What happened to Violet?

As part of the Spring/Summer Palette challenge I originally intended to make a Violet blouse to go with my pink Iris shorts out of this Nani Iro fabric. I have noted that I need more beautiful blouses to go not only with the shorts I was making, but also with all the wonderful skirts in my closet and even the few pairs of pants.

However, I have been crazy addicted to the Hazel pattern.  The fit and aesthetic of the pattern is just so me.  In a moment of weakness I gave in and here it is another Hazel dress. 

I have been thinking more and more of challenging myself in my sewing and with doing something other than picking a fabric and a pattern and coming up with a basic dress.  I wanted to challenge myself to tastefully and with a discerning eye add embellishment and notions.  I think Project Runway and Tim Gunn saying "this concerns me" and "is this really necessary" but know I also need to individualize my garments to set myself apart.

I love love love lace! A lot of the garments I have purchased in the past have things like lace, embroidery, bows.  I think I dabble in a lot of trends, but my person style tends to always come back to being more whimsical and romantic.  Since these are the things I feel best in and feel are more me.  I should embrace that!  So, I ended up purchasing this cream colored lace trim to go around the bottom of the dress.  I pinned the lace in place around the bottom of the hem and lace fell right around my knee cap and looked very old lady.  I tried experimenting and shortening the hem so the lace fell right about the knee, but that just didn't look right either. After playing around with the lace for a bit I finally decided on a belt/waist type embellishment.  I am glad that I did!  I believe it ended up giving the dress the romantic feel I was going for while still being a bit modern.  What do you think?