Start with your centre chest. This is taken with the measuring tape parallel to the floor, across the fullest part of your chest (usually nipple level). Mark this line with some string or yarn tied around yourself, or stickers at this point on your sides.

Next, your waist. This is usually described as the narrowest point of your torso, but it's not always that easy to see. Instead, hold your arms outstretched and bend sideways - where your body bends is your natural waist.

Measure, and again mark this point also.

Next, your hips. This is the widest point around your butt and the top of your legs. Measure it, but don't mark it. Instead, mark the point where the tops of your hip bones are - called the 'high hip' or anatomical hip, sometimes.

Measure the width of your shoulder, from the base of your neck to where your arm starts. It's worth recording this for each side as it may vary.

Measure your biceps around, by holding your arm up with elbow bent and making a fist. You may also want to check if your bent elbow around is a bigger measurement than this.

Then, put your hand on your hip with elbow bent, and measure the length down the outside of your arm, from your shoulder to desired sleeve hem.

Only a few more! Remember those marked points?

Measure across your back at the marks you made while taking your centre chest measurement. (If that's not the widest point of your back, then measure at that point.)

Next, measure the distance from the top of your shoulder to your waist mark.

Measure again from the top of your shoulder to the desired hem length. Note as well if this is closer to knee-length or shorter, or if it's past your knees. (It's up to you!)

Almost done. Measure across the back of your neck, from shoulder to shoulder. Then, measure across the front of your neck at a comfortable collar level.

Alright. Now we're done with measuring.

Take a fresh piece of note paper. Note your seam and hem allowances first - I like to use 1.5cm for both, but it's up to you. You'll need to add this to all sides of each panel.

So, first comes your body panel. Depending on the length and width of your fabric, you can either cut this as one long panel, or two panels with a shoulder seam. We'll work this out later though!

The width of your body panel will be equal to half of your chest or waist measurement (whichever is bigger), plus 2 X seam allowances.

Or, as a formula - 1/2(chest or waist)+(2xSA)

Your back span measurement should come out to almost the same as the body panel width sans seam allowance. If there's a major discrepancy, you'll need to cut your body panel as two pieces with a shoulder seam; adjust the front and back panel widths accordingly.

The length of your body panel depends on how you're cutting it. If you're cutting it as a single piece, then it's double the shoulder to hem length, plus 2x hem allowance.

If you're cutting it as two panels, each panel will be as long as the shoulder to hem length, with a seam allowance at one end and a hem allowance at the other.

Your sleeves will be the width of either your bicep or elbow measurement (whichever is larger) and the length of your shoulder to sleeve hem measurement.

Now, remember how you measured the distance from your shoulder to your waist or your high hip?

Take that measurement, and subtract it from the body panel length sans seam and hem allowances. This is the length of your gore.

If your tunic is knee-length or shorter, use a gore width of 20cm (or equivalent). If it's longer than knee length, use a gore width of at least 30cm. (More means bigger hem, so it's up to you again.)

There's one more piece to note down. You'll need an underarm gusset on this pattern.

The gusset is a square or diamond-shaped patch of fabric inserted in the underarm to fill in the gap. Square gussets are an older and looser style; diamond gussets fit closer and can be smaller, but they're harder to place nicely on your fabric.

I use a square gusset of 15cmx15cm (plus seam allowance) or a diamond gusset of 10cm wide and 15cm long (plus allowances).

Now, what about that graph paper?

Well, I'll need photos for this step, so I'll have to take a break for now and show you all in a few hours.

We now return to the tutorial, after a far too tiring work day...

The graph paper is how you get both your cutting layout and your estimate of fabric needed. Here's some photos of my efforts today for an idea of what it eventually looks like (including some crossing-out because I used a pen; don't use a pen, use a pencil).

Decide on a scale. On A4 graph paper I like to use 1 square = 5cm, but it's up to you.

So remember how I mentioned the width of the fabric you want to use? Plot that on your graph paper first, on the horizontal axis. When you're plotting measurements, round your fabric width *down*, and the size of each panel *up*. This does make it more likely that you'll have extra fabric over, but better that than not having enough!

Now, start plotting your panels on your paper. Your gore panels are plotted as rectangles initially - I'll explain when we get to that part of the cutting and sewing.

This is also where width of fabric can become a deciding factor in how you handle the body panels. If your fabric is narrow, it's more efficient to cut the body panel as a single panel that is folded in half. On the other hand, it can be more efficient to cut two body panels with a shoulder seam on wider fabrics.

A note here too, on the grain line - while in most modern patterns you want to use the straight grain, running parallel to the selvedge, it's perfectly acceptable to use the cross grain instead to get a more efficient layout.

Excess fabric can be used to make binding for your neckline (as an alternative to a blanket stitch finish), pocket bags (pockets in general aren't historically accurate, but they are convenient) or kept for other projects!

As to your fabric, it really depends on whether you're going for a historical style or not, what's available to you, and what you like to wear.

Historically, linen and similar fabrics were used for most under-tunics, since they were hard wearing so could tolerate the skin contact. Silk was also used by the very wealthy - it's softer and kinder to sensitive skin, but also very expensive.

Silk also won't tolerate as much rough handling as linen, and doesn't like to be washed too often. I would rate silk and linen about the same for breathability.

Wool tunics are documented, but they would have been an over-layer - it wasn't until comparatively recently that most garment wool was soft enough to not require a lining or under-layer.

Cotton would be a fine modern option. I'd avoid pure rayons as they're too hard to sew, but a rayon blend should be alright.

We'll continue tomorrow with the cutting and sewing!

Ack! I didn't realise until now that I posted the photos of the graph paper plot without any alt text.

I don't want to break the thread by deleting and redoing the toot, so here are the images again, with alt text.

Something really important that I only just remembered!

If your tunic is going to be longer than knee-length, it can be beneficial to have three or four gores rather than just two.

The gore panels are cut into right-angled triangles, which are inserted at the side seams to expand the hem. Two side gores is usually more than sufficient for a short tunic, but for a long tunic adding additional panels at the centre front and back helps.

With that being said, inserting the gores at the CF and CB without CF and CB seams is very, very tricky and hard to do neatly.

I'm not able to go into it with the tunic I'm currently working on though, but I'll try to add to this thread when I get a chance.

@Nikolai_Kingsley Oof, yeah, I wouldn't use hessian unless you were going to line it with something a bit more comfortable (and I imagine hessian frays like all hell too).

Calico is perfectly fine as a cheap option though, or old/thrift shop bedsheets too. It's a super versatile pattern, anything woven and comfortable enough to wear is generally fine.