Saturday, December 30, 2017

Bocksten Tunic



Bocksten tunic


I used Ilsa's Make a Better Bocksten Tunic tutorial to draft a tunic for my husband.  (And here is the tutorial to sew it together:  Tutorial:  Sew a Linen Bocksten Tunic with French Seams.)

Below are a few tips when making a tunic following her tutorial.

For the sleeves, I found it helpful to draw out a pattern piece instead of trying to measure the sleeve out directly on the fabric.  For drafting patterns, I like to use wedding aisle runner.  I bought a roll of it online from Joanns.

Here is the tutorial I used to draft the neck hole:  Drafting a Custom Neck Hole Pattern.
I labeled and filed away the neck hole to use again on future projects.

Bocksten tunic draft a neck hole


And here is the tutorial I used to draft the neck facing:  Facings 101 (Why facings really are fun and easy for everyone!)
Remember:  Don't cut out the neck hole until after you've sewn it to the main panel!
Again, I labeled and saved my drafted neck facing to use again in the future.

Bocksten tunic draft neck facing


After you've drafted your pieces, you can start constructing the tunic according to Ilsa's tutorial.

Here is Ilsa's tutorial for sewing the facing to the tunic:  Tutorial:  Sew a Keyhole Neckline with a Facing.
She recommends topstitching the facing after you've sewn it to the main panel.  I recommend understitching, unless you're doing decorative topstitching.  Threads Magazine:  Two Understitching Techniques.

Sewing in the gores was tricky.  Here are a couple of tutorials using somewhat different techniques for sewing in a gore.  Pick whichever one works best for you.  I recommend that you sew the back gore first, so that you have practice before you sew the front gore (which people are more likely to notice if it turns out wonky).