I made a muslin so that I could work out the shape and proportions—and figure out how the smocking was actually going to interact with the bodice.
And I'm very glad I did, because the muslin taught me something I hadn't expected:
I liked the underside of the smocking better than the top.
So: another change of plans. For the final dress, I flipped it.
It's a small decision, but it's probably one of my favorite things about this project. I wasn't interested in using smocking simply because I had decided to learn smocking. I wanted to figure out which parts of the technique actually spoke to me and how I could use them in a way that felt like my own work. That became the real challenge.
Cutting into the tablecloth
Once I was happy with the muslin, it was finally time to cut into the real thing. There is always a slightly terrifying moment when I cut into a one-of-a-kind vintage or thrifted textile. With new yardage, you can usually buy more. With a tablecloth you found while thrifting with your mom? Not so much.
And the tablecloth presented another problem I hadn't completely anticipated. There simply wasn't a way to position and cut the dress pieces that preserved what I loved about the fabric and made the finished dress quite as opaque as I needed it to be. I hadn't planned to line the dress, but the fabric had other ideas.
I added a light peachy-pink Essex linen blend underneath it, and what started as a practical solution ended up becoming one of those unplanned decisions that makes the finished garment better. The soft color underneath complements the original tablecloth without competing with it and gives the dress a little more substance.
At this point, I was beginning to realize that "Stitch It Your Way" might also mean "change your mind repeatedly."
Making the smocking my own
The upper portion of the final dress involved a little bit of creative problem solving. Or, perhaps more accurately, playing it fast and loose. I knew I wanted the smocking to pull in tightly around the waist, but I didn't want that same uniformity through the entire bodice. Toward the top, I wanted it to become more open, irregular and organic.
So rather than forcing the fabric into a perfectly controlled pattern, I worked with it until I found the shape and proportion I wanted and then cut the bodice accordingly. That unevenness was important. Traditional smocking gave me the technique, but I didn't want the finished garment to feel like an exercise in traditional smocking. I wanted it to feel like me.
For the decorative hand stitching, I used Aurifil Floss in color 2912 and 8 wt in color 2840. Ironically, this was the part of the project I struggled with most—and not because the stitching itself was difficult. I stitched too much. When I first finished the hand stitching, I looked at the dress and realized I'd pushed it farther toward the traditional feeling I had been trying to balance from the beginning.
So I did something that can be much harder than adding another stitch:
I started taking them out.
I carefully cut away some of the hand stitching until the balance felt right again. And that may have been the most useful lesson of the entire project.
Trying something new
When I started this challenge, I thought the new thing I was learning was smocking. And technically, it was. But looking at the finished dress, I think I learned much more about the process of learning a new technique.
There is a temptation when you're trying something for the first time to follow all of the rules—to make the technique look the way it is "supposed" to look so that you've somehow proven you learned it correctly.
But that's not really how I want to make things.
I want to learn the rules and then figure out which ones matter to me.
I liked the underside of the smocking better, so I used it.
I wanted the waist controlled and the top irregular, so I changed the structure.
I stitched too much, so I took some back out.
The dress needed a lining I hadn't planned for, so I added one.
Even the project itself wasn't what I originally intended to make.
In the end, this month's challenge became much less about mastering smocking and much more about learning enough about a new technique to start making my own decisions with it.
And maybe that's what Stitch It Your Way really means. Not simply trying something new. Trying it—and then figuring out how to make it yours.
The Aurifil Artisan Year
Month 4 of my year-long creative journey as a 2026 Aurifil Artisan—following each challenge through experiments, discoveries, finished pieces, and whatever I learn along the way.