A Woolen Tunic with Short Sleeves

Back in June when I made the long sleeve woolen tunic for a friend, I also made a short-sleeved one. The wool was lovely to work with; no fraying and beautiful to hand sew. I used the same 'pattern' as the previous tunic - basically just rectangles, squares and triangles. The main body is two rectangles. The sleeves are four rectangles. There is an underarm gusset which is a square, and triangles of fabric are added into the 'skirt' to add fullness.

I don't know the artist of this particular pattern but it is a good indicator of how the layout of my tunic looked. I didn't use a faced neckline because the wool was quite bulky, but the rest of the layout is very similar. I measured the wearer's body and added a little extra for ease of movement plus seam allowances.

I sewed the long seams by machine.

Once the seams were sewn, I whipped the seams open and down.

I added a supportive placket around the collar split so that the pressure of normal wearing wouldn't end up ripping the split at the front.

The rest of the neckline was turned down with a small hand-sewn hem to reduce bulk.

I left this tunic plain so that the recipient could sew trim on if he wanted. I have yet to get a photo of him wearing it, but it looks nice on.

Embroidered Seam Treatments

I have been helping a friend out by working some simple embroidery over the seams of one of his early period tunics. The ground fabric is wool and the embroidery is in DMC Perle cotton. The combination is very pleasant to work with, and works up easily.

Blanket stitch on edges supplemented with a couple of stitches in the middle

I like to use this trick to keep my stitches relatively even; I mark the distance between the stitches on the index finger of the hand I use to hold the piece of fabric that I am embroidering.

Little cross stitches in blue with an orange anchoring stitch worked in the centre