Ice Cream Social Dress

When Badskirt's Ice Cream Social for the Oliver+S dress pattern of the same name came up last month I thought I'd make one up for a birthday present for Hazel. Partly because it's a cute dress and a good excuse to make it, but also because I thought that feeling like I was part of a group experience would spur me on to get it done even though it's been a really busy and stressful month (add to that a slipped disk and excruciating sciatica and now a cold, WTF universe?! Luckily I'm slowly on the mend from the sciatica if not the cold).

The yellow/orange seersucker was a bit of vintage fabric I picked up at Lucy-Mae Sparkle Boutique at the end of June. I've never sewed with it before and was expecting problems but it was fine. I love the soft puffiness of it and it feels super soft and...puffy! Doesn't take well to ironing though! I have to carefully iron the sateen while not flattening the seersucker but it wasn't too hard.

The dress was fun to sew, nothing too challenging although you do need to make sure your seams are exactly spot-on or things won't match up. I had some issues with the bottom panel in that regard. I think next time I'll fold it up on the inside so that it's not such a big deal, though I can see the appeal of the fold being on the outside design-wise. The notches on the pockets went perfectly, but of course by the time I got to the neck one I was getting cocky and so it's not as nice and I made it worse when I ironed a crease into it. That sateen is pretty unforgiving in that way, no ironing out a crease after the fact!

To be really honest, I'm not sure I like the colour combination of the yellow and pink as much as I thought I would. Well I love the combination, I'm just not sure about them on the dress together if that makes sense! But if there's one thing I've learned this year is that I really have No. Idea. when it comes to predicting what Hazel will like. So the jury will rest until Hazel unwraps it on her birthday and either wants to wear it or says she'll wear it "tomorrow" which is the kiss of death for any item of clothing. Tomorrow equalling "never".