Moneta/Lady Skater mash-up

I started this toile back in February and finally finished it today - talk about a slow make!  I bought the Moneta Dress pattern when it was first released and sat on it for about two years - mostly put off by the "gathered elastic waistband" which seemed tricky and destined for failure.

In February I decided to give the Moneta bodice a try with the circle skirt from the Lady Skater Dress (that I've made a few times but the bodice is just too small for me). I cut the Moneta bodice in an XL and it was SMALL...like, really really small. Ugh. I had enough fabric to recut the bodice in a 2XL (despite my measurements firmly putting me in the XL camp) so I cut it out last night and sewed up a rough toile today. The dress is unfinished but I have a good idea of how it fits.

Well, it fits so that's great! BUT...the neckline on the front bodice is higher than the back which is fine, but I feel like I'm choking, so I'll lower the front. The armholes are also really high - like right up in my armpit which is kinda uncomfortable so I'm going to lose 1cm from the bottom of the front and back armhole and subsequently will add 1cm to the front and back of the sleeve piece. There some excess fabric under the arms (on the bodice) but I think I'll leave that alone as I don't know how to fix it. I don't like the shape at the hem of the sleeve piece either as it's tricky to overlock so I'm going to copy the shape of the sleeve sides/hem from the Lady Skater as well as the length of the Lady Skater sleeve as I think this will be a little too short when hemmed.

I think it looks "okay" from the back and I don't need to loose any length from the bodice even though it does catch on my bum a bit (big bum problems = don't care). The skirt length is good - it has 1" added to the length of the hem from when I tried to make a Lady Skater.

I've not finished the dress because as it is I won't wear it and it's not 100% comfortable. When I make the real thing I will add a neckband to the neck rather than turning under and stitching as that finish never works for me. I also didn't add elastic to the waist to stop it stretching out as this was a toile, but will do so for the "real deal".

From all the changes I've listed it sounds like this is a total dud, but it's a good experiment and "if" I can implement the changes mentioned above it might become a good TNT pattern.

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Pattern: Moneta Dress by Colette Patterns (bodice) + Lady Skater Dress by Kitschy Koo (skirt)
Size: Moneta Bodice = 2XL + Lady Skater Skirt = 8
Modifications: so many (see above)
Fabric: thin ponti-like fabric from Girl Charlee USA
Changes for next time: so many (see above)