I'm starting this year's potential tunic frenzy (should there be one, that is) with one for Baby Stash. This is my overdue and penultimate contribution to Celebrating the Summer Boy which ran last week on Made By Rae and Dana's Made.
Actually, it was Made By Rae which originallly inspired me to make a kaftan-esque tunic for Baby S, because I completely fell in love with one that she made for her son, Elliot. Everything about it was just perfect (sorry to gush, but really, it was!) - a cream linen mix for the tunic and some colourful Tailor Made measuring tape fabric for the facing.
This first one that I've made is a bit of an experiment. I used single rib cotton jersey for starters, because it is probably a lot less of a fight to get on a 4 month old than a woven, and I customised the pattern from Jackie Clark Design's Baby Jacket, which you might remember I've made a couple of times already (here and here).
Clearly there is room for improvement in the shape of the tunic, but cutting it out at 1am on Sunday morning is partly to blame. It hasn't actually been tried on yet, but I'm anticipating too short a body and too wide as well, and probably the sleeves will be too long, so there will need to be some fiddling done to fix it.
But I don't want to give it up as a lost cause because the facing fabric is so fabulous. It's Beep Beep Daylight by Michael Miller and I got it from Seamstar in the UK although no doubt you can get it from other places too. There is also Beep Beep NightNight and Beep Beep Twilight and to be honest, I am a little obsessed by all three of them, so don't be surprised to see them popping up again.
Anyway, we shall have a trying on session in the very near future and I shall make another to better specifications and let you know how it goes.
Oh, and nearly forgot to say, Rae's Charlie Tunic as it is now known, is available to buy as a pdf pattern. It's too big for Baby S at the moment, but I have it stashed away ready to make up by the dozen once he gets big enough. It fits 12 months to 5T (which I'm guessing is 5 years old-ish) and of course, works just as well for girls as for boys (have a look at the Celebrating the Summer Boy Flickr photo pool for some lovely examples).
