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How to Transform an Embroidered Beach Cover-Up into a Trendy Tunic

August 1st, 2008 in patterns & designs, fashion, restyle, embroidery

Jennifer Stern, contributor

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Use a ruler to mark off a 2-inch band around the neck.

My latest thrift store find.

Photo: Jen Stern

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While on vacation last week, I took a break from the beach to partake in another of my favorite activities—window shopping in Chatham, MA, which led to fabulous fashion research! The "it" look was a tunic with a circular yoke around the neck. I was amazed at all the different variations I saw, everything from soft gathered fabrics, tubular sheaths, bubbles, and A-line silhouettes. Later that week, I found a cool embroidered beach cover-up in a thrift shop (for $5).

When I got home, I popped the cover-up on my dressform and thought about it for a while—I often do that when I'm trying to decide where to take a design. Looking at a garment or something I'm working on in 3-D always helps me decide how I'm going to proceed.

The larger open neckline was finished with a hand-embroidered blanket stitch. Inspired by my fashion research expedition during vacation, I decided to transform the embroidered neckline into a circular yoke. The rest of the cover-up offered plenty of embroidered fabric to make a gathered tunic. I'm going to show you how to take this beach cover-up apart and transform it into a trendy top. If you don't have a beach cover-up to work with, you can use any scoop-neck top to design the yoke. Pick a soft fabric that coordinates with your top to design the rest of the tunic.

What You'll Need:
A tunic pattern with a circular yoke neckline (see Pattern Drafting 101 for directions on how to make this pattern)
A larger beach cover-up or top with a large scoop neck
Wash-away marker
Clear ruler
Scissors
Pins
Thread to match fabric
Dressform or a friend on which to drape the yoke pattern piece

Let's start by creating the circular yoke for the neckline. Working with the cover-up on a dressform (or a volunteer), decide how wide of a band you want. I decided that I wanted a 2-inch yoke.

It's easy to drape a circular yoke from an existing garment if you can look at it in 3-D.

Using a clear flexible ruler and a wash-away marker, mark 2 inches from the finished edge of the neckline. Using a clear ruler allows you to keep track of what's under the ruler as you mark the yoke.

If you get too close to the embroidery, make your band a little wider.

Take the cover-up off the dressform and add a 1/2-inch seam allowance.

I used a pencil and the clear ruler to mark the seam allowance.

Using sharp scissors, cut along the seam allowance, creating the band that will be used to design the yoke for your tunic.

I never cut through the neckline until I've got the yoke pinned in place—that way I never cut too much off.

Drape the band around the neck of your dressform. Adjust the band so that it lies nicely around the shoulders.

Pin the yoke at the center front to keep it in place as you work.

At the center back, pin the band in place. Trim the band, leaving short tails for wiggle room—just in case you need to make any adjustments.

Before you trim the ends off, double-check to be sure the yoke lies nicely across the shoulders.

Try the yoke on to make sure that your head will fit through! Make any adjustments that are necessary to get the yoke to lie flat.

Notice how the yoke lies over my tank top covering part of the armhole. That is approximately where the bodice of the tunic will attach to the yoke.

Using the tunic pattern you drafted in Pattern Drafting 101, cut out the pieces that will have embroidered detail first.

If you want to double-check the placement of the pattern piece over the embroidery, trace it with a wash-away marker before you cut it out.

If you have enough fabric left over, cut out the remaining pieces. If you don't have enough fabric, use a coordinating fabric. I was toying with the idea of using a lightweight knit so I wouldn't need a zipper.

I had just enough scraps to cut out the side front/back pieces out of my beach cover-up!

After you have cut all the pieces out, sew the side front/back pieces to the side front/back pieces. Do not sew the side seams together yet.

Use a 1/2-inch seam allowance to sew the front and back sections together.

If you don't have a serger to clean-finish the raw edges of the seam allowances, you can easily accomplish this with your sewing machine. Select the three-step zigzag. This stitch looks like a broken-line zigzag on most sewing machines. If you have a sewing machine with specific overcast stitches, you can use them if you like. I prefer the three-step zigzag when I'm going to topstitch the seam allowances down from the right side of the garment because I like the way it looks.

The stitch highlighted in black is the three-step zigzag.

Press the seam allowances to one side. From the right side of the fabric, topstitch along the seam, right through both seam allowances. This looks sporty and it will protect the raw seam allowances from fraying in the wash.

I topstitched using white thread. A contrasting colored thread would look great, too.

Gather the top edge of the center front and back sections. Adjust the straight stitch to 4.0 mm long. Stitch a row 1/4 inch from the raw edge. Stitch a second row 3/4 inch from the raw edge. Pull the bobbin threads to gather up the fabric.

Using a different color thread in the bobbin makes it easy to know which threads to pull when you're gathering your fabric.

Mark the center front and back of the yoke and tunic sections. Matching the center point, pin the sections to the yoke.

If you're working on a dressform, overlap the tunic sections over the yoke and stick pins into the dressform to hold the fabric in place.

If the front or back section is too wide to fit on the yoke, pull the gathers in a little tighter to get a good fit.

Take a closer look at the gathers to make sure they are evenly distributed.

Because we are attaching the front/back sections to the yoke, the bottom of the front and back armholes might not match up exactly. Pin the side seams, making sure that the tunic fabric is hanging straight. Don't try to line up the armholes because it will throw off the grain of the front and back bodice. Use a wash-away marker to scoop out the armhole that is higher. If the armhole looks like it is too low, adjust the lower armhole by moving the neckline of the tunic a little higher on the yoke (closer to where the shoulder seam would be if there was one). Then scoop out the higher armhole if it's still necessary.

I scooped out the front armhole to match the back armhole.

After the armholes are matched up, check to see if there is too much fullness in the front. Because we transferred all the fullness from the bust dart to the hem, there will probably be too much fabric in the front. If the seam between the center- and side-front pieces is pointing toward the center instead of hanging straight, that's a sure sign that there is too much fabric in the side-front piece (where we transferred the fullness from the bust dart). Unpin the side seam and pull the excess out by offsetting the seam as shown below.

Notice that I did not take any extra fabric out of the back-side seam.

Join me next Saturday, and we will finish our tunics. Check out how easy it is to put the pieces together and learn how to use a knit strip to finish the armhole and yoke. If you need help to get your tunic to this point, shoot me a comment! Happy sewing!

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posted in: patterns & designs, fashion, restyle, embroidery

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Comments (2)

JenniferStern writes: Thanks, I was soooo excited when I found all that embroidery! I typically do not wear that much embroidery...my sister has scooped up the finished top. I got some great scoop neck tees at Target, and I think I'm going to try this pattern using them...maybe I'll use different colors. I'll post it when it's done! Happy hunting in your closet! Posted: 9:17 am on August 9th

SusieQP writes: What an awesome thrift shop find! Such a beautiful embroidered piece! I can't wait for next week to see the finished project.

Your detailed directions and photos are very inspiring! I'm going to have to go through my closet and take out some old clothing that is now too big for me and see if I have anything I can alter like this. What a great idea!

Posted: 12:24 am on August 9th

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