Why don’t you just buy new clothes?

This is the question my husband asked me the other day as I was stressing out over all the things I needed to get done before we can leave on our trip.  Not too mention we weren’t seeing much of each other, as I was always heading off to the sewing room when the kids went to bed.

And there is definitely a point to it.  Buying fabric can add up, but it’s usually cheaper than paying for the clothing item in a store.  What you have to remember to add in is all the time it takes you to get the item finished.  I am still at the point that I think I can get something accomplished much quicker than I can.  I will only need to do a few things to finish up something and then look at the clock and realize two hours have been sucked gone.

At the end of the day I have started to make more clothes because I do find it enjoyable.  I like to be creative and this has definitely been a good outlet for me.  Most times though, it would make more sense time management wise, to just go out and buy things.

I was looking at some of my favorite browsing online stores.  You know the ones you look at for inspiration because you can’t really afford to buy any of their pieces.  I happened to stumble upon a dress at Anthropology, this dress is being currently sold for $98.

Now what’s kind of amazing and funny about this, is that I just recently finished up sewing a new dress for myself.  I bought the fabric last year and all together it probably ran me $20.  I used a pattern I already had (Simplicity 1881) and the dress went together really quickly.  Now remember I had completely finished sewing this dress before I came across this one on the internet.

It’s almost exactly the same.  And had I picked out a different color stripe, it would have been a dead ringer.  In this instance sewing the dress was definitely worth my time.  It also gave me a chance to learn a new skill, inserting an invisible zipper.  Mine didn’t go exactly as I wanted, and you can see it peeking over the top.  But now I know how to do it.

This dress will even work in the “in-between” seasons by throwing on a denim or chambray shirt.