Moneta Moneta

I’ve been on the hunt for the perfect knit dress pattern for a while now. I am a very active lady who loves to wear comfortable but stylish clothes. After looking for the perfect knit dress pattern on commercial patterns website for months, I came across the Colette Pattern Instagram page and saw: The Moneta dress. I looked at the many #monetadress picture and realized that it was the perfect dress to add to my wardrobe. I knew that once I had found the perfect pattern, I would make several of it.

Today I am sharing with you my first Moneta dresses made with Jersey knits.

I ordered the pattern online and decided to go with the printed pattern. I want things to be simple and did not want to deal with assembling a pdf pattern.

The Moneta dress is designed for lightweight jersey knit. There are 3 versions. 1: Lined bodice and narrow round collar. 2: Unlined bodice and short sleeves. 3: Unlined bodice and 3/4-lenght sleeves.

I love that this dress can be cut and sewn in a few hours (about 3 to 4 hours). It is an easy Serger projet. I only used my regular machine and twin needles to hem the skirt, neck line and sleeves.

I learned a new technique while working on this project: Gathering knits using clear elastic. It was quite challenging. I tried to follow the pattern’s instruction to insert the elastic but quickly realized that it wasn’t helping me much… It suggested to mark the elastic in 4 equal sections and match those marks with the side seams and middle front and back of the skirt. The distances between those marks were so large that I kept messing up and loosing control. Plus, the clear elastic was very unstable and moved a lot while serging…

I looked all over the internet for a clear knit dress waist gathering with elastic video tutorial but did not find this specific tutorial. I went ahead and marked my elastic in 8 equal sections. I did the same with the skirt. I had more control and succeeded at gathering with the elastic. However, I feel that the gathers are not evenly distributed. Next time, I’ll separate in 16 equal sections for even more control.

The only modification I had to make was to make the sleeves narrower. I have really thin arms.

Overall, I really like this pattern. I have at least 2 other Moneta dresses in the queue. I’ll probably make them with 3/4-length sleeves too.

I’m glad to be back on my sewing blog! I have many posts coming up! Can’t wait for winter to go away so I can start shooting pictures outdoor!

What is your go to knit dress pattern?

Judith Dee