When I bought the Daphne Duo patterns, the Dahlia tunic was one of the free patterns for the month.  I buy Style Arc patterns in pdf format via Etsy or Gumroad, but prefer to buy the hard copy via the Style Arc website – and there is also a free pattern on offer with every purchase.  This one was right up my alley.

From the Style Arc website: DAHLIA TUNIC:  Three different looks in one – Boxy top + Singlet top + Layered Tunic. The trendy boxy top can be worn alone or as a layered piece with the attached singlet, of course the singlet can be made separately as a basic for your wardrobe. So many alternatives, different colours, textures, prints – the choice is yours.  FABRIC SUGGESTION: Crepe, Silk, Rayon.

Once again I scrabbled through my stash.  It is a rather deep stash!  I came up with this beautiful soft block printed Indian cotton that was a gift my sister-in-law brought back for me after a holiday.  I love getting fabric gifts!  I thought that it would be perfect for the overlayer.  For the underlayer I dug even further into the stash and found some navy fabric of indistinct origin.

I was able to cut the fabric to take advantage of the border print across the front. I also cut bias strips to use for binding the armholes of the underlayer.

The sleeveless top underneath is sewn to the overlayer at the neckline, but that’s all. You can sort of see it in these photos.

The small darts coming from the armholes provide lovely bust shaping, and fit my C cup quite well. They’d be easy to alter for different sizes.

The overlayer is much larger than the top underneath, and floats quite nicely over it. Style Arc suggest that both pieces could be made independently, and that is definitely the case. I can envisage this top made up with a lace overlayer and a contrasting fabric for the sleeveless top underneath. You could play with fabric combinations quite a lot.

I am rather drawn to patterns that have a looser layer over a more fitted one at the moment, and have identified quite a few that are already in my stash. These include Style Arc Tammy, Style Arc Kylie (already sewn once but as yet unblogged) and Butterick 6048. I can see a bit of experimentation with this silhouette ahead of me.

By the way, the pants are vintage McCalls 8149 and were blogged here.