I have a giant girl-crush on Debbie of Lily Sage and Co. I’ve raved here about her stunning makes before, so I was excited to try one of her patterns: the Sea Change Top.

The front panel is lightweight cotton knit with a panel print of mountain scenery from Mood. Ironically I passed over this fabric the first time I saw it last time I was in NYC — for some reason I was feeling morose and foolishly left without any. Then I saw Debbie post a top she made with this fabric , which looked great, so I had to have some for myself and ordered it online. The things a girl-crush makes you do!

For the back and trim I used a beige knit from one of my local fabric stores, which probably was just a little too heavy-weight for this design. I sewed the Extra Small and made the bottom band longer than called for so the top wouldn’t be quite so cropped.

Sober second thought looking at these pictures tells me I may have gone a little overboard on the range of colours in this outfit — but I love those pants, and I shoehorn them into outfits where they don’t really belong all the time. They’re Yoga Jeans by Montreal’s Second Denim Co. (made in Canada!), skinny ankle pants in watermelon. Yesterday I found the same pair in “citron”, which is the loudest, happiest shade of greenish yellow and makes me absolutely GLEEFUL, and they were on SALE, so more ill-advised colour combination outfits are in my near future, no doubt!

I’m honestly not sure I’m going to wear this a lot. It might be a bit too fussy for me. I don’t mean fussy in a covered-in-ruffles-and-bows kind of way, but the bagginess and big-ass kimono sleeves make me self conscious while I have it on, so I fuss around making sure it’s all sitting where it’s supposed to. There’s a certain way to sit with your elbows forward on a table that would give anyone nearby major side-boob viewage up the sleeves. (Well, as major a side-boob as one could get with these barely-fill-an-A-cup girls.) But I have only worn this once so far, so I’ll give it another couple of tries and see if it grows on me (and please not literally — it’s quite big enough already).

At first glance I thought the collar band seemed way too small to fit with the very large neck opening, but after quite a bit of wrestling and a little bit of cursing it worked out well. But the finished neck opening is quite wide, so be aware of that if you intend to try this pattern and prefer a neckband that doesn’t drift down towards your shoulders. Overall this was an easy top to put together. Debbie’s pattern is well laid out with clear instructions.