A while back I made the Colette Patterns Moneta Dress. I think the dress is absolutely adorable and had wanted to make it for a while. The one I have for you today I don’t love on myself and it has already been given away to someone it fits much better. I might make it again (I really like the sleeveless version with the cute tie collar), but I would make several changes.
First let me tell you about some of the neat features of this dress. One of my favorites is pockets. I love having pockets in my dresses.
Another neat feature is the way they do the waist gathering. You sew elastic to it while the elastic is stretched and then when it bounces back — boom, gathers! The instructions explains his much better than I do. They actually have you use clear elastic but you can’t iron that (trust me, I tested, it melted) and I like to press my knits so that wasn’t going to work. I used regular elastic and in my opinion, it worked just as well.
After attaching it, I overlocked over the whole thing which gave it a really nice finished look.
And the gathers look great on the front (and are pressable).
Now here’s what I would change in my next iteration. The waist is way to low for me. If you check out the back picture above you can tell. At least in the back. I’ve started to notice this on a few dresses that I need to take a little bit out of the back to prevent back wrinkles like the ones you see in the first pictures. When I tried the bodice on it looked fine, but when the weight of the skirt was added, it dragged down the knit. So next time I would probably shorten the bodice by about an inch and maybe 2 in the back. This may also have to do with the fabric which has really nice drape, but may not be so good for this style.
Another change I made was to add cuffs rather than finish the sleeves. I love how this turned out and it’s so much easier than doing the hems . . .
My double needle and I are just not friends yet. I’m hoping my new Bernina will sew this kind of hem better without stretching it out. We shall see. I’ve had much better success doing a simple zig zag and will return to that if my new machine is equally stubborn.
So, this dress wasn’t my favorite. Not yet at least. This particular iteration was given to a friend who is about my size but taller so it fits her much better through the waist. The pattern was well written though and would be a great beginner knit pattern.
