Come Out & Play!

I always ask my hubby to pick the fabric for my smocking projects and this time he chosed blue with very dense white daisy prints.  I name this design 'Come Out & Play!' ~ Suitable for robust little four-year olds... 

I love incorporating my smocking with one or two colours from the fabric colours.  The white collars with piping detail balance out the busy prints.  I think the daisies will make this design stand out so I embroidered some bullion daisies that are uniform. 

To create a smocking design like this, I create a smocking graph using Excel (I found that typical graph paper not much of help, and smocking design software is too expensive).  I have plenty of blank graph forms printed so I can use them whenever I need to.