McCall’s 6885 ~ Dress into Tunic!

In May, 2017 I made a shirtdress with this pattern. And in August I pulled out the same pattern and made a tunic. This is a brief follow-up blog on the tunic.

If you’d like to read all about the shirtdress and the pattern adjustments, please click here for the original blog post.

London Souvenirs

When we were in London two weeks ago I was bound and determined to get fabric, and I had the  Pattern Review Tunic Contest in mind. After looking through Liberty, I settled on a beautiful cotton lawn from Sew Over It studio in Islington. The bird print is just stunning, and cotton lawn feels so good against the skin. It will likely crease, but after a couple of washings it will soften up and probably become an autumn favourite.

Once home I dug through my pattern stash and looked at several tunic options. I decided to come back to this McCall’s shirtdress for two reasons: The bird print is what attracted me to the fabric and I didn’t want to lose any of the birds with a bunch of seams (this pattern has no seams front or back). I could not fathom trying to pattern match! Second, the print and fabric seemed to call for a placket – something to break up the expanse of design and give it some structure.

To convert the pattern into a tunic, I simply calculated where I wanted the top to end on my thigh, then cut there. Otherwise I followed a very similar procedure to making the shirt dress.

There were a couple of minor changes:

• No belt. I’ll use a leather belt if I decide to cinch in the waist.
• I added an inside cuff of the contrast fabric because I want to wear the sleeves bracelet length. The tab for rolled up sleeves was also added, but since I think this will be more of a fall/winter tunic, I wanted an option to wear the sleeves down and the sleeves are pretty boring without something.

The contrast fabric is from a brand new fabric store and sewing studio here in Atlanta, Topstitch. The store is absolutely charming, with an excellent selection of primarily garment fabrics. If you’re in the ATL and don’t want the massive warehouse experience, head over to Decatur and see what she has.

Time Required:

• Cutting: 1 hour
• Sewing: maybe 6 hours? This felt like a really slow project. The fabric was a bit fussy  and would show where stitches had been unpicked, so I took my time. Still, I started on Saturday afternoon and finished on Sunday afternoon so that’s not exactly turtle-paced.

Here are a few photos. I must say that I really like this colour, and I adore this fabric!