Outfit Along 2016

I’m barely squeaking in this project before the outfit along deadline. The official outfit along pattern for this year was the Sewaholic Hollyburn skirt, but I wanted to make the cropped version of the sweater, so I decided a dress would be the way to go. I settled on making up the Cashmerette Upton dress.

I really like this pattern, but I think my next version will need a few tweaks. I think I’ll go up a cup size in the bodice and be more careful about where the darts are aiming; they look a little high on this version. I did make the neckline about an inch higher than the pattern is drafted, but otherwise I didn’t change anything on this version.

I used some kind of suiting fabric for the main dress with cotton batiste to line the bodice. I think it’s a polyester/wool blend. It pressed fairly nicely, but doesn’t wrinkle and is quite stiff, and to be truthful, also rather itchy. I’m glad I didn’t make something with unlined sleeves with this fabric. The dots are a little bit flocked; I pre-washed the fabric and have washed the dress once since I made it too, and they don’t seem to be coming off.

The pockets want to work their way to the outside sometimes, but I’m glad I have them. In a fabric with less of a tendency to cling to itself, I don’t think they’d do that.  guess I’ll find out when I make it again; maybe I need a little more ease in the hip area of the skirt too.

The second part of the outfit along was knitting a sweater. I used the official outfit along pattern, Zinone by Andi Satterlund. I also used the recommended Quince and Co. Sparrow yarn, which is a linen yarn. I’d never worked with linen yarn before, and I found it very strange to work with. It’s the yarn equivalent of a gluten-free muffin; the texture is strange, but not bad. I think I’d knit with it again sometime.

You would think this would have been a super-quick knit since it’s quite cropped and has barely any sleeves, but that was not the case for me. I just could not memorize the lace pattern, so that part took forever. I was happy to get to the point where it was all stockinette stitch in the round. I’m still not entirely sure that the dress and sweater go together. The yellowy-tan colored yarn is quite neutral, but I couldn’t find much in my stash that felt like it naturally paired with it. I do rather like the juxtaposition of the casual cropped sweater and the more tailored dress. The pattern itself was overall well-written, as you would expect from an Andi Satterlund pattern, and her post on working with linen yarn was quite helpful as I got started.

So there’s my outfit for OAL 2016. I’m hoping to catch up with seeing what some of the other participants have been finishing up too, now that I’m done.