Butterick 5218 Tunic View B

Back to the blog! The weather and my schedule have been cooperating at last! I finished this up in time for the Portland trip in early May but couldn't schedule a photo of me wearing it.  Finally I do!

It's par for the course on this project, which felt like I was working on it forever! I originally cut it out last fall in Material Girls but didn't get around to sewing it before the weather changed.Even though it's long sleeved, it's made of a light weight linen (from Jo-Ann's) that wouldn't have been wearable in cooler weather.  So I started working on it again this spring in bits and pieces.

This is another OOP pattern from the stash, although I noticed it's still available on the Butterick patterns web site. They do have a new one on the site that's somewhat similar in front (Butterick 6099), but the back has a yoke and pleat instead of gathers at the back neck.

I pretty much made it from the pattern, although the illustration is slightly wrong. View B actually uses the same collar as View A instead of the notched collar shown in Views C and D, but that's was fine with me. What wasn't so fine was those voluminous gathered sleeves, so I shortened and tapered them. I took about 6" off the width and about 2" off the length, and they're still full length sleeves. I also shortened the tunic by 4", so unless you're tall, you might end up with a dress instead of a tunic. I used the extra length to add a real hem instead of the narrow one directed by the guide sheet.

I do like the result though, in spite of those things and a few other wonky aspects of the guide sheet. I don't know that I'll make another though.

Collar detail:

Placket detail (aren't those buttons great? Like jewelry):

Back neck detail, with gathers:

And at last, a photo of the tunic on me! In addition to the tunic, I'm wearing a RTW pair of ponte leggings, and some Born sandals. And the silver hoops I wear most of the time. My hair's up so you can see garment details.