…toasty coco…

One of the biggest gaps in my me-made wardrobe, is a lack of dressier options in the cooler months. I had big plans during May to work on this and just…didn’t. My mojo went awol. Last week though, I hit the ground running. I had a party to go to and nothing to wear.

A couple of weeks back, I had washed fabric ready to sew – some supplex for a pair of leggings, and some textured jumper knit for a Coco dress. Both lengths came off the line, got folded, popped in the craft box and promptly forgotten. Friday afternoon, however, inspiration struck.

“It’s two pm Friday. What are the chances of me getting this dress made for a party 11am Sunday, do we think?” I asked my chief enabler. “Too easy,” was the reply, and so I was off. The fabric was washed and I had also printed the pattern previously. All I needed to do was assemble the pattern, cut the fabric, and sew. Surely that was doable?

One of my favourite ways of making my sewing habit more sustainable, is I try and use remnants and headstock where I can. This particular fabric was a remnant, a bit over a metre, by the full width of the bolt. It was less than the fabric allowance, in the pattern, but I folded it in half, and did a rough layout, and could just squeeze it in, if I cropped an inch off the sleeves. That would work, because there would be enough offcuts to create cuffs to add back the length. Off cutting I went.

Until the sleeves. my rough layout, vs the actual cutting, shifted significantly enough that I was a couple of inches short of the width needed for the second sleeve. It was that close. I groaned. I threw my rotary cutter on the table. I made a cup of tea and cursed myself for not checking the layout more closely. I sent a message to my support team. I whined in my instagram stories. Then I sucked it up and came up with a solution.

It’s only subtle, but I added a seam down the back of both sleeves to make up the width I needed, including topstitching so it looks like a design feature, not an oopsie! With that issue resolved, the rest of the dress came together really quickly, and I am in love with the end result.

It is super comfy, and I love the fabric. I didn’t end up added the cuffs, trying to get it done in a hurry, and while they aren’t too bad lengthwise, I plan to come back and add the cuffs just for an additional bit of length to make them sit a bit better on my wrists.

The final detail I love? The thread I used for both construction and topstitching, is a vintage emerald green thread that was part of my nan’s collection she gifted me when she was downsizing her house.

I love love love the finished dress, and the pattern. I have a shorter length of this same fabric in a mid-dark grey, so I think I’m going to use it to make the boat neck top version of the Coco. It seems like this was just the project I needed to get my sewing groove back!