Sari Summer Tunic

A while ago I bought a random selection of 5 second-hand saris from eBay. These are made of very thin cotton - definitely see-through - and some have small holes or patches. I loved the feel of these and the different patterns, but had not yet thought of any way to use them.

Now - in lockdown and after a few days of sunny weather - I am living in the garden in jeans and vests, and I wanted a light tunic or shirt that I could wear over the top of a vest, so I decided to go back to these saris.

I used a pattern by Wardrobe by Me, the Perfect Tunic. I bought this PDF pattern last year, and have already made one version out of heavy cotton, but I thought it would be a good fit with the floaty sari fabric.

One of the great things about this fabric is the way that each sari has different patterns, with borders and end patterns. I chose a lovely red fabric, and cut the pattern pieces. I cut the collar and placket from the plain red and white border, and then cut the body and sleeves from the main fabric, making sure that the sleeves and front of the tunic ended with the border. Since the edges of the sari were already finished, that meant that I didn’t even have to hem the end of the sleeves.

I love the collar and neckline of this tunic, although I find it a little complicated to put together. In the pattern all of the collar and neck pieces are interfaced, but I only interfaced one piece from each section because the fabric is so light and floaty and I didn’t want to end up with a ridiculously stiff section. So I interfaced one of the two collar pieces, one of the two left placket and one of the two right placket pieces.

After previous frustrations, I now cut out the interfacing, iron it onto the fabric, and then cut the fabric piece out around the interfacing - rather than cutting them both out and then trying to iron on the interfacing afterwards.

I love this tunic - it took about 3 hours to make as I already had the pattern pieces, and is just what I wanted. Now of course the sun has vanished…