The Stripey Sweatshirt Tunic

I could not sleep thanksgiving night. I was back in my own bed for the first time in 11 months, and I lay there awake. My body still thought it was in Malaysia - where it happened to be the middle of the day rather than the middle of the night.

Finally, at 5 a.m.,after lying in bed for hours trying to fall asleep, I heard my little sister come downstairs to get a drink of water. So, I got up, found her in the kitchen, and told her to go get dressed. JoAnn’s opened at 6 with Black Friday sales, and we were going to go buy some new Simplicity patterns, since they were on sale for $1 each!

Photo taken by my little sister!

On our drive into town we saw a beautiful sunrise! We arrived at JoAnn's shortly after 6, and headed straight to the pattern books. We looked through the books together, discussed the merits of different patterns that struck our fancy, made our selections, and headed home with a bag of new patterns and heads full of sewing project plans!

Now, we got plenty of pretty dress patterns, but at my mom’s suggestion, we also picked up some basic everyday patterns at that Black Friday sale. My little sister grew a ton this year, and is definitely in need of some new everyday clothes!

So, patterns came home, and I was ready to get started sewing. I knew exactly which patterns I wanted to make first, and got started cutting out new dresses for both myself and my sister.

Then a few days later I found myself in a thrift store, with approximately 1 yard of gray and raspberry striped sweatshirt fleece in my arms. For $1 that light weight sweatshirt fleece came home with me and a new project got pushed to the top of my sewing queue. A sweatshirt tunic for my little sister, made using one of those basic patterns my mom suggested we buy - Simplicity 1333/D0137.

I cut the pattern out, threaded my serger, and the tunic came together incredibly quickly, even with stripe matching! Under 2 hours from cutting out to completion, I like that kind of project! (Admittedly, the stripes match perfectly on one shoulder and not at all on the other. But on both side seams the stripes match perfectly!)

The shoulder with the perfect stripe matching!

The pattern called for a knit fabric with significant stretch. The sweatshirt fabric had little to no stretch. So I figured I’d just go up one size to accommodate the lack of  stretch in the fabric. Thankfully, I looked at the finished garment measurements printed on the pattern pieces before cutting the tunic out. This pattern has 4 inches of ease added! That’s enough ease to make the pattern out of a woven! There was no need for me to cut out the tunic the next size up - it would have been huge! I cut out the tunic in the size my sister’s measurements indicated she needed, but had I been using a knit with more stretch, I would have gone one size smaller.

The tunic came out a little loose (thanks to those 4" of added ease!), but very cute and comfy! It's the perfect length to wear with leggings.

With as fast as my sister is growing, the extra roominess of this tunic isn't a bad thing at all! It allows for plenty of movement and activity - such as climbing on top of old chicken pens!

And it works pretty well for visiting the goats as well.

This shy little goat is Persephone, one of my sister's favorite doelings from this year.

And this is Harvey, our big old stubborn wether who needs a good talking to every now and then.

My little sister has certainly grown up this year while I've been gone - but she still enjoys going pattern shopping with me and wearing clothes I make her. And for that I am very thankful!