Something Stinks: Fabric Prep

As I have mentioned I enrolled in Gertie's online class, and I have chosen my fabric. Much to my husband's happiness, I found in my stash this piece of black and white houndstooth silk suiting with enough yardage of four and half yards. I purchased it about a year ago during a super sale on fabric.com for $4 yard. Even though the class is geared to making a summer dress,  I really wanted to make a slightly heavier dress to straddle the in between seasons. It is lightweight enough to drape, but not too light. And I figured depending on accessory color, I could go either spring or fall/winter with the black and white. Maybe red or plum for winter and pink or coral for spring?



I was unsure of how to prep silk suiting, but decided to just do a gentle hand wash and then hang dry. The best place to hang this length of fabric to dry was over the shower curtain rod. This was all fine, except when I walked in a couple hours later to check and was almost knocked out by the smell. It stunk of moth balls. It was as if there was an old lady hiding behind the fabric waiting to jump out at attack me with knitting needles! Thankfully it went away when it was dry, but faint aromas keep wafting up while I was ironing it today. Does anyone know why this happened? Is this normal? Does all silk smell when wet?!?! God forbid I ever get caught in the rain in this dress!

Has anyone ever worked with silk suiting? I am going to assume I will need similar needles/precautions as sewing with regular silk, but it just won't be a slippery. Any tips would be helpful!