Vogue 1250/Adding Sleeves

A few of you had asked about adding sleeves to Vogue 1250. By now you can see that it is really a very versatile pattern, dress, top, top with sleeves and even an evening gown. 

Adding sleeves to the pattern is really not a difficult task, it just took a little thought.

 The original pattern has a bit of a cap sleeve, or extended shoulder.

The pattern is designed so that there is no actual side seam, basically just a side seam dart. So the back of the skirt is part of the front pattern.  

 In order to add a sleeve, the back skirt will need to be cut away from the front.

If you would like to leave the back waist seam, you may do so, but I decided to get rid of the seam and have 1 less sewing step. I overlapped the top and the skirt and just pinned to 2 together. Keep in mind that the back top is cut on the fold, but the back skirt has a seam. The center back line is marked on the skirt, so line up the center back with the fold line of the top. One thing to keep in mind, a center back seam does offer 1 more area for making fitting adjustments, so you may want to add a seam to the center back rather than cutting it on the fold.

 When I made my gown, I left the back waist seam, but I added a seam to the center back of my top.

Now that the pattern has been cut apart, we are ready to add the sleeves.
Begin with the back. Extend the shoulder line the length that you will need for a long sleeve. Begin the curved line at the double notches. Measure your bicep and then divide that measurement in half to determine the width of the sleeve. You only need half of the measurement since this is only half of the sleeve.

The finished sleeve addition. Take not that I did not taper the sleeve. You will not want a sleeve this wide at your wrist. So measure you wrist and taper the sleeve, or go ahead and cut the sleeve out and then taper it when you try it on for fitting.

The front is just a little different from the back, but you will begin in the same manner. Extend the shoulder line.

Because of the drape and the pleat, the front shoulder is actually tipped down. Follow the shoulder line and extend the line out.

The underarm curve will be a little more dramatic. Begin at the double notch just as you did for the back and curve the line. The width of the sleeve will be the same measurement that you used for the back, half of your bicep measurement.

The final pattern. Once again, I have not tapered the wrist, but you will want to do this either now or in your fitting.

Since we cut the back skirt away from the front pattern, we will need to add seam allowance to the front and back skirt along the side. Forgive my scratchy line, I will go back and clean that up!

Now that my front sleeve has been added, I can show you why we removed the back skirt from the front of the pattern. As you can see, it would have been in the way and we would not have been able to add the sleeve.

So that's it!

A few comments were also made about the fit of my pieces versus the fit of the dress on the pattern envelope. If anyone would like a demonstration on how I did my fitting, let me know and I will be happy to do one last post on fitting.