The Perfect Tunic

I taught a class once a day at the Puyallup WA Sewing & Stitchery Expo last weekend. I love teaching and being at the Expo is totally the most fun you can have without sitting down at a sewing machine. In preparation for the class, I made 12 pieces of clothing, so that means lots of blog posts, right?! We’ll start with what I found to be the Perfect Tunic. Stick with me and I’ll tell you why at the end!

The class I taught was about sewing clothing from the Embrace Double Gauze made by Shannon Fabrics – very cool stuff! Although it was originally designed for swaddling babies, I thought it would be a great fabric for garments and indeed it is!

Using Indygo Junction’s Urban Tunic pattern, I chose a solid, soft grey double gauze and a coordinating toile print. My goal was to create a border print look because I loved the tunic on the cover. Since Shannon’s Double Gauze isn’t available in a border print, I made my own!

For the toile “border” I cut two strips 8″ high by a little longer than the width of the front and back of the bottom of the tunic pattern pieces. First I serged the edges, turned and pressed them under. Next, I measured 6″ up from the bottom of the front and back, marked it with a chalk pencil, then carefully pinned a strip on top of both the front and the back fabric pieces lining it up with my markings.

The “border” strips were topstitched to the front and back pieces before the side seams were sewn, so that I could still put pockets in the tunic. Gotta have pockets! After stitching, I cut off the excess width I had left on the strip. It’s better in this case to have more length and trim it off than to find out you cut it too narrow and not have enough width!

I did like the extra weight that the toile strip added to the bottom of my tunic. And, as you can see above, I added a bit of surprise by making my pockets from the Toile print. My last step was to finish the bottom with a 1-1/4″ machine stitched hem.

Tips & Ideas:

• When you make your own tunic, if you’re not adding pockets, you can cut one long “border” strip and sew it onto the tunic after the side seams are sewn. Alternatively, you could sew the “border”strip in as an insert rather than stitching it on top of the front and back pieces. In that case, you would press the seams toward the tunic and topstitch those seams in a color to match the main body fabric.

• Double Gauze is a beautiful, open weave 100% Cotton with a wonderful drape to it. As an open weave fabric, of course, it likes to ravel a bit. I recommend finishing your seams with a zigzag or serged edge as soon as possible once your pieces are cut out.
• Watch for a post all about sewing with Double Gauze soon!

I hope you’ll try the Urban Tunic – if you can’t find it locally, click here! It’s a gorgeous design that hangs beautifully, was super comfortable to wear and I got tons of compliments as i walked around. That makes it the Perfect Tunic!  I added leggings and sneakers since I was walking around a warm, huge. sewing show. You could also wear it with summer sandals in warmer weather. For cooler weather, it makes a fabulous layering piece over a turtleneck or tee. Enjoy and let me know what you think!

Moment of Further Truth:
Shannon Fabrics provided me with the fabrics used in this post. This post includes affiliate links and I may receive a small payment if you make a purchase using that link. Thank you if you do – it helps to keep The Sewful Life stitching along and I sincerely appreciate your support. All opinions are solely and truly mine and I only gush about things I love!