Knock-Off---Almost there!

Thanks to those of you who have asked if I am still trying to do the knock-off  of this dress:

The answer is YES, but I had to take some time off to think about how I want to proceed to get that middle blue piece to have the crescent-shaped drape like the above image. I have studied patterns that have sort of the right look, and the new Threads magazine even had an article about making a hip drape which helped.

After much thought I decided to re-cut that middle pattern piece. Instead of curving around to fit the other pieces (like the dark line), I just cut it straight from the top (like the green dotted lines).

This worked much better. Since that straight piece was forced to curve it started draping like I wanted rather than laying flat on the body.     Here is the result

Don't know how much you can tell from the pic but there is a huge difference from my former "muslins" in the way that middle printed piece drapes nicely, just like I wanted.
Now I just need to re-cut the pattern so it will have the same proportions as the inspiration design.  Maybe I'll do one more "test model" before cutting out the REAL fabric.  I need to get to work if I'm going to enter it into the Pattern Review Knock-off Contest as it ends next week!   More later.