I Made a … Colette Patterns Moneta Dress

The Moneta Dress from Colette Patterns was brought to my attention by one of my wonderful students Erika, who has an incredibly stylish me made wardrobe that I am VERY jealous of. Seeing how great the Moneta Dress looked on her I knew I had to have one for myself. And what’s more she kindly lent me the pattern! Thanks Erika!

It has been a while since I have done any sewing for myself. The last few months of the summer were totally consumed by my Master’s thesis. Then most of the autumn was dedicated to recovering from the stress of it all. But now I have come into the winter with a new passion for sewing and cannot wait to share my latest projects with you.

The Moneta Dress is incredibly simple to put together. It’s designed for knit fabrics and there are no darts or pleats to worry about.

The Fitting

To test the fit of my Moneta Dress, I quickly overlocked the pieces together. I made a Medium and I was pretty pleased with the fit, except the length of the waist.

The lightweight jersey I chose for my Moneta Dress wasn’t quite right. The weight of the skirt dragged the bodice down making it too long in the waist.

The Alterations

Making the waist shorter was a very easy fix. I found that unpicking the overlocking without cutting the elastic was the trickiest bit.

Once I had separated my bodice and skirt, I measured up from the bottom of the bodice 2cms and marked with chalk how much to cut off.

Then I simply took my scissors and chopped a bit off! This did make the waist fractionally bigger as the side seams are angled in at the waist but not enough that the dress became too big.

Then I simply rejoined my skirt to the bodice and overlocked the two together.

The Finishing

I don’t do very much making in jersey so I wanted to take the time to practice using my twin needle.

I measured up the hems of my cuffs and tacked them in place as close to the raw edge as possible. This gave me a really clear line to follow when twin needling from the right side.

I played around a bit with the twin needle on a scrap of jersey to get the technique right. I found that loosening the tension on my bobbin screw really helped it to lay smoothly.

Then I stitched the cuffs in place following my tacking line.

I repeated this process for the neckline and the hem, first tacking in place and then stitching with the twin needle.

And then I took the tacking out gave everything a good press and my Moneta Dress was finished!

The Finished Moneta Dress

I’m really pleased with how it turned out, especially as this pattern has pockets!

I am definitely going to be making another Moneta Dress in the future. Next time I think I will use a slightly heavier jersey. I really like how slinky this one is but I do think it may be nice to have a firmer feel to the bodice.

I’d love to know if you have a favourite pattern for knit fabrics as I really want to do some more work with jersey. Let me know in the comments and I may make you’re suggestions!

Until next time,

Claude x