Sleeves On Saturday

Rather than a pretty new sleeve design, I thought we would do something a little more fundamental today. If you are making a lovely tailored jacket, a fitted sleeve is a must in my book. But more and more often these days, fitted sleeves are difficult to find. A fitted sleeve is very easy to draft from a fitted sleeve and something nice to have in your sleeve design notebook.

Drafting The Fitted Sleeve From A Straight Sleeve

Begin with a basic straight sleeve.

Find the elbow. This can be done by measuring from the top of your arm to your elbow. The measurement should be between 11" and 13" depending upon the length of your arm. Square in a line at this point.

 Draw in a line on a separate piece of paper and match the grain line of the sleeve to this line.

 Between the grainline and the edge of your sleeve, at the elbow, divide the line into 3 sections.

 Cut the sleeve on the elbow line and spread 1".

On the lower portion of the sleeve, draw a line up to the second mark. This will create the elbow dart.

The final pattern, and it's just that simple. If you will notice, the center of the lower portion of the sleeve moved when we rotated in the dart. Go ahead and draw in that line on your final pattern. It's a good reference line to have. The grainline is the line that we drew in and matched our original grainline to.

So nothing flashy and pretty today, but as I said, a great piece of sleeve knowledge to have. In the future we will draft sleeves that will need a fitted sleeve, so this will come in handy.
Happy Saturday!
Rhonda