October 16, 2013

A dotty delight from Drygoods Design


One of the delights of traveling these days is discovering lovely new fabric stores. I was lucky enough to visit Seattle this summer, home of the lovely little ladies Z and B, and of course their equally lovely parents. Laura and I ventured into Bellevue, and, behind a small hipster cafe, and down a corridor, I discovered Drygoods Design. It is a charming treasure trove of beautiful fabrics and notions, and I immediately spied a wonderful soft cotton in navy, gold and deep orange dots. Unmissable!
Now, usually I am hesitant to use quilting cotton for clothing – it’s a common mistake for beginner sewists to head for the cute designs of quilting cotton (myself included), but generally it’s actually not very good for apparel. The issue is primarily the texture and weight: basically, it’s too heavy and stiff to drape well on a body.
However…. I couldn’t resist this fabric. So then I had to figure out the right way to use it, and came to the conclusion that a pencil skirt would work the best. I returned to my Simplicity 2343 pattern – sadly, I overly-fitted my previous versions… which is a nice way of saying that I made them fit *so* well that I couldn’t sit down…
But I didn’t repeat that mistake! And here is the final, wearable, version:

A close up of one of the pockets – pretty much invisible given the fabric, but fun!

My invisible zipper insertion. Yes, I put a grey zip in a navy/gold/orange skirt… Laziness. Just laziness.

And here’s a fun surprise! I bought this green stonewashed silk on the Goldhawk road aaaages ago… I was planning to make a top with it but then I realised it would be perfect as the lining to this skirt. The lopsided bit at the bottom is the legitimately asymmetric kick pleat.

And here it is in person! The colours aren’t great on this photo, but the skirt paired well with my new navy John Smedley cardigan (thanks Mum!) and JCrew skinny gold belt.

Crumpled from being worn all day, from the back:

And guest-starring the lovely Marcel O’Driscoll-Micheel!
I love this skirt and outfit so much that another version is already in the works… watch this space!

5 thoughts on “A dotty delight from Drygoods Design

  1. Hello! Really gorgeous fabric, and very cute skirt, as is your nani iro herringbone! Such lovely fabric choices 🙂

  2. Jenny says:

    Thanks! I love the designs you can get on wovens and a skirt always seems to be the best solution for me 🙂

  3. gMarie says:

    Oh this is great Jenny! I will button up farther down! Great idea. 🙂 g

    1. Jenny says:

      Let me know how it goes!

Let me know what you think!