You would not believe how many StyleARC garments I have cut out at the moment.  All in stretch fabric (either knits or stretch wovens).  I have come to the conclusion that although I love to sew wovens, I love to wear stretch.  During the week I managed to squeeze in enough dribs and drabs of sewing time to construct Rowe’s Tunic.

I’d seen a few tops on Pinterest lately with lace fronts, and wanted to give it a try. This piece of stretch lace was originally from someone else’s stash, and the blue is a Spotlight cotton/lycra picked up on sale last year. I am pleased with the combination.

I just overlaid the stretch lace on the cotton/lycra, and cut out the front and the back insert as one. I stabilised the back piece by sewing the lace to the cotton/lycra with a simple straight stitch inside the seam line, and did the same around the front neckline. Otherwise I just treated the lace as one piece with its backing and followed the instructions.

Most of the construction was on the overlocker, but I basted the neck bands on with the machine before overlocking them in place. All the pieces went together very nicely – perfect drafting. I made this in StyleARC size 12.  The hem is secured in place with fusible tape, then stitched with the twin needle.

I’d quite like to make this with a slim long sleeve for winter. As it is, the weather in Melbourne has turned quite cold very rapidly, and I wore this tunic dress with leggings, a long cardi, boots and a scarf. I did receive a number of compliments on it, hooray! I was very much wearing me-made that day.

And have you been watching The Great British Sewing Bee? Oh, it is wonderful! We have been watching it on our TV via Youtube – one of the great things about a “smart” TV – and I have to say that Ann Rowley is my hero. Such exquisite stitching – and the scarf that she was wearing in episode 3 is divine! Not only can she sew and tailor beautifully, but she crochets! The scarf/wrap is called Bohemian Rhapsody – it’s had a huge number of hits on Ravelry since that episode aired on Tuesday night. Wonderful!  I want to be just like Ann when I grow up…