Whenever it is warm I always want to wear a nice cool maxi dress. This one is based on Colette’s Moneta pattern with a self-drafted skirt pattern sort of based on the Moneta skirt.
The fabric is some organic cotton jersey from Fabworks which is lovely and cool, although I underlined the top because it is a little see through. When I ordered it I only ordered 3 metres even though I knew I wanted to make a maxi dress, but I managed to email Fabworks before they had sent the order out.
I’ve fallen out of love with sewing with knits lately. Even though they’re super quick and you don’t need to finish the inside seams, I just find them really frustrating to work with and end up cutting corners to get things finished. I think I’m going to buy a walking foot before I next try to work with knit fabrics since some of the seams sewn with the zig-zag setting ended up a bit wobbly. In order to counteract the wobbly seams on the neck, I used neck bindings rather than a band, as illustrated in the Hey June Santa Fe instructions. This worked well and there’s no wobble to be seen! I also cut the neck band vertically rather than horizontally so there are stripes of each colour rather than one solid stripe.
The skirt was self-drafted, I used the width of the Moneta skirt at the top of the skirt, measured the length and then marked the width of the bottom of the Moneta at the bottom of the maxi skirt. I was expecting to put a slit up the side to make it easier to walk, but the skirt actually had enough space for my legs when it was sewn up, thanks to the gathering. Initially, I gathered the skirt using a thick piece of elastic to provide more stability with the weight of the skirt, but the elastic ended up twisting and being uncomfortable so I re-sewed it with clear elastic instead.
Despite my fatigue with sewing knits, I’m pleased with how this turned out, and I think I’ll get a lot of wear out of it this summer!
Wren and Co. 
This looks great
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