Let's Sew a Tunic - Simplicity #2147, Part 3

The rest of this pattern is pretty straight-forward.  I accomplished it rather quickly after getting the kids to bed.  

We left off needing to seam the sleeves.  Here the directions merely state 'press up sleeve hem.'  I wasn't sure by how much so I folded up 3/8" then folded over another 3/8" for a nice small hem and stitched.

Finished view of top half of tunic.

I'm not adding lace so I moved onto the pleats.  Here I initially marked my pleats on the wrong side of the fabric, but you need to fold and baste them on the RIGHT side of the fabric, so I had to transfer my lines.  

Next, I folded my pleats and pinned.  I shot it briefly with a steam iron and took it to the machine to baste.

Here is a view of how I originally pinned.  Well when I went to baste and had to remove a pin to sew the pleat would move.

You can see the last pleat on the far right...the lines aren't matching up so I ripped out my basting line and pinned a bit differently.

This worked a lot better since the pins were holding the fabric in place, but I didn't have to remove them to sew my basting line.

So the pleats didn't shift and were basted properly.

Moving onto the rest of the pattern I didn't take pictures since it goes rather quickly.  Sew each side of the tunic bottom, attach the tunic top to the bottom.  I had to ease my arms into the bottom a bit to avoid puckers and hemmed the bottom.   I hemmed it with a folded up 2" hem.  I may let this down a bit for a tiny bit longer tunic.  I tried it on and decided it was a bit too baggy & boxy at this point.  When I was pregnant, my maternity clothes weren't even this big so I sewed the side seams of the tunic in a bit...still having lots of ease, but a tiny bit more fitted.  

The finished top!  

Thoughts on the pattern...I think if I were to make this again, (maybe a sleeveless version) I'd use a lighter weight drapier fabric for more movement and flow with the pleats.  Also, I thought it was over-kill (but then again I never made a garment so maybe this is standard), but it states to reinforce the seams at the underarms by stitching over the first set of stitches and then zigzagging back over that.  Are we really that tough on our clothes?  I admit it was late and I was ready to be done with this thing so I only stitched one line of stitches.