Leather trimmed tunic

I have this idea that I need to practice fashion illustration. I have a fabulous set of Fashionary sketch books that have been sitting untouched for at least a month. I see beautiful fabric and I simply can't control myself. A vivid picture forms in my head and I pounce on that fabric, much like what happens when a vampire sees blood. Now who's been busy watching too many episodes of True Blood back to back...

So once again, my plans to sketch this dress fell through. However, I did manage to use up the rest of my little bitty leather scraps (from here) and my black ponte (from here), so I'm going to give myself a high five for scrap busting anyway.

The dress is basically a modified version of Vogue 8840 (seen before here, here, and here) with a bit of leather embellishment. I used a metal ruler and a sharp rotary cutter to cut dozens of 6mm strips of leather. I lined up a few strips side by side and basted them on the interfaced ponte with fabric glue, before stitching them down with a single centre seam. I then just kept lining up those strips until I liked the look of the pattern. 

 

I added leather strips to the front of the dress and to a panel at the bottom of the back of the dress. I only added the back panel because I was short of ponte. Yay for that though, because I think that back panel finishes the look!

 



V8840 is a pattern designed for a top. What I wanted was a slightly unfitted tunic that I could layer with layers upon layers of wool for a Midwestern winter. I'm pretty happy with what I ended up with.

Here are the modifications I made: 

• lengthened both pattern pieces to turn the top into a tunic
• fused interfacing on the inside of the entire front dress pieces and to the back panel. This was needed to stabilise the ponte for stitching on all those leather strips.
• shortened the (short) sleeves by a few inches
• brought the side seams in by about 2.5" and adjusted the bust dart to deal with this
• ditched the back seam and kept the back piece the same but cut on the fold (cheater broad back adjustment)
• widened and lowered the neckline a smidgen
• added a front zipper