Weekend Project: And The Rains Came...

To meet an old friend in a distant country is like the delight of rain after a long drought.

~ Chinese proverb

What a happy weekend! After 2 months of drought, I was finally reunited with my sewing machine! The inspiration for this reunion - a new project. I made the Patricia Tunic:

The pattern comes with 2 sleeve patterns - a bell sleeve and a straight sleeve (which can be made to many different lengths.) You can also choose to have add a contrasting yoke and/or cuffs. Interestingly, these are made simply by cutting out the facing pieces in a different fabric and sewing them on the outside, instead of on the inside, of the garment.

I decided to make a tunic with bell sleeves and contrasting yoke & sleeve cuffs.

One of the things that I like about the detailed and precise instructions, is that the pattern pieces have many lines indicating different lengths (for both the sleeves and the tunic itself) and you also get these illustrations showing how far down each will fall, depending upon your height:

Isn't that cool? These charts turned out to be spot-on accurate for me.

Okay, now some photos of my tunic - remember how I warned you that it would be Goldie Hawn ala Laugh In? Well, I wasn't exaggerating - brace yourself!

We'll start slowly - here is the end of a bell sleeve with the contrasting cuff:

Can you handle more? Here's a shot of the contrasting yoke:

If you are still with me (brave soul!) here is my tunic - in all its full glory:

You can't say I didn't warn you! ;)

I know it's crazy, but for some reason I really love it. The side slits are quite high (it really is a tunic), so I have to wear something - shorts, leggings, a blue jean skirt - underneath.

Anyways, it was wonderful to have the machine humming under my fingers again and I love my new tunic! It was just the perfect weekend! :)

I hope you had a wonderful sewing weekend too!