Arizona Moneta

I have made yet another Moneta dress, this time using some lovely thick jersey fabric designed by April Rhodes called Desert Blanket as part of her Arizona fabric collection.  The fabric is so lovely and soft to wear! 

Fabric

I love the colours in this fabric, so peachy  and refreshing.  This came from The Village Haberdashery.  I bought a separate piece of dark blue jersey from Lauren's shop for the collar and it matched perfectly!

I also bought enough fabric to make sure I could get a sensible pattern placement across the bodice, didn't want those bold blue flower shapes being placed anywhere embarrassing!   

I also went for twin needle stitching around the sleeve and skirt hems, I really love the way this looks, so stretchy and so much more satisfying to look at than my old zig zag line!

Stretch

I cut my first Moneta as a maxi dress and kept the pattern tracing to use again this time.  But I cut my black and white fabric with the stretch going up and down on the skirt, this time I cut it with the most stretch going horizontally, which has meant a huge difference in the length of the two skirts!  The vertical stretch means my black and white touches the ground, and my new Arizona is mid-calf!  Oh well, at least I'm not picking this one up to walk up stairs at least.

  

Final Thoughts

I really do like this pattern for tee-shirt fabrics.  On my second version I used a thicker knit fabric, the kind that is almost fluffy on the under side.  It is really lovely but it makes the bodice look like it is too short on me.  The weight of the skirt just isn't enough to stretch the bodice down to my normal waistline.  So in the future, if I make this again with a thick knit fabric, I'll be sure to lengthen the bodice by an inch.

And just because I find seeing the backs of garments so very informative when deciding if a pattern, a style or a fabric is for me, here is my Posterior for Posterity!  

  

And finally, my Mister's favourite shot too.