Saturday, October 8, 2016

A Trio of Tunics

I've been playing around with my Perfect T-shirt pattern ... again.  Trying to prove that you can fiddle around with a simple pattern and get whatever you want.  Well, that, and I wanted some knit tunics, because one of my latest quirks is not wanting to have my backside exposed when I wear jeans.  (I'm still not comfortable wearing leggings outside the house - tunic or no tunic.)  Anyway ... the first was the black tunic.  I drew a full front pattern from my already drawn tunic pattern, drew a line down at the quarter mark, decided how long a point I wanted, then joined the point to the "tunic length" sides.  I think that I also added a bit of width to the side seams.  Repeat operation for the back.  I got pretty well what I wanted.


































That tunic was actually made as a class sample this past winter.


Fast forward to summer...  As I was wandering through Fabricland, pawing everything in my wake, I was stopped by this silky smooth cotton knit.  It's absolutely scrumptious.  The background is an off-white with swathes of pale creams and beiges.  Not everyone's idea of exciting fabric, but I love it.  Unfortunately, this doesn't show up too well in the pictures.  So, without much over-thinking of the matter, I cut another tunic with an angled hem.
This is the "at home" look.  When I'm headed out the door to wherever, I generally put on a belt and (depending on the weather) a scarf or other accessories.
And just in case you were wondering how I handled those angled corners on the hems ... miters.


 
Last (but not least?) is a slightly different version of the hem.
For this one I was going for the "hanging corners at the side seams" look.  There were fabric constraints, and this didn't turn out quite as dramatic a side seam as I had envisioned, and I still haven't decided whether I should just cut off those sides and make plain, straight side seams.  In the meantime this tunic gets its fair share in the clothing rotation.  It's a cotton/spandex knit - so soft that I tend to maul the hem when I'm sitting with nothing for my hands to do.  (That doesn't so so good!)



I can hardly believe that I used up fabric that I had bought in the same season.  (No addition to stash!)
And I do believe that I am finally getting the hang of positioning pictures on this blog!  (Took me a while!)
 


8 comments:

  1. So nice. I'm with you on the backside coverage, any pants. I really like the pointed hem, black version. Striking and fun. The pointed sides version - reminds me of my attempt at a 'modified' sharkbite hem earlier this year. It didn't work out, but I'm determined to give it another go! Thks for sharing.

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    1. Thank-you Coco. I'm finally beginning to realize that things don't always work out perfectly, and that's OK (especially if there is a way to fix things and fabric doesn't go to waste).

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  2. Love the beautiful mitered corners which take the pointed hem trend to chic and stylish. I am going to spend some time this season morphing patterns so I can take advantage of TNT fitting and just make style changes. Thanks for more inspiration to put that intention into practice.

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    1. Thank-you, Jane! Even though I tell myself that it's so easy to make style changes to TNT patterns, in reality most of them only happen in my head.

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  3. I really like the white one with the mitred corners.

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  4. I know what you mean about tunics it's become my new thing now too. They must cover my behind! These are all lovely and I like the interesting hems.

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