Quick&Dirty

Quick&Dirty Peri-oid tunic

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This is my pattern for tunics, chemise, dresses. Whatever. Medevial-oid and tons better than a T-tunic or some silly “trace around your t-shirt patterns”. Sometimes called an R-tunic or “rectangular tunic.”
This pattern uses gussets and gores. Love love love gussets and gores.
I started with a pattern from a period garment that placed a gore in the middle of the front panel. I hate placing a gore in a slit in the middle of a panel. I always end up with an ugly pucker at the point. So I experimented with leaving it out. Viola, Sylvie’s QnD Peri-oid chemise. This has since evolved into Sylvie’s Dress, Nate’s Tunic, and Fearghus’ Tunic. Patterns not drawn to scale.
All evolutions have been made by me.. they seem like logical steps and end up with a better fit for my Medieval family.
-I- sew these together with a machined flat-felled seam. A how-to is posted here: “Quick&Dirty Tunic Construction”. I suppose you could use french seams.. or false-french seams.. but flat-felled seams are just so perfect. It just falls together in a way that really appeals to my inner type-A personality.

This is my chemise pattern. I’m 5’5″. It comes out at about ankle height. It tighter around the middle and doesn’t bunch up under my dress pattern. With the sleeves at 6″ at the wrist I can’t push it up above my fore-arm. This makes it a little awkward if I want to help wash dishes. I’m going to try updating this to 8″ on my next chemise and see if it will help.

https://research.fibergeek.com/img/sylvie_dress-thumb.gif

Sylvie’s dress pattern. Basically the same as the chemise pattern. A little bit longer to cover all the way to the ground (in fact, it’s long enough that I -have- to wear a belt with it to keep from tripping over the hem). A little bit wider because I’m lumpy and would prefer an overdress that doesn’t cling like spandex. Again, same issue with these sleeves as with the chemise sleeves. At 5.75 inches I can slip the dress on over my head and don’t have to have buttons on the sleeves.. BUT I can’t roll them up and wash dishes.


sylvie_updated_tunic An updated tunic pattern for me. This one brings the seam for the sleeve to the top of the shoulder, is a bit more fitted in the body, and a bit looser in the arm. Also, finally I’ve updated the wrist size so that they come out big enough to roll the sleeves up to wash dishes. For my Kentish Anglo-Saxon project I also split this down the front and added a center-front and center-back gore in addition to the side gores.

https://research.fibergeek.com/img/nate_sized_tunic-thumb.gif

An alternate cut

Nate-sized tunic. Nate’s my brother. Someday I expect he’ll actually come up with a medieval name. Ah well. This is a tunic, a little longer than knee length on a 6′ average large/extra large guy. I suppose, if your guy has “freakish monkey arms” you might need to lengthen the arms.

https://research.fibergeek.com/img/fearghus_sized_tunic-thumb.gif

Fearghus-sized tunic. Fearghus is my honey. This tunic is about knee length for a 6′ large 4X to 5X man. The seams sit nicely on his shoulders and it doesn’t squeeze him in the middle.

2 thoughts on “Quick&Dirty Peri-oid tunic

  1. I’m hoping to make some tunics using your info. We’ll see how far & how soon before I need to use them.

  2. Thank you for doing all the hard work by creating such wonderful patterns. I’m hoping to make a few tunics for this Spring and your pattern is perfect!

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