The perfect denim skirt (probably)

Who doesn't love a denim skirt? I've made plenty over the years (here, here, here and here) and I'm still not bored of them. When I was at the Knitting & Stitching Show recently I fell for some lovely bright blue seventies style denim from Guthrie & Ghani and immediately knew I wanted to make another one with it. The question was, what style of denim skirt to make?

My current favourite pairing: plain jumper, big necklace and clogs

If you type 'denim skirt' into Pinterest, 99% of the resulting pins are either A-line button up styles, denim minis or a combination of the two. I already own a RTW denim mini which I hardly ever wear, and it seemed a bit pointless to make another one just for the sake of it. I wanted to use my denim to make a skirt that would be worn a lot, so I scrutinised my handmade wardrobe for inspiration. The two skirts that I wear the most are my barkcloth skirt made from a vintage pattern and my chambray Simplicity 2451. Both of them have just the right amount of ease to be comfortable, but are still a great shape. Having made the one seam skirt twice already, I decided to give the Simplicity pattern another go.

Casual with a striped T-shirt

Simplicity 2451 is quite an old pattern and tragically now appears to be out of print (oh no!) - I must get into the habit of sewing patterns when they're current rather than years later. If you can get your hands on a copy though I'd highly recommend it - it's relatively simple and very satisfying to sew. As per last time, I cut a size 12 of view C, with no changes and the fit is just right. The denim has a slight stretch, which always helps. Because I was using a thicker fabric this time, I used a precious fat quarter of vintage feedsack for the inside waist facing and the pocket linings.

I love the contrast and the fact that the blue in the feedsack design is almost an exact colour match for the denim. 

Paired with a pretty vintage blouse 

I'm so glad I went with a pattern that suits my style. Yes, it's not the most hip pattern on the block but as you can see from the photos it works for me and my wardrobe! In fact, I can't think of any of my tops that this skirt wouldn't work with - I have tons of styling ideas. I may have to try that out as an experiment: one skirt, styled seven different ways!  x

Hemingway Design fabrics…and a chance encounter

Somebody recently tweeted a link to the new Hemingway Design fabrics and I was immediately smitten. If you're not familiar with the Hemingways, they're a UK husband and wife design team (Wayne and Gerardine) who started out with a stall on Camden market in the 1980's, before creating fashion label Red or Dead (from which I bought a wonderful pair of brogues, long, long ago). Since then they've designed more or less everything - wallpaper, furniture, haberdashery - organised many a Vintage Festival, and managed to pick up a couple of MBE's along the way too. They've now added a mid-century inspired textiles collection to the mix and I just LOVE it - here's a small selection of the designs:

Yellow Tulip

Emerald Texture

Brick Knotted Up

Duck Egg Grid

The first one is my favourite as it manages to combine tulips, crosshatch and yellow all in one go. The last one is probably the one I'll buy though…. I've already got visions of a shirtdress.  

Now to the chance encounter in the title of this post…. another event that Wayne Hemingway organises is the Classic Car Boot Sale which took place last weekend at the Olympic Park. My boys were keen to try out the Olympic pool and I like nothing better than mooching around a car boot sale, so off we set for virtually the entire length of the Central Line. Just as we approached central London, a man got on the tube with a dog. Charlie is a bit nervous around dogs, so whilst I was reassuring him of its friendliness, the man started chatting to us. "Is that Wayne Hemingway?" Jon murmured out of the side of his mouth. "YES!" I replied, just slightly over excited! The man (let's call him Wayne) asked where we were off to. We mentioned the Classic Car Boot Sale and then got chatting about lots of things: his new fabrics (naturally), 'Oh, You Pretty Things' on BBC4,  dressmaking in general, the importance of UK production (his fabrics are manufactured by British textiles company Makower), dogs, Northern Soul, and because we're all British - the weather. His dog - a Springer Spaniel/Labrador cross - was the loveliest, most gentle dog I've ever come across and Mr Hemingway himself as friendly and charming as I'd always imagined him.  He's also from Lancashire so I may be a bit biased!

You can see more of the Hemingway Design Fabrics here and here. And no, I'm nothing to do with his company, I just happen to like the fabrics.

You never know who you might meet on the tube eh?! x