If I tell you that I have a new favorite dress every time I post, it might get annoying, right? Well, this one is the perfect staple dress for me: it’s made in a knit (super comfortable), it has a fitted bodice, short sleeves and a gathered skirt (my go-to silhouette, see for instance this dress (fr) or this one) and it’s electric blue (which has replaced black and navy as a neutral in my wardrobe, cf. this or this).
The pattern is the Moneta dress by Colette Patterns. What’s funny is that I bought it at first because I loved all the different collars that go with it, but I ended up sewing the most plain version possible… Next time I guess!
The fabric is a knit I bought in Paris just before moving here, and turned out to be exactly the same one as for my Coco dress. I think it’s interlock, but I’m not quite sure, anyway it’s thick and soft and comfy. Also, as I’ve actually finished it before September 21st, it counts as my last participation in Summer Stashbust 2014.
The pattern is really easy and quick to make. It was my first time gathering a knit and I liked the technique used in the pattern, where you use an elastic of the width of the bodice to gather the skirt pieces. It should result in even gathers but that wasn’t quite the case for me, my elastic stretched out and I had to re-gather some of the parts by hand. It think it really was because of my choice of elastic: either it was the wrong kind (I used clear elastic that I bought to make swimwear, and it’s not super stretchy) either it was just poor quality. Next time I’ll try using regular elastic and I’m pretty sure it won’t result in a wavy waist seam like I have here.
Another change that I want to make: the pattern indicates to sew the pockets with the same seam allowance than for other seams, where usually Burda and Deer&Doe advise to sew them with a smaller seam allowance so that they don’t peek out. I think I’ll do this next time because now I have chubby pockets and it makes me pretty unhappy. But hey, pockets! That’s cool, stilll.
On the other hand I was pleasantly surprised by the neckline, which is simply turned and stitched with a twin needle: on a knit fabric, it looks really neat.
One last thing: the sleeves are WAY shorter than what I had pictured from the line drawing! On the drawing, they look like they go up to the elbow. I guess that the 3-quarter length sleeves of the line drawing are thus elbow sleeves. It doesn’t bother me that much, though, I like short sleeves. And it gives me a good excuse to make a new one..! I think it would look good in a floral, don’t you?
Little Blue Dress
Moneta – Colette Patterns
Size S
Interlock from the Marché Saint Pierre
Cette robe est magnifique ! Et puis c’est cool tous ces petits trucs à retenir quand on coud du jersey ! (Bon, ça, c’est à mettre dans un coin de ma tête, quand j’aurai à nouveau accès à ma machine à coudre…)
Merci Marie ! Ravie que ça serve 🙂
Très jolie robe! La réalisation est impeccable et ça te va à merveille. Pour ma part, j’hésite encore à me procurer Moneta. J’espère tenter ma chance avec un Plantain de Deer & Doe pour le corsage et une simple jupe froncée pour le bas.
Merci beaucoup ! Pour la robe Plantain, je pense qu’il faudrait reprendre les côtés pour avoir le même effet que la Moneta car le Plantain s’évase pas mal alors que la Moneta est bien cintrée à la taille. J’ai hâte de voir le résultat en tout cas 🙂
This is so pretty! I love this color, and the finish of the dress is great! I have considered buying the Moneta, but always shy away from expensive knit patterns – lol. Your version is definitely selling me on it, though – I could see this getting tons of wear! 🙂
I also was reluctant to buy the Moneta and Mabel as they are extremely basic, and well, Colette is not the cheapest pattern brand there is. And it’s true, there are several patterns out there that could totally be adapted to copy either one of them, and even drafting them yourself wouldn’t be too hard. I think, frankly, I enjoy the mindless sewing of ready-made patterns, plus having a big pattern collection (or maybe I’m just a hoarder?)
What a lovely dress – love the colour:)
Thanks! Given the name of your blog I am not so surprised 😉
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