Fauxneta

I have a shocking admission to make today that goes against my "twitter cred" of buying all the patterns. So  here goes....instead of buying the new Moneta pattern to add to my hoard, I saved my money and knocked off the look.  "What!  You didn't buy a pattern?!  How dare you call yourself All the Patterns Heather.  Don the Ribbons of Shame woman!"

While Froggie is digging out the ribbons of shame, let me just explain myself a bit.  I have a problem with Colette patterns, a general problem that perhaps some of you have had with someone's designs.  The problem is that I like their design aesthetic, but the majority of their patterns don't suit me.  For unknown reasons I have to walk a thin line between looking ladylike or looking like a grown women dressing like a little girl in the porniest way possible.  Let me tell you from personal experience that donning a peter pan collar is a one way ticket to the wrong type of attention.  So here's the thing, even though I liked Moneta pattern it only took one look to know that most of the design elements wouldn't work for me.   After stripping all those things away what was left was a Lady Skater with a gathered skirt.  So I made a Lady Skater with a gathered skirt.

It's not even a modified Lady Skater skirt. Oh no, I went the supremely lazy way and put the Emery skirt on the Lady Skater bodice.  Cutting woven patterns on knits, dogs and cats living together, total pandemonium.

Ok, maybe all that happened was swishy skirts.

The Lady Skater bodice was modified a bit to mimic the Moneta look.  I raised the scoop neck about 1.5" and shortened the sleeves to a cap length of 3.75".

The bodice is lined both as a design element and to make use of this fern like burn out knit in the stash. Man, Past Heather bough a lot of burn out jerseys. But she also bought a lot of white rayon knit, which allowed me to solve two stash problems at once. High five past me.

The finishing process on this dress is pretty similar to the Lady Skater I made out of sweater knit earlier in the year.  The only change was to use iron on knit stay tape instead of clear elastic to stabilize the neck. Mostly because I thought the elastic might be seen through the burn out areas. The rest of the finishing is the same, using the inside layer as a lining and taking down the edge with a cover stitch.

The gathered skirt was attached with the serger, but I made the seam allowance larger by adding a line of stretch stitching about 1/4" away.  Now I don't worry about that heavy skirt ripping away from a tiny 1/4"  seam allowance at an inopportune moment.

I treated the two layers as one on the sleeve and skirt hems, turning up the edge and coverstitching it into place.

In the interest of "keeping it real" here's the dirty secret on the inside of my dress.  Gasp! What are those cut edges doing there?

Despite sewing several cap sleeves last summer I forgot that they tend to wing out weirdly without adjustments.  After the dress was finished I had to go back in and bevel the underarm seam to reduce the diameter of the sleeve. This is why I usually make muslins people. I can't be trusted to sew things correctly the first time.

So other than my sleeve gaff this baby turned out pretty darn cute as well was ticking the following boxes. Box one - use up a bunch of stash,  Box 2 - mess with Kitschy Coo patterns some more, Box 3 - keep up my Stepford wife facade.  "Would you all like to some inside my house for some fresh bread?  I promise it isn't laced with anything that makes you tell me your credit card numbers. Froggie get a pen!"