Colette Moneta Dress

I don't know about you, but personally I think that weekends like Easter, which generally revolve around large amounts of not-especially-healthy food, are best enjoyed wearing clothes of the secret pyjama variety. Luckily for me, I finished this dress, my first Colette Moneta, just in time for this year's chocolate feast!

I've been meaning to make a Moneta since the pattern was first released, and I'm really glad that I finally got around to it. It was a great, and fairly speedy, project to make and the finished dress is so lovely and comfy to wear. 

As many people have said before me, the pattern is really well drafted and the instructions are excellent. When I first started sewing with knits, I thought I'd play it safe and stick to t-shirts before I branched out into dresses, but I think that I should have given Moneta a go before. The instructions are so detailed that I think it'd be totally achievable for a knit newbie - and a dress does seem more impressive than a t-shirt doesn't it?

I sewed the dress up exactly according to the instructions and everything worked nicely. I've read some people saying that they don't like the fact that the neckline is just turned under and stitched, but I think it's fine and I always think that anything stitched with a twin needle looks quite professional anyway. I might try following one of the methods in the recent Colette tutorial on binding knit edges for a future Moneta (you know there'll be more of them!) though, just for a bit of variation if nothing else.

The only part of the sewing process that I had any trouble with was gathering the skirt, and that was just because it was physically difficult to get my clear elastic to stretch far enough rather than being anything to do with the actual sewing. I did manage it though, and it got easier as I went round the skirt, so it wouldn't be anything to put me off making another Moneta. 

In terms of size, I used a medium at the bust and graded out to a large at the waist and hips. I also added 1.5 inches to the bodice length (a standard adjustment for me), and another 1.5 inches to the skirt - which has left it just slightly above knee length on me (I'm about 5 ft 9"). 

I'm pretty happy with the fit. It did initially gape slightly at the front neckline, but I think I might have just stretched it slightly when I was top-stitching the neckline down because a good steam seems to have made a big difference. Steaming also made a massive improvement to the hem - it was really wavy when I'd just sewn it, but it's nice and neat now.

I should probably have apologised before now for the fabric and the fact that all the tiny dots may be doing weird things to your eyes. Everything looks fine on my computer screen at the moment, but if the photos are slightly smaller the pattern does stop looking like dots and starts just looking like one big distorted mess. So sorry if that's what you're seeing!

The fabric is a cotton and spandex jersey from my fabrics. I got it when it was half price and they don't seem to have any now, but they do have lots of other pretty spotty jerseys. As I'd got the jersey for a good price, I was happy to use this as a test version because I knew I wouldn't be heartbroken if it didn't work out quite right. Luckily for me, that's not a problem I have to worry about, and I'm really happy with my Moneta.

I'll leave you with this picture of me trying, and failing, to look all nonchalant and model-like whilst sitting on a gate. In reality, I was really just desperately trying not to fall off backwards. One of these days I'll get better at posing for photos....

I'm now off to enjoy the tail end of my long weekend with chocolate and plotting of future Monetas. I hope you've had a Happy Easter!

Deer & Doe Plantain T-Shirt

The only real sewing aim I have this year is to get to grips with sewing knits - they make up a massive chunk of what I wear so it doesn't seem to make sense to not be able to use them in my sewing if I'm trying to create a handmade wardrobe. So when Deer & Doe released the free Plantain t-shirt pattern, and announced the Plantain challenge, it seemed like just the incentive I needed to get started on trying to achieve my aim. Here's the result....

I'm pretty happy with the end result - it's a nice simple t-shirt and fits me well. The pattern flares out at the hips, which isn't necessarily a shape I would usually chose but it's comfy, and can easily be tucked in if you want a more fitted look. The neckline is the right balance of being low enough without being too low, on me at least!

I don't have an overlocker (yet! I'm very tempted to invest in one though) so I was just reliant on my sewing machine for making this, and it wasn't always as up for the challenge as I was, but I solved the teething problems and managed to get the t-shirt made without too much stress. 

I finished the neckline band and hems with a twin needle, which was the part that I was most nervous about before I started, but my sewing machine seemed far happier about sewing the jersey with a twin needle than with just a single needle (even though both the single and twin were stretch ball point needles and were the same size!) so that went quite smoothly, and I'm pleased with the results...

Definitely not perfect, but not too bad for a first go!

The only change I made from the pattern was not including the elbow patches - purely because I couldn't find any material which I thought would be a nice contrast to the star print. The patches are a nice extra detail though so they'll definitely be included in a future version at some point.

The fabric is a cotton jersey which I got from Fabric Rehab, it's lovely and soft so super comfy to wear, and I love star prints (it's a miracle this is the first item of clothing I've made featuring stars!) so I couldn't resist. When I first tried it on, I did worry slightly that the print might make it look a bit like it was meant to be a pyjama top, or than my t-shirt had been painted by Emma Bridgewater, but quickly came to the conclusion that I like it so it doesn't matter!

I think this would be a great pattern for anyone else who wants to start sewing with knits - it's simple, comes with good instructions and it's free so you can't go far wrong! There are also some great customisations of the pattern appearing over in the Deer & Doe Flickr group, and I think I might have to use them as inspiration for a future version of Plantain. All in all, a good first step towards achieving my goal for the year!