Tunic Top

Yesterday and Today

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Dark Teal Corduroy Pants/Jeans
Closet Case – Ebony T-Shirt/Dress

I’ve been busy sewing. Yesterday made this pair of corduroy pants/jeans (which I’ve been wearing all day – they’re very comfortable with a waist that’s large enough but just snug enough with the help of a bit of elastic in the back, they aren’t pulling down which means the crotch depth is good). As you an see I used a fly front which let me shape the sides just a bit (can’t shape them much because I don’t have hips and my waist is almost the same measurement as my hips). I no longer bother with inside pockets – the top pockets work just as well and look OK. There are also two back jeans pockets and as always, the dart down the centre back to give the legs/bum a bit of shape.

Back View

There’s a jeans back yoke to shape the top hip area which works quite well. There is still some bagginess just below the bum which I suspect I could get rid of if I brought in the back crotch about an inch – I’m not going to do that on these pants. The fullness doesn’t show when I wear a tunic length top. However, I will try that with the next pair – a dark maroon to go with the Ebony T-shirt.

Today, I cut out and zipped up the flowing tunic top. Simple to make – stitch the shoulders, add the neck facing, sew in the sleeves, stitch the underarm and side seams, finally hem sleeves and bottom. Two-three hours work. I lengthened the tunic by 2″ adding an extra 1 1/2″ to the front. In previous iterations of the tunic I found it tended to hang shorter in the front than the back – this time I have managed to even it up.

I love having a dedicated coverstitch machine – it makes hemming garments (and other projects) a snap. That precise double row of stitching which covers the hem edge on the inside gives the garment that commercial finished look and it’s so easy to do. My advice to people who do a reasonable amount of garment sewing is to buy a good mechanical serger without a lot of bells and whistles, and invest in a separate coverstitch machine as well, rather than an expensive serger with coverstitch which takes an annoying amount of time to convert from serging to coverstitch and back again! The two machines will likelky cost lest than that fancy serger. My covertitch machine just needs threading (which is very simple) and it’s always ready to go.

Tomorrow I will cut out the magenta corduroy pants and get those whipped together over the next few days.

Knit Tunic

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As you can see, I’m  not exactly a “leggings” person. However, everybody seems to be wearing them so I thought I’d give them a try. I bought a funky black and white pair during the summer in Lunenburg. I have yet to find something to wear with them! I’ve tried printed fabrics, and solids, but the prints just don’t work with the stripes. I made both a black and navy pair from some lovely stretch knit I bought from Distinctive Sewing Supplies, they both fit fine but same problem – nothing to wear with them that looks reasonable.

Last week, I bought a couple of pieces of solid colour knit fabric, hoping if I made a couple of tunic tops they’d work with the leggings – forget that, the black and white stripes come above my knee in the front (really, I can’t publish a photo) and so even this sedate solid rust colour tunic does not look great. Here it is with black leggings. The tunic turned out fine, but, really, it doesn’t make me into a leggings person. The dark teal tunic – exactly like this one, same length – doesn’t look any better. Wearable around the house but for going out anywhere – not too sure about that. I just don’t have the shape for leggings. Probably shouldn’t wear them…

Garment Sewing Again

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I’ve finally made it back to some garment sewing. A couple of weeks ago in her Distinctive Sewing Supplies newsletter, Catherine Goetz featured ITY knits (some prints for tops as well as solids in a 300 weight) perfect for making leggings. She included this Jalie pattern as well.

 

Jalie leggings

Jalie Leggings Pattern

I ordered 1 metre of the ITY knit in black and navy, and the pattern. They arrived early this week. Couldn’t wait to give the pattern a try – very simple: cut out x2 the single pattern piece (no side seam) in the navy, some elastic for the waist, quickly stitch it up on the serger (no hand sewing required). In under an hour I had a finished pair of leggings that fit very well.

Now I needed a tunic length top. A while back I had made a top using Marsha McClintock’s t-Shirt Trifecta pattern – turned out well. So I looked through the garment fabrics I had on hand, found two jersey knits I’d purchased earlier in the spring. Cut out the pattern (had to use some of the leftover ITY knit for the top since I didn’t have enough of the jersey knit), sewed it up. Not as fast as the leggings, obviously, but a couple of hours and I had a finished tunic length top.

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Tunic Top

Top with matching leggings – an outfit I can wear now, and into the winter (with a turtleneck for warmth).
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That was yesterday. I got up this morning and headed directly to my cutting table to cut out the second pair of leggings in black. Those went even faster than yesterday – I knew what I was doing at this point.

Then a second tunic top. Again, I was short on fabric, but this time rather than use the black ITY knit, I had enough fabric to piece the sleeves with a center seam from shoulder to cuff (if I hadn’t mentioned it you likely wouldn’t notice it when I have the tunic top on – and the seams in the sleeves lined up perfectly with the shoulder seams!)

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Tunic Top II

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Outfit #2

Three hours later: another outfit.

I try to keep to the rule – new garment in, an old garment out! I tossed two summer t-Shirts so I could put these two new tunic tops in the closet. I confess, though, I didn’t throw out pants to be replaced by the leggings.

A quick mop up once I was finished and I’m ready to tackle whatever will be my next sewing project – likely a quilt.