Me vs. ModCloth: Sewing my own version of a ModCloth gem

Remember back when I said I was going to recreate this Fleece Cumpleaños Dress from ModCloth? If you need a refresher, you can read that post here. Anyway, it's finally done! This was the original inspiration:

And here's my version (please excuse the photo quality, my camera is broken so I'm relying on Photo Booth):

I'm wearing it right now and this is seriously the most comfortable dress in the universe.

The pattern: I used my old reliable New Look 6587 pattern, and just flipped pieces around so that the zipper is now in the back instead of the front. I grabbed the sleeves from Simplicity 2444, and drafted the peter pan collar myself. The shape isn't exactly the same as the ModCloth collar, but I'm satisfied with it.

Detail of the collar & buttons.

The fabric: This dress was my first time sewing with a knit fabric, and it was an interesting experience. Because it doesn't ravel or fray I didn't have to finish any of the seams, which saved a lot of time. However I wasn't quite prepared for how much it would stretch, and ended up having to take it in by several inches.

I found a great tip on Colletterie for gathering the skirt. Most instructions for gathering fabric will tell you to sew two parallel lines of basting stitches, which you then pull to gather the fabric to your desired length. Colletterie recommends sewing three lines, and then attaching the skirt to the bodice between the second and third lines of basting. I can't believe how much control one more line of basting gave me, and I will definitely be using this tip again in the future. The time it saved me more than made up for having to remove the visible, third line of basting.

The buttons: The buttons involved a little bit of creativity. The ones I had originally purchased turned out to be a dingy, off-white, rather than the bright white that they appeared to be in the poorly-lit button store. So I ended up grabbing some white t-shirt fabric and a button covering kit, and the result is two very cute fabric-covered buttons.

If you recall from my previous post about this dress, the ModCloth version costs $84.99 US + shipping. My version came in at $26.19 CAN. I think I can call this a success.