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.

Moneta Flight dress

I finally purchased a twin needle yesterday and so was able to finish off the neckline and hems of my second Moneta dress, and can share it on here at last!

The knit fabric is an organic fabric called Flight by Birch fabrics, which I purchased from The Village Haberdashery.  It is a cream coloured knit with the dark grey printed on top of the fabric - which means that if you stretch it a bit you can see the white beneath the paint, so probably not best used for ultra-clingy styles.  The underneath of the fabric is soft and a bit fluffy too, so perfect for Autumn and Winter.

I really like this dress pattern.  I have made it into a maxi dress before, so this is the first time I've used the proper pattern length, and it is just right for me, hitting just on my knees.

Just like my first attempt, I again gathered the waist using two rows of long stitches and then pulled on the thread tails to gather the skirt to the correct length.  Then I attached the clear elastic without stretching it, just laying it on top of the gathers and bodice edge as I stitched with my Overlocker.  It was a very successful method for me.

And I still can't get over how practical and useful having pockets in a skirt or dress really is!

This is the first time I have ever used a twin needle to finish off the neckline and hems and it was easier than I thought it would be.  The shop didn't have a 4mm width so I used a 2.5mm twin needle designed for Stretch fabric and it worked a treat.  Here is a link to a blog post that was quite helpful and gave me confidence to have a go.

I find seeing the backs of people's makes very informative, and so in a bid to promote showing our Posterior for Posterity, I am including a most unflattering photo of the back of my dress.

Whilst photographing this morning, my Mister was far more interested in getting his flowers in the photo - these ones were full of bumble bees - there's even one in the photo - thankfully they hardly ever sting, and even if they do, their stinger doesn't have a barb so they can remove themselves quickly.

Last photo - I love my new dress!

Ma ma ma My Moneta!

For the first time ever I have made a garment using an Independent Pattern designer, and I love it!  One of the many sewing skills that I have never learnt or used is Grading Up a Pattern, so if a pattern doesn't accommodate my curves then I can't use it.  But this year Colette have created two new patterns that include XS up to 3XL, and I want to support their hard work and inclusiveness, so bought the Moneta dress pattern.

Introducing my own Moneta!

I lengthened the skirt so that I could use all of those lovely stripes in the fabric.  I bought this two way stretch from Minerva Crafts last year, but unfortunately they no longer stock it.

I LOVE IT!

Here are a few close ups of the details on this dress.  I used my body measurements and the guidelines on the back of the pattern to cut a 2XL for the bodice and a 3XL for the skirt.

The stripes in the blacker end of the fabric get wider and wider so I used those stripes for the sleeves and the back, whilst trying to continue the stripes used in the skirt over my bust.

On the Colette website there are five additional collars that you can download for free.  I used one of these.

  

The collar is attached in a bit of an awkward way, but it is a very clever idea once I got the hang of it.  In the two photos above you can see that the stitching to attack the collar is now hidden by the collar on the outside of the dress, leaving the inside of the dress with a neat fold.

Here you can see the thickness of the stripes that were at the top of the fabric.  I didn't have quite enough fabric to have the back matching the front, but at least they tie in with the sleeves.

See my attempt at stripe matching in the seams, and I went with white pockets for a wee peak of contrast!

  

 
I always find seeing the backs of garments to be very informative, so here is a full length shot of the back, mind you it is also the more flattering of the four awful back photos that we took.

Two new skills learnt

  Not only did I learn how to attach a collar on my overlocker but I also learnt how to do a waistband using clear elastic.  This is my first ever garment using the overlocker!  The instructions in the pattern said to stretch out the elastic onto the skirt and baste it.  I first tried this on my sewing machine with the jersey needle and the correct width of zig zag, and this is what happened:

Urgh!  Nightmare!

Colette patterns have an excerpt from their new book about sewing with knits on their website that deals with this part of the dress.  After unpicking this mess I decided to do the gathering with two threads technique that I am used to, and then basted the clear elastic on as though it were not stretchy, and here is what happened:

Argh again!

But here is the good news.  By looking more carefully at the illustrations in the book excerpt, I could see that when using the elastic in this way - as a stabiliser - that I could use the overlocker!  And voila!

A stabilised and gathered skirt,
fully attached to the bodice! Yay!

And so of course this is what arrived in the post after we got back from taking these photos this morning!

The Colette Guide to Sewing with Knits
by Alyson Clair

In conclusion

I love this dress, and I loved learning new skills to make it.  Here are a couple more shots of the dress to finish with.

Firstly, a twirl of happiness to say "Thank You" to the lovely ladies of the Curvy Sewing Collective who have been doing the blog tour of Colette's two new patterns.  They have inspired me to embrace my current figure instead of ignoring it and motivated me to get back into sewing garments.

A white hem on a maxi dress!!! Crazy!
But if it gets really dirty in the future
I will be able to cut it to knee length!

And the final shot - my Mister's favourite so I had to include it.