a Moneta dress to ‘party’ in!

I haven’t made anything by Colette patterns before but I’ve heard about the Moneta and when I saw friends Elle (@sewpositivity) Abi (@sewabigail) and Rach (@rach_wain) on Instagram had got together and were organising a ‘Moneta party’, with enticing prizes, I thought I’d enter.

It’s a pattern that’s available as a PDF or in paper form and to be honest, even though it was cheaper, I didn’t really want all the cutting and sticking of a PDF this time. Luckily for me my (almost) local fabric and pattern emporium The Creative Sanctuary in Hertford had one in stock. I popped over to collect it-and ended up buying the pink sparkly star sweat-shirting I used for the top I blogged about previously here at the same time!

I already had 2 metres of a really nice geometric design Ponte from Backstitch near Cambridge which I thought would be perfect for the dress. In theory, as ever, the pattern instructions stated more fabric than I had but that’s rarely stopped me before!

I used the blue knit for the Moneta, the black and white and the plain black became a Heather by Sew Over It which you can read about here.

I wasn’t keen on the elbow length sleeves because I prefer below the elbow if they’re not long OR short, I wanted full-length as it was going to be a wintery dress. The idea of the ‘party’ was, I thought, to put a new spin on the style but I wanted it to be a dress I’d be comfortable and happy in so I opted to put my favourite roll collar on. I thought that in itself wouldn’t be original enough so I decided I’d put a fake exposed zip on the back too.

I made a quick toile of the bodice before cutting the fabric because even though it’s a stretchy style I didn’t want it too tight. I cut it slightly between two sizes and this was absolutely fine so I went ahead and cut the dress out of my ‘good’ fabric!

Because of the scarcity of my fabric after I’d cut the rest of the dress with long sleeves I ended up having to cut the collar in two parts and making a join in the centre front.

There was enough fabric to make 2 rectangles, each 14cms x 35cms which would just fit around the neckline.

The pattern wasn’t going to quite match at the CF but I decided, unusually for me, that it  wasn’t going to matter too much!

I interfaced the two pieces to give them a bit more stability and then joined them to form one long rectangle. Incidentally, I’d raised the back neckline on the bodice because it was lower than I wanted for a winter dress and the collar wouldn’t be long enough to fit either.

Before I sewed the collar on I’d added the zip (taken out of something else previously) which I bound first with bias binding and then sewed directly onto the CB of the dress. It didn’t need to be a functioning zip because the fabric is stretchy and the dress just goes over your head.

Next I sewed the collar on to the neck edge.

Rather than trying to get the seam of the collar under the overlocker I added bias binding to neaten the seam instead.

I flipped the binding down towards the inside of the dress to enclose the edges and sewed it in place. The stitching won’t show on the right side because the collar would roll down and cover it.

Next it’s the skirt. The pattern calls for clear elastic to gather it but a) I hadn’t got any and b) I discovered it was pretty expensive so I used regular stuff! I cut a length to my waist size plus about 4cms to overlap the ends. This gets evenly divided into quarters around the waist of the skirt. [The skirt has been sewn up the side seams, with pockets inserted already] I used the 3-step zigzag stitch on my machine to sew on the elastic, gently stretching it to fit the skirt as I went. That was surprisingly straightforward! It isn’t a massively gathered skirt so there isn’t loads of fullness to deal with. After this the skirt gets attached to the bodice, simples!

The sleeves fitted in beautifully and everything gets hemmed as required. All that remained was to finish off the back of the collar so I dug out two small metal buttons and stitched them down on each corner to give a buttoned down effect.

So that’s it! One Moneta dress. It would be a pretty quick make if I didn’t keep complicating things! I’ll make a nice simple one next time. As it turned out my original take on the dress wasn’t interesting enough because it came a big fat nowhere in the competition but I’ve had LOADS of lovely comments from people about it and it’s really nice and comfy to wear so it’s not about the winning, it’s the taking part…isn’t it?

I’ve realised that I look like Stretch Armstrong from the back! Aaargh, good job I can’t see my back 😦

Ta-dah! in ‘the photo corner’ of the room where I teach my classes.

As I said earlier, this a quick-ish make especially if you have an overlocker but that’s by no means essential. Make sure you use a ballpoint or jersey/stretch needle in your machine (jersey is a ‘knit’ and so can ladder like tights if you use a sharp needle) and if you have a stretch stitch setting or can make a very shallow zigzag you should be fine. Jersey doesn’t usually fray either so it isn’t even essential to neaten the edges every time-use your own judgment on this though.

I wore my Moneta to the Knitting & Stitching show last week and I had loads of people comment on it and ask me for the details-I hope sales of the pattern have gone up as a result!!

Happy sewing

Sue