What time is it? Tunic Time!

The thing that I was afraid would happen has happened.  I was so productive during the Christmas holidays when I was off from work- both sewing and blogging.  And then the holidays were over and I went back to work.  The hours have been long, the days have been short, and I just don't get anything done here at home.  It's all I can do sometimes in the evening to just leaf through an issue of Burda Style.  I'm hoping that with the days getting longer and Daylight Savings Time starting next weekend, that things will improve.  I seem to have more energy during the long summer evenings than I do in the cold dark winter.

I have so many projects planned.  There's the Vogue dress out of teal ponte, the herringbone print ponte that is still deciding what it wants to be, the Traveler Dress that sits unfinished on the ironing board.

But last weekend, I turned my attention to tunics.  We have casual Friday at work and it's nice to trade the pantyhose in for jeans.  The problem is that I have so few "nice" tops to wear with jeans at work.  The things I do have tend to be close fitting, and sometimes I just really want something loose, long, and comfortable.  Yet stylish- don't forget stylish.

So I turned to a stack of Burda back issues that were sitting out on a shelf.  I didn't even dig into my whole stash of magazines and I was able to find several patterns that looked interesting.  I spent last Sunday evening tracing in the hopes of getting a couple of muslins made this weekend.

The first contender was this one, number 119 from the August 2013 issue:

It's got the simple shape and length that I want and I love the curved yoke seams, the dropped shoulders, and the front yokes that extend into long, wide ties.  The sleeve cuffs with buttons are very nice, too, but I'll probably opt for elastic.  It will be simpler to make, and will allow me to push the sleeves up.  (Plus, the "cuff-less" pattern pieces look like just the right length for my little T-rex arms!)

The pattern is traced and ready to go, but I'm still mulling over some construction ideas.  I'm going to deviate from Burda's instructions...

The second pattern that I traced was chosen because I've long liked the look of dress #107 from the February 2012 issue:

It's super, super simple.  I could have just used that to make a shorter top, but Burda kindly provided a shorter view:

I love the simplicity here.  Burda used the play of the shiny satin against the matte wrong side of the fabric to make it interesting.

I went ahead and traced view A, but depending on how the muslin turns out, I think I may want a little extra length and I may play around with adding a contrast band at the bottom like the dress.

I have a pretty apple green satin picked out for this.  If all goes well, I can see wearing it with a statement necklace and white jeans this spring.  (This is the year that I plan to add white jeans to my wardrobe, darn it!)

And if the top turns out, I may even make the dress.  I even have coral satin in my stash!  I've always just admired this dress and then turned the page thinking that I couldn't wear a straight boxy dress with my figure.  I discovered last year that I like straight and boxy- and the worst that could happen is that I might make a muslin and not like it.  So what, right?

So I'm off to dig around in the stash for muslin fabric and to find that green satin.  Do you like tunics?  What is your favorite tunic pattern?