Sew...A Dress??? or Two or Three???

photo from dillards.com

My current day job as a Human Resources Professional, requires me to wear a suit or some sort of professional "ensemble" five days a week. This can be tiring and boring because there are only so many ways to "dress up" a business suit and quite frankly, I'm sick and tired of pant suits.

A few years ago, I had a different job, and not to mention the fact that I was A LOT smaller than I am these days. I used to wear cute dresses with sweaters all the time and it was appropriate - maybe even overdressed for that particular company. I was comfortable and professional at the same time.

With spring right around the corner - I'm thinking that maybe I could try my hand at making a couple of very basic dresses to wear with sweaters or a blazer depending on the day. I found these vintage patterns in my stash. There's only one problem - I have no idea as to how I am supposed to use a pattern. Well two, these dresses are a little more "intricate" than I want to make.

I've thought about going to Goodwill and picking out a $4.00 dress that I like and tearing it apart to make my own pattern. Will this work??? I really hope that it will because I have a tremendous amount of vintage polyester fabric that I practically stole from a thrift store that I could definitely picture as a dress.

Do you use patterns? Any tips?