Banded dress.

This is one of those dresses that took far longer to sew than it should have, because I decided halfway through making it that I wasn't really enjoying the process.  My original idea was just to make a crossover top out of the navy cotton remnant, but I added the striped band for a bit of fun, and soon after sort of wished I hadn't.

The band is made from a polyester remnant that I picked up from a garage sale, or second hand store - it must be from someplace like that, because it smells like mothballs when it's near anything remotely warm.  I'm usually pretty stringent when it comes to washing fabrics before I use them, but I figured because it was synthetic, it was not prone to shrinkage or colour run, so I didn't bother.  I couldn't smell the unmistakable scent of napthalene until I had sewn it to the bottom of the skirt and ran the iron over it, and then - ta-daaaaa!  My sewing room suddenly smelt like a retirement home from the sixties.

No joke, it really turned me off and ruined my fun.  It sounds stupid, I know, but I like my sewing to be a happy experience and it just wasn't doing anything for me.  However, as I'm slowly getting into the habit of seeing things through to completion (a New Year's resolution ten years running) I grit my teeth, held my nose and got it finished.  It's getting a good old soak in some vinegar tomorrow and a nice wash. 

Sophie is very happy with her new dress, regardless that when she stands near a sunny window, it makes her smell like someone who's a hundred years old.  It makes a good circus dress-up with her latest "cheap-hat-of-the-week", which she always sucks her mother into buying.

I'm not sure yet whether the stripes are staying.  I might give the band the chop.  Bad memories.  I really hate it when I just don't go with my initial thought and I end up making something I'm really not sure I like.  And something that reeks of Hovex.

Thank goodness for sparkly hats!