Sleeves On Saturdays

The Bat-Wing Sleeve

The Bat-Wing sleeve is a very simple sleeve to draft. Look closely at the picture below and you can see that this sleeve gives drape under the arm. At first glance, you might think that this is nothing more than a dolman sleeve.

 With the garment laying flat, you can see the sweep of the shoulder that allows for the drape. There are 2 different ways to draft this sleeve. I will show you my preferred method first.

 Begin by drawing a right angle on your paper.

 Match the front bodice to one side of the angle and the back bodice to the other side of the angle making sure that the 2 bodices meet at the waist.

 Draw a straight line from one shoulder to the other.

 Draw another line that goes through the point at the waist and extends the line through the shoulder line.

Determine your sleeve length by measuring from the top of your arm at the shoulder to your desired length. Measure the circumference of your arm at that desired length. As an example, if the circumference of your arm at your desired length is 10", divide the 10" in half. Draw a line at the desired length from the shoulder line and draw a line that is 5" on either side of that line.

 Draw a straight line from the sleeve length line back to the shoulder on both sides.

 Where the lines meet the shoulder, round out these points in order to not have such a sharp point.

 Trace off the front and back patterns. Draw another curved line at the waist.

 The pattern is now finished.

The second method for drafting this sleeve is to match the front and back bodice at the shoulders. Draw a line down from the shoulder line and place the center of the sleeve on this line. Draw an angled line from the waist to the bottom of the sleeve.

Draw angled lines from the point where the sleeve meets the shoulders of the bodice to the curved line.

Cut on the angled line to the shoulder and spread at least 5". The more you spread, the more drape there will be.

You can see from the picture below that you can control the amount of drape there will be with this method.

Personally, I like the first method the best. It gives the amount of drape that I would like for this silhouette and it is very easy to do.

This makes for such a lovely top that is very easy to wear. I used a basic knit top pattern for my drafting, so the entire piece went together in a snap. Give it a try, I think you'll enjoy the results!