Basically a sweatshirt...but call it fashun

It seems like every spring I make a number of sewing mistakes, or have a string of outright fails.  Happily, today's makes are not fails, but they both emerged from mistakes.  (Incidentally, this outfit came together exactly how I saw it in my head, so I'm pretty pleased with that).

I found some beautiful sage-green cotton terry from Birch Organics and thought to make another Toaster, since my chili one is a nice spring piece, and we're having quite a few days lately where a wool sweater is not the thing. When the fabric arrived and I realized it was 70" wide (70! inches! wide!), I knew I could make a Toaster dress if I wanted to. I used the Coco dress as a guide for the bottom piece and blended the top and bottom together. I figured if it looked terrible, I could always cut it off at the waist and add the bottom band back in for my original plan.

After wearing the chili Toaster a handful of times, I thought it felt a bit too roomy--I think the Tencel content gives it more stretch than the wool-cotton blend on my first one, and I wanted to experiment with a slightly smaller fit without printing a new pattern size.  I sewed the seam allowances on the top portion at 1/2" (the pattern calls for 3/8") and graded out to 3/8" below the waist, then to 1/4" on the skirt portion.  

Well friends, the Toaster dress looked terrible. I don't know if it was the fabric, or the color, or the fit or what, but it was not happiness. The fit on the top was fine--just the right amount of ease and fit, but the skirt part looked off. So I didn't even hem the thing and just measured and cut to length, and then cut the bottom band out of the top of the skirt portion. For visual interest, I used the wrong side of the fabric on the collar, cuffs, and bottom band, which I like very much.

And the skirt.  My original plan was to make a black version of my quilted sage knit skirt, but the company sent the wrong fabric--a heavy black cotton sweater knit.  After I contacted them about the mix up, the owner offered me several options to fix it, and I decided to keep the sweater knit at a discount and see how it worked instead--variety is the spice of life and all that.  

I thought it would work well with the Elemental Skirt, and so set to it.  I shortened it to the length I was using in the summer, and also straightened some of the pegging near the knees to give myself a bigger walking stride.  It's still pegged, but not as severely.  I added 3/4" to the front and back of the skirt (essentially grading it up a size and a half instead of my usual 1/2" grade) because my Elemental skirts from last spring are slightly snug right now and I thought this fabric would be unforgiving.  I used a 27" Ban-Rol elastic, which is perfect right now.

My only complaint is that the fabric sheds a TON because of the machine knitting.  I finished the edges more than I usually do on a knit for that reason.  The waistband was also slightly tricky as a result.  But the result is comfortable, smooth, and seems to have good recovery for an all-cotton knit.   In any case, I'm totally happy with this fun spring addition.