Navajo Print Coco Dress

Ladies and Gentlemen, I think we have a winner!

So far my favourite Coco on the interwebs is this one by A Stitching Odyssey. I LOVED the Aztec printed fabric she used and really wanted to make a version of this for myself.  It's hard to find nice, printed ponti in Australia so I started trawling fabric sites and found this Navajo Arrow Desert Tribal Ponte de Roma on girlcharlee.com. Along with postage I paid about $45AUD for 3 yards of this fabric - not cheap, but not bank breaking either considering the price of fabric here.

This ponti felt nothing like the version I used for my previous Coco. It was much thinner for a start and felt quite slinky. It was defiantly more stretchy (55% stretch according to the Girl Charlee website, whereas the sparkly ponti had only 25% stretch). This Navajo ponti also feels less "stiff". Although this version of Coco has the same fitting issues as my other version it seems to drape much better so all is forgiven (or hidden).

I had a total brain fade when cutting this dress out. On the last version I couldn't cut the back out on the fold (due to lack of fabric) so had to add a 1.5cm allowance to the back pattern piece. Stupidly I forgot to take this off when cutting out this new version and didn't realise until I went to sew the dress up. Ergo...I had to remove the extra 3cm by basically cutting the back in half and sewing it up again with a 1.5cm seam allowance. It does ruin the flow of the fabric but I cannot see it so I'm going to pretend like it's not there.

I didn't like the turned down neckline of my last version as it feel messy...and I didn't like the funnel neck on my first version as it didn't suit my bigger bust.  This time I decided to finish the neck with a neckband.

As you can see above (and below) the band is a little big (though I did use the pattern piece provided) so next time I'll just cut it a bit smaller if my fabric is similar to what I've used here. I could probably unpick this and redo it but it's pretty securely attached so I'm just going to live with it.

I'm pretty happy with my stripe matching - I spent a lot of time trying to make sure that the stripes would line up on the side seams. I didn't give much thought to the rest of the pattern placement so I'm just thankfully I don't have too big yellow blobs right on my boobs.

You can see below that I still have quite a bit of a fabric pooling above my butt and below my shoulder blades. I'm not sure how to get rid of this within my current skill set - and I think the drapiness of the fabric - and busyness of the print - pretty much hides it. What do you think?

Next time I think I am going to cut the sleeves a size smaller too - and possibly reduce the size of the sleeve head thingy as I'm having trouble fitting it to the sleeve "hole" thingy.

All in all I'm pretty happy with this dress - especially as I sewed the entire thing whilst immersed in the worst cold I've ever had (complete with sinus, chest and throat infection). I didn't refer to the instructions once and was on total autopilot - so snaps to me that it's actually wearable! I think what makes me really like this dress is the print...I LOVE the fabric.

And...I've already worn the dress. TWICE. IN PUBLIC! Once to work where I got quite a few compliments, and once out to a family dinner (where I had to point out to everyone that I made the dress myself - but that's family for you)!

AND...there was NOT one single problem with my overlocker or my sewing machine whilst sewing this. Both behaved perfectly. Go figure.