Copycat.

Back in May, I spent a lovely day with my cousin shopping at the outlet mall.  Cutting right to the chase here: I found the Perfect Dress that day.

Knit (for comfort).
Polyester (easy wash and dry).
ITY (Interlock Twist Yarn fabric, which is nearly impossible to wrinkle).  And most importantly,
cut like it was made custom for me.  

Of course, I bought it.

The sad part is that the store only sold this dress in ONE fabric and ONE color.  What's a girl to do?

Copy it!

Don't go gettin' all impressed.  This was an easy one because it's simple tank style with no sleeves, and it's not super fitted.  In all, the dress only has 4 pattern pieces.  A roll of tracing paper, a sharpie marker, and we were in business.

The black is the store-bought original.

Mine aren't exactly like the original.  I changed the direction of the skirt pattern because I like the stripes better that way. (To be honest, it was a goof. I didn't pay attention to which way the stripes were and I was excited to start the project and just hacked out the pieces and got busy stitching.  Oh well...they're still wearable!)

(also, I just now realized that when I photographed these dresses, the black one is backwards!  Oops. The front has the same detail as the rest.)

Does the second one in line there look familiar?  It should, because this is it's third life.  I bought a set of t-shirt knit sheets a looonng time ago at Target, and made the wrap dress.  And later I used more of those sheets to make a maxi dress.   (I had pink streaks in my hair then...I should do that again!)  Sadly, neither of those dresses exist anymore, because I chopped them up to get enough fabric for the above knit dress.  

I'm glad I did.   This one suits me more.  See how cute!

I wear one of these every day.  Hey - there's nothing wrong with having a uniform!  The top fits just right, and the full skirt hides the bumps and rumples that come with being over 35 and a mother to two.

What about something other than stripes?  Yeah, I went there.

Retro-inspired chevron, Baby.   Polka dots and solids are also in the plans...someday.

Oh!  One more thing!  I was able to make all these knit dresses because the serger is working again.  Dude, really!  IT'S WORKING!  No idea why the sudden change in it's attitude, other than I said Mean and Threatening Words to it.  And I spent significant time shopping online and selecting it's replacement.  It must've noticed.  :-)