Have you ever sewn with summer weight wool? This skirt was our 1st time sewing with it, and we were pleasantly surprised.
We chose to use a wine and ivory herringbone brushed wool suiting. Summer weight wool is much lighter than regular wool. It seems like it might have a slightly looser weave too as I never got too hot wearing this skirt on a very hot summer day. It does have the slight itchiness that regular wool has.
This summer weight wool has a beautiful herringbone pattern. The fabric really is so stunning that I decided buttons of any color would detract from the whole effect of the skirt so I made covered buttons. (That was a fiasco in itself and took 3 different orders and returns to get the right buttons, but I digress!!!) I also spaced the buttons much closer together than the pattern recommends because I was going for a vintage look. Do you think I achieved it?
We used the Fumeterre Skirt pattern from Deer and Doe to sew with our summer weight wool. When I 1st made this skirt I didn’t pull the back elastic tight enough, and it kept slipping down through the day. Fortunately, I like it enough to want to wear it a lot, so I fixed the elastic issue immediately!
One more thing to know about summer weight wool, it is laundered in the same manner as regular wool, so plan to dry clean instead of washing and drying your finished garment. And by the way, even though we’re calling this “summer weight wool” you really can wear this wool suiting all year round!
Of course I needed a new top to go with this skirt! For a summer top, I chose to use Art Gallery Fabric voile from Cali Fabrics. This vine fabric is so gorgeous, but it’s gone now, so be sure to check out the other Art Gallery Fabric voiles in the shop! As with all the Art Gallery Fabric voile we’ve used, the quality is supreme. One thing we love about this voile is it’s stable enough to work with, but lightweight enough to wear all day long on a hot summer day. And it’s just opaque enough to not have to wear a layer underneath, adding to it’s comfort-on-a-hot-day status.
We used the Amherst Shirt pattern from Hey June Patterns. This time we used the sleeve from the Lucerne Blouse because of that FUN tie detail. As you can see, we didn’t match the pattern perfectly on the pocket, but we still love the effect. This shirt is absolutely stunning and one we’ll be wearing VERY often all summer long! Please feel free to check out more on this skirt over at Skirt Fixation.