wool/linen wide enough for long sleeves

[Antonia Auriga]

I often wondered about tunic construction as well. From my research in scholarly publications it seems that tunics were purposely woven for the individual from sleeve to body to sleeve. I would imagine that it would give the garment a lot more strength and durability than one that was cut.

But what about the ones in my legion? Some of the guys brought me their wounded tunicae and I noticed that they seemed to have been chewed up by the armor because they were cut on the weaker grain (crosswise grain perpendicular to the selvage or 'cross grain' with more stretch). I needed a tunic for my mile impression, so I made a test one with the strongest grain (lengthwise running parallel to the selvage) running neck to hem. The body was a rectangle that was folded in half. I cut out the neck hole and made a facing for that, which greatly helped to heep the tunic from fraying or rolling over itself. The sleeves were pure rectangles, although I ended up having to taper them so that they would stay up on my arms. I serged the seams for added strength, but hand finished everything. I was happy with the tunic and it survived Lafe. I want to try one out on a man to see if it will be more durable, though since they have heavier equipment and different armor than I do. I will try to make a pattern of what I did in the near future, although my scanning capabilites are off right now... arg.

I think in today's world the best way to get sleeves on is to fold your sleeve in half and match the halfway point to the middle of the tunic so you only get the side seam that goes over your shoulder. BUT I am also a quilter and I have seen some great 'whole cloth' quilts which are made out of huge pieces of singular cotton and then quilted. These things are usually at least queen sized, so I am sure that you could get a tunic out of one. They are usually cotton and can be dyed. Sorry I can't find any links at the moment. But quilting stores in your area may help.