So how do you follow up a first post? Don’t say it – with a second.  This is how popstars/musicians feel releasing their second album – under pressure! Remember the doyenne of cool Natalie Imbruglia’s first song -Torn? Yes? But can you remember her second? No – me neither. However, I will press on regardless for that is what perseverers do. I’m actually improving too – please notice that the pictures have been centred this time. Not rocket science I realise but small steps for the technologically phobic (or ‘User Error’ as the husband refers to me – so rude).

So, I’ve been busy – there’s nothing like reporting your results on a blog to increase productivity. Also, ‘See What I Made’ don’t run any workshops in the summer so it’s always a good time for our own projects. I’m very keen to do some tutorials and number one will shortly be on the tutorials page -how to line your pencil skirt in a whole new way. Well, it’s new to me anyway, everybody else might have been doing it that way for years.

I found some brilliant London skyline lining in my favourite Aladdin’s cave of fabric on the Goldhawk Road in Shepherd’s Bush and, confident I had some denim in my fabric locker, headed home to make a super sleek, Marilyn Monroe style denim pencil skirt to be documented at each stage for my tutorial. Without the pointy boobs and beauty spot though.

I finished the skirt and hung it up ready for it’s first outing, which was church last Sunday. I paired it with a fluorescent yellow top and leopard print shoe boots so I really was feeling like the dog’s whatevers and ready for anything. I was late, no real surprises there, so hurried in and sat down. It was then that I realised that the split up the front (which looked so promising while I was mincing around my bedroom, admiring the spanx effect of this skirt) had shot up to my pants and the pointy bits on the hem stuck straight out like two missiles looking for a target. I had to sit in a very demure fashion with my hands in my lap for the entire time. Demure is not a word I’ve ever used in a description of myself and I doubt anybody else has either. Fidget would be more appropriate but I couldn’t do that either. So I sat, very still, hands on lap protecting my modesty, and wondered why on earth this fabric was so stiff and unyielding that I might have need to call an ambulance crew to strap me into a stretcher and hoist me into a standing position for the last song? It dawned on me, while I should have been listening to what really was an excellent sermon, that the denim, which I had pulled out so hastily in my enthusiasm for getting a blog post out, was in my cupboard because I had bought it a few years ago to recover our camping chairs. This was just before I decided we couldn’t fit them in our car and bought new ones. Laughing  in the face of sustainability.

I have learned a valuable lesson – choose your denim carefully. I’ve since found the denim fabric I was thinking about in the first place, a bit further down the pile – firm in texture but lovely and soft, like jeans should be. Not like someone ripped the awning off your caravan and turned it into a skirt.  If I get tired of it, I’ll turn it into a hammock but in the meantime, I got a tutorial out of it and it really does look good (although only while I’m standing up) so it wasn’t a complete waste of time.

In the words of Marilyn herself “clothes should be tight enough to show you’re a woman but loose enough to show you’re a lady” She didn’t say anything about showing your pants in church though…