Horrible velcro again

Anna in her new Gotz dress

This morning my younger daughter wanted to change my Anna doll into party clothes, and we realised that Anna's own wardrobe consisted of her original outfit with the lovely suede boots, a skirt and the navy party dress I had made, her ice skating dress and silver skates, but no party shoes - she had borrowed black boots from one of the other dolls at Christmas for the party dress photo. So I decided to give her a present which had been hidden away since I had bought some of the 2009 catalogue clothes earlier this year for my girls dolls. This was the only item still not brought out from that secret stash of clothes and I had always intended it for the Anna doll.

It is a lovely silvery dress with red and white patterned rouched skirt, matching silver shoes and handbag. However after putting the dress on, my daughter decided the other party dress had to go on first for a dance before this new dress could be worn for a picnic, so off came the dress again. However the long velcro strip down the back kept catching the inside of the dress, and in taking it off, the top of the dress was damaged on either side (and I was being careful).

Both sides of the back of the dress were damaged when removing
the dress for the first time - all because of the velcro

I also noticed that the little handbag was vastened with velcro, but the tabs didn't line up well, and the bag was closing in a distorted fashion, and the flap was gaping badly. Additionally, the velcro was catching on the silver threads in the material.

The not properly closing handbag and
the badly position velcro which caused the problem

I was really disappointed and annoyed about this - nasty velcro once again was causing problems for the clothes, resulting in destruction.

There was only one solution, and I acted immediately. Out came needle and silver thread (rather stiff stuff to use for sewing) and I used careful blanket stitches to repair the damaged dress. Later in the evening I sewed press studs (silver rather than black) on the handbag and removed both strips of velcro so the bag now closes properly and I've pulled the slight natural distortion straight again.

The little handbag with press studs, without velcro

In the afternoon three of the dolls joined my young daughter for a picnic tea party in her bedroom. Samantha was dressed for ballet, Jayne was dressed in some of Samantha's original skating outfit and Anna came in her new party dress.

Picnic tea party

The ruched skirt is kept in place by a white band stitched on the inside of the skirt which makes the skirt narrower than it looks, so this meant getting her to sit could only be done by pulling the skirt up a bit. But despite this annoyance, and the irritation of having to do repairs and adjustments to a new bought outfit, it is still a lovely dress, shoes and bag set.