We’ve heard your cries for help! Many of you have been searching for the long out-of-print Puppet Show Tunic, Dress + Shorts, and we’ve decided to use this as an opportunity to produce our first PDF pattern.
The Puppet Show is a sweet pattern that can be made as a dress or as a tunic, with little bloomer-style shorts to go with it. It’s got great details: a Peter Pan collar, curved yoke seam, little darts that add fullness to the skirt, and sweet button cuffs at the sleeves. It also includes our signature hem facing so you can add a bit of contrast for a beautiful dressmaking detail, and it buttons up the back.
The shorts are a very simple pull-on style with an elasticized waistband, fun gathered-detail pockets, and a little bit of gathering at the bias-bound hem for the bloomer effect. No side seam on this style, which makes it quick to assemble and comfortable to wear. And just plain fun, I think.
I wrote a blog post shortly after we released this pattern that highlights some of these details. You can see photos of them in that post. And I have to remind you of the wonderful Puppet Show tunic featured in part two of our profile of Marie-Michelle Melotte from last year.
Here are a couple photos from Janice and Jan who were two of the four people who so generously offered to help us test the digital version of the pattern last week.
Based on the feedback many of you provided in the discussion forums, we wanted to create a PDF pattern that was easy to use and that didn’t require tiling together a massive number of pages. I think we’ve done something a bit innovative with this pattern.
The PDF file comes with the pattern pieces presented in two ways so you can choose how you want to print it: as a 36″ x 48″ traditional pattern sheet that you can have printed at a Kinkos, Staples, or another service bureau that can print large sheets and as 8 1/2″ x 11″ sheets that you can print on a standard home printer.
The interesting thing about the print-at-home option is that there is minimal tiling involved. We didn’t just recreate the original pattern sheet as smaller pages that you need to match up and tile together to create your own large pattern sheet. Instead, we provide you with all the individual pattern pieces in a home-printer-friendly format. Where pieces are small enough to fit on a standard size page, we’ve given them to you that way. (No tiling involved; just cut out the piece!) Where pieces are too large to fit on a standard page, we’ve given you simple instructions for how to cut out and tile the pattern pieces themselves, instead of the whole giant sheet. Here’s an example of how the pieces are presented. That’s a non-tiled piece on the left and a tiled piece on the right.
The pattern comes in two size ranges, 0-24M and 2T-5, and it is available now on our website. When you purchase the pattern, you will receive your copy via email within 24 hours.
We hope you’ll enjoy the pattern in this format. We’re glad you asked for it!