Middle Class: The Sleeves

The first attempt at the muslin for the sleeveheads. This needs a little work.

After refitting, the sleevehead looks much neater.

The original shape of the sleevehead, and my stitches the fitting. It's starting to look a lot like a period pattern!

I made some impromptu changes to the sleevehead pattern while cutting it, bringing it even closer to a period shape.

Always work with the proper foundations, even if you're just cutting a pattern. In this case, a roll of extra quilt batting is standing in for a more formal sleeve support.

One sleevehead is finished and almost fully sewn in. One is not. Can you guess which? ;)

The finished sleevehead from the side...

... and the back.

I've also almost finished the sleeveheads. I started with a sort of generic (but large) sleeve shape (sort of an upside-down flared U, on straight legs). That was a little too bulky at the bottom, and I was going for a fitted bottom. I did a little fussing with pining tucks in at the armscye and down the seam, until I got something that looked about right. The shape I got was fairly period, and I made it a little more so when I cut it. It's one of those "lollypop" sleeves, for lack of a better term, that show up in both alcega's book and the milanese tailor's album. It worked out a little oddly, though. I had always assumed that, with sleeves like that, the fullness of the rounded part formed the top of the sleeve, and was sewn into the armscye. With my sleeve, the pattern worked out such that the first 2" on either side of the seam are simply sewn together, rather than being in the armscye seam. This sort of smoothes out the transition between the top poofiness and the lower fitted portion.

I had planned to sew all of the ribbon on the sleeves down by hand, but I eventually realized two critical things: my machine sewing is less visible than my handsewing, and the whole process of doing it by hand was just hateful! It made me curse the day I decided to get into this! That's no good... I'll handsew happily when it's not a pain, or when I don't need it done immediately, but I hate being miserable. There's a bit of quilt batting behind each of the ribbons, so they are structural elements supporting the sleeve as well as being decorative elements. This worked out very well -- the sleeve head doesn't droop inwards, which is something they have a habit of doing. The sleeveheads are cartridge pleated at around most of the armscye. The cartridge pleats are sewn "standing" on the shoulder, rather than just being sewn to the edge. It makes them stand up better. I'm hoping that this dress will be done soon -- I have a host of other projects to work on, and it's starting to get into spring, which is really close to summer, which is faire season. Yipes!