My friend Jaime asked me to copy an old knit dress which had been laundered a few too many times. She brought me this light blue lightweight knit fabric she picked up downtown. I took her old dress apart and traced all the pattern pieces. (Not so easy, since the knit had stretched beyond recognition is some places!) Anyway, this took forever, but it worked. She wore it this weekend and said it was very comfortable.
The gathering was done by hand. I didn't see any way around that, the way it's constructed. The upper half of the dress has self-facing. There's no zipper in back; she just pulls it on over her head.
The original dress had no hem, so we attempted that (as you can see in this photo). We opted later to add a small hem to prevent curling.
