Sleeves On Saturdays

I had to have been a hippie in another life!! I like feathers in my hair, beads in my hair, fringe on my clothes, just about anything that's a little funky. But then, there's the other side of me that loves beautifully made classic clothes. Oh well, there's room for both!
Like last week, today's sleeve is not so much a drafting exercise as a design detail. But I think it is rather interesting and I thought that it might spur a few design ideas of your own. So in honor of my hippie side and my classic side, I'm calling today's sleeve
The Haute Hippie Sleeve
(I think that takes care of both sides of my personality!!)

Rather than sewing the sleeve into the bodice, it's crocheted in with a simple chain stitch. If you have never crocheted, here's a video on the chain stitch, http://youtu.be/OtmOEzm_OXQ. Believe me, this is very simple to do. The only difference with what I did was that I poked my crochet hook into the fabric in order for the chain stitch to connect the sleeve to the bodice. 

Make sure that you use a fabric that will not run as you will be poking holes, small holes, but holes nonetheless into the fabric. Choose a yarn that compliments your fabric, not something cheap unless you are just wanting to give this idea a test run.

Above is the front of my top. I really had a lot of fun choosing the fabrics and then deciding where what would go.

Back views of the top.

 As you can see, I added a cuff to one sleeve and below you can see that I attached it to the main portion of the sleeve with the same crochet technique.

 In order to do this, I serged my sleeve head and the armhole. Once serged, I turned them back and zig-zagged them down.

The sleeve was laid inside the bodice and pinned in place in order to hold it as I did the chain stitch around.

Below is a close up of the chain stitch. You can see that the chain stitch runs along what would have been a seam and then a stitch was taken in the sleeve, a few more chain stitches taken and then a stitch was taken in the bodice. The stitches were alternated like this all the way around the armhole. 

This is a great project to do in front of the television. You could actually put the entire garment together with this chain stitch if you dare!!
I will be wearing this top today so once I have a chance I will take pictures of me wearing the top and post them as I know that it's always nice to see a project on a body.
Enjoy!
Rhonda