Sew Long To Summer Blog Tour 2016: Sweater Dress/Tunic

I would like to thank Melissa of Mahlica Designs for hosting this Blog Tour.  I has been so much fun and it was great getting to visit all the other bloggers who participated in the event – 25 in total!

As I was trying to decide which item would help me say “So Long” to Summer and easily transition into Fall  I immediately thought of the styles of Lotta Jansdotter.  I purchased her book Everyday Style last year but had not made anything as yet.  Recently my mother cleaned out her fabric stash and I inherited a wonderful wine colored sweater fabric that I knew would be perfect for the Tunic featured in the book.

I gathered my supplies and set to work.

If you have traced a pattern from pattern sheets before you know that this can take a bit of time.  Make sure you transfer any markings or notations that the pattern pieces may have to your tracings as well.  Be sure to label your pieces, i.e. front, back, front yoke, etc.,  as this too will aide when you are assembling your garment.

I was very pleased to see that the Tunic had darts.  This helps to keep the tunic from looking to  much like a sack and gives it a more fitted look.  Below you can see my dart markings and then how they look once sewn.

Once the darts were completed, I sewed the shoulder seams together.  The Tunic has a yoke neck.  The yoke front is sewn to the yoke back and then the entire yoke is sewn into the tunic matching the shoulder seams.  The process looked like this:

If pay close attention to the seam allowances you should not have any trouble matching up the shoulder seams.  This is how the yoke looked inside the tunic.  I topstitched around the entire yoke – not close to the neckline, but around the outer edge.  This gives the neckline a nice finish.  I think my label adds a nice touch as well.

The sleeves are set in and then the sleeve seam and side seams are completed at the same time, sewing down the entire length.  I had decided to make this tunic with 3/4 length sleeves so I sewed a very narrow sleeve hem first, then inserted the sleeve to the garment and closed the sleeve and side seams.

A little bit of gathering around the top part of the sleeve will ease in the placement of the sleeve to the garment and help it to fit nicely.  Once the side seams were sewn I made the hem.  I did the hemming on the machine as it adds to the casual feel of the knit dress and compliments the stitching around the yoke neckline.

I am very pleased with the way the Tunic looks and fits. I am definitely going to make more of these in a variety of fabrics.  For now, here is a glimpse of how I will be wearing my Tunic to say Sew Long to Summer!  Hope you enjoyed this post.