60s style - I finally made a Coco

I've been seeing so many fabulous versions of the Coco Dress by Tilly and the Buttons recently. The pattern is a few years old and I wasn't too bothered by it when it first came out. My Mum bought the pattern last year and made herself a fabulous houndstooth print dress, which I loved. I traced off the pattern, and aside from making the top version for Mum for her birthday, forgot about it. 

Recently, everyone in the FB sewing groups I'm in seems to be making this. I was so inspired by all these fab makes, I went rooting through my stash to make a version. I had some gorgeous geometric print ponte that I bought in the sale from Girl Charlee a while ago. The pattern is very retro and I thought it would make a perfect Coco. I decided to make the dress version with rollneck, 3/4 sleeves and sleeve cuffs. I decided to leave out the pockets. I can't resist pockets usually, but I felt they would be a bit lost with this fabric choice. 

I cut the size 3, and found I used a lot less fabric than expected (more for another project yay!). This ponte is really thick and stable, absolutely brilliant to cut and sew with. I was a bit concerned that the dress would be too tight across my tummy, so took a smaller seam allowance there. In retrospect, I think I should have taken the standard seam allowance, as it is quite a loose fit. I added some hand stitches to the cuffs and collar to keep them in place and hide the topstitching, which is really visible due to being in black when against the white parts of the fabric design. This is a quick and satisfying sew, and really versatile - I can see this working well as a casual Summer dress without the rollneck. 

My only concern was that my fabric choice was so 60s, that when combined with the style of the Coco, it looked like I was going to a fancy dress party!  However, I felt less like this when actually wearing it. I can't believe I left it so long to make a Coco.