florale_intro

After sewing my first Moneta dress, I really wanted to make another version with the longer sleeves. That’s when I happened to find this wonderful floral fabric at Hancock. Believe it or not, but my wardrobe is really lacking floral dresses. I only have one, and I didn’t even make it myself, I found it in a thrift store years ago. I have polka dots, plaid, strawberries, peacock feathers… but no florals. I was so sure that I was a twee, but with this terrible discovery I wasn’t sure of anything anymore. So I just had to make this dress!

florale_hauteur

The other reason I fell in love with this fabric is that I had just bought this Modcloth top, which is made from the same fabric but in a different colorway. One might think it’s not a good thing to have all your clothing made from the same fabric, but this one is a really nice, thick jersey, it is soft, it was one sale, and really, just look at these flowers…

florale_main

Apart from the fabric and the sleeves, there is another difference with my previous Moneta. The thing is that, thanks to a blog post from the great Mimolette, I realized I had been wearing the dress backwards the whole time! I had not paid attention to where was the front and where was the back when sewing, and on the technical drawing the front is definitely lower than the back, when in truth it is the opposite. I got very confused (what if the drawing was right? what if the markings on the patterns were wrong? aaaaah), but after checking the collared versions I am pretty sure that I am wearing it right this time. I think.

florale_dos

And the back is much prettier now…

I also decided to remove the pockets, because even though I love dresses with pockets (I always have tissues on me), I really didn’t like them on the other Moneta: they are bulky and they stick out and it ruins the drape of the skirt. I also made the hem as small as I could so the skirt would be slightly longer, I think the length goes well with the sleeves and flowers.

florale_pied

The only thing I am a bit unhappy about is that I think there are a lot of folds on the sleeves. I didn’t have this on the short sleeves version, but here there is too much fabric under the arm and it annoys me. It is kind of hard to see on the picture, which I guess means it’s hard to see in real life so it’s not too much of a big deal. I wonder if others have had this problem too.

florale_plis

For once I am quite happy with the gathering of the skirt. My first try was on the blue Moneta dress, I used clear elastic and attached it to the skirt directly with my serger: huge fail, the elastic stretched out and I had to hand gather a bunch of places. The second try was for a Deanna Troi costume I made for a Star Trek party (eh…), I used normal elastic but still attached it with the serger and the gathers were very uneven and wonky. This time I followed the Instagram advice of Emilie Le Papillon and Mia-Dodo and I attached the elastic to the skirt using the straight stitch on my machine, and then assembled the skirt and the top using the serger: it worked great! The gathering is very even. The elastic is still a bit thick so next time I might try again with clear elastic but using the machine instead of the serger, maybe that won’t stretch it that much.

florale_fronces

I received a lot of compliments on this dress (even from total strangers who stopped me in the street to tell me I had a cool dress. Win! \o/) so I think it is a big success. Which validates my idea: I need more floral dresses!

florale_fronces_dos

Floral Moneta
Moneta – Colette Patterns
Size S
Jersey from Hancock Fabrics

Sewing

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