Blue and white Coco

Hello again! I was craving something easy and straightforward to sew for once, so I got out this nice cotton jersey and decided to make it into a casual dress for myself using Tilly and the buttons Coco dress pattern.

Quite a while ago I bought the Coco and used it to make a dress for a friend. Then I forgot the whole pattern until I saw a very nice stripy version of it somewhere online. This image of a blue and white striped jersey dress was already on my mind when I bought the fabric and now was a good time of turning the idea into reality.

Coco pattern has actually both a dress and a t-shirt versions with options to include a funnel roll neck, rolled cuffs and patch pockets. I decided to make the simplest possible dress without any extra features. The pattern has sizes from UK 6 to 20 (or European 34 to 48). The sizes seem a bit small compared to the RTW sizes since I am usually between 34 and 36 but according to the size chart I was 38. But then UK size 10 is more often than not said to correspond to the European size 36. I was right to trust the size chart, though, since 38 doesn’t look too big for me at all.

I did not spend much time reading the instructions since this dress was such a straightforward sew.  I serged all the seams together after pinning them very carefully to pattern match all the stripes.

I have finally mastered using my cover stitch machine what comes to the finishing flat hems with two or three needles. (I still have some difficulties with the binding attachment.) For this dress the cover stitch machine was perfect since all the edges were finished by turning and stitching with a double needle. For the people unfamiliar with the cover stitch machine, the cover stitch is similar to the double needle of the sewing machine except that from the wrong side the seam looks similar to the RTW finishing. The seam is stretchy and suits particularly well for finishing knits.

I like the finished dress very much. The fit, on my opinion, is really nice. It is tight enough not to look boxy but loose enough to make it classy and casual. The length is a little bit shorter than I would normally make my dresses, so I will probably end up wearing this dress a lot over jeans or leggings.

See my amazing pattern matching skills below!

From the experience of making two Cocos, I think this pattern is great! It is very easy and quick to make, so if you are just entering into sewing with knits, this could be a good first pattern. After this dress I would like to make a t-shirt version, too, since I like how the top of the dress fits me.

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