I’ve had this flowered black and red denim I’ve since I was 13 or 14 years old. I remember being so inspired by the “sewing machine driver’s test” we took in Home Ec class that I got my mom to buy me this at JoAnn’s Fabrics and I made a really simple tote bag out of this using her old pea-green Kenmore sewing machine. The bag fell apart soon after (let’s just say I wasn’t big on following any “rules”), but I just attached the straps back on with some safety pins and continued to use it as my school bag for the rest of the year.
I honestly had no idea this fabric even still existed, but my mom found it lurking somewhere in my old room at their house and brought it with her this summer. I looked through my pattern magazine archive (made so much simpler by scanning each of the index pages into an online album) and #113 from the July 2008 Burda WOF magazine jumped out as the prime contender.
There wasn’t much fabric left, but it was plenty enough to make this skirt. I’d definitely keep this one in mind if you’ve got a metre or so of heavyweight fabric you want to make use of! The front and back are both cut on the fold, too, so it’s perfect for large or busy prints like this denim, where seams would interrupt the design.
You can just get the tiniest peek of the bright red fabric I used to line the pockets here:
Since I’d just finished sewing my designer jeans and I wanted to make this more like a jeanskirt, I reused the back pocket pattern from that Knipmode jeans pattern and added them to the back:
Here’s a good shot of those scoop pockets and the two front pleats:
This was a super simple skirt to throw together, and the wide waistband is always a flattering choice in skirts. The pockets are a good size, and it’s a really great basic pattern to have in your arsenal, whether you make it up in summery or wintry fabrics. This one’s going to bypass my normal stack where traced patterns go to be stored and is getting hung up on my pattern rack with the handful of patterns I sew over and over again!
So now that I’ve confessed to using a fabric of fabric I’ve had for over 16 years, I’d love to know if anyone has anything in their stash they’ve held on to for longer?