Squares before my eyes

Not long before Christmas I bought this lovely wool blend jersey from Geoff Rosenberg at Trumpingon village hall:

I don't often buy without a plan, but this was lovely and I knew I would be annoyed if I didn't get it.  I got it home and draped it around my dress form for ideas.

There is enough to make a simple dress along the lines of the beige dress I finished the other week. Or another Lady Skater dress with a slightly slimmer skirt. I love the idea of dresses, they seem very practical, just one thing to put on and you're done. However, apart from the beige dress, I don't often wear the dresses I have. I like to be warm, so I would have to layer up with something underneath if I didn't want to put something over the top.

Another thought was to make a biggish drapey top, possibly using the Burda Young pattern that I used for one of my magpie tops. A top would get a lot of wear, but the fabric doesn't actually go with much in my wardrobe so I would pretty much only wear it with skinny jeans (which I appear to be living in at the moment.

Or, a nice warm cowl necked Renfrew - nice and simple and I have made it a few times before. Too many ideas. What to do, what to do?

Then...

I went shopping with a friend of mine.We went into Cos where I saw this dress:

Image from Cos website.

and I tried it on:

My friend tried to persuade me to buy it, but the fit was a bit off - bit big on the shoulders, the sleeves are a strange length and the waist gathering was a bit high on me.

I love the way the pattern goes up the bodice and down the skirt and I am now trying to work out how I can do something similar to this, with my material.

I would really like to get the squares in the pattern going up the bodice and down the skirt like the Cos dress, but am quite concerned that this might reduce the amount of fabric I would have to work with. To do that would I have to cut fabric at the straight edge of the squares to the left of the top photo, cut the grey strip from the straight edge of the squares to the right of the photo, then spin the right hand side of the fabric round so that the two straight edges meet? Or cut a bodice one way up and a skirt the other way up? I think if I made a dress I might have to line it as the fabric is quite fine.

I could be over thinking this.

I am using this post to try to solidify my ideas for this fabric, but I can't decide and can only see problems at the moment - living up to my self-proclaimed title of Queen of Procrastination!

Having recently spoken to the friend I went shopping with and discussed the merits of dresses versus tops and what would be most likely to be worn, I am veering towards a top. Which makes most of the above unnecessary any way!