Some time ago I got two colors of the same print of cotton. I liked the blue one best, so I used the pink one first to make sure I could do a good job with matching stripes before I cut into the blue fabric. The result was my pink striped dress made last summer, which turned out beautifully and very matchy-matchy. It took a lot of the scariness out of working with stripes for me. Time for the blue version!

Now, I have a large collection of vintage women's magazines, and I love looking and sighing over the mail order ads, wishing I could have my pick of "crisp spring frocks" for "$1.38", and choose which color I wanted to have a dress made up and delivered to my door.  The only trouble is I'd want one of each! And that's what gave me the idea to do a replica second dress from the same pattern as the pink striped, in the blue fabric. I could have one of each, as if I'd ordered them from a magazine! Plus this pattern is my favorite I've used so far, for striped fabric. 

And I was certainly in the mood to use a pretty spring-colored cotton again after all the winter fabric and dark colors of previous projects.

The only difference between the two dresses was the pearl buttons I had to space farther apart due to a limited amount…otherwise the dresses are identical. As expected, the 2nd one was super easy to make since I knew exactly what I was doing.

The stripes matched up nicely for me once more. I don't know if I'll make it more than twice, but I'd love to try this pattern with a large plaid fabric sometime, with the bias-cut skirt to add interest.

I used the same fabric as before for the contrasting collar and cuffs and really like how they emphasize the olive-green-gold circles in the print.

It's my only recent non-maternity project and it won't fit me long, but I hope to wear it next fall when I need easy-to-wear, comfortable dresses that button up the front and have a little bit of flattering tummy-hiding pleats at the waist! 🙂