We welcome Heather Ross as she continues her blog tour for her new book – Weekend Sewing: More Than 40 Projects and Ideas for Inspired Stitching
Such a great book – I particularly loved the hand-drawn illustrations. I also enjoyed the quirky indulgence of including a couple of weekend luxury cooking recipes. The photography – as always with John Gruen, is spotless – perfect combination of character and interesting details, with the ability to actually see the project in full focus.
And as well as all that the projects are pretty good too. Glamorous frocks and picnic skirts, stay-at-home slippers and dinner party aprons. A market shopping bag and lounging around all day unisex pants.
Today though Heather is giving us a lesson in sewing a “set in” sleeve
Take it away Heather.
One of the most intimidating things about sewing blouses, jackets, and sleeved dresses is the tricky step of sewing a sleeve into place. One of the things that I really hoped to accomplish with Weekend Sewing was to encourage new sewers to try sewing clothing for themselves, so it was really important to me that the book include some great “beginner level” sleeves that didn’t frighten anyone away. The method described below is one of my favorite sewing tricks and appears in several projects in the book including the Summer Blouse and the Shirt Dress.
Happy Sewing!
Heather
1. Prepare your sleeve by first adding a row of “ease-stitching” to the edge of your shoulder. This should be basting stitch, and you should leave extra long pieces of thread hanging from the ends. Don’t backstitch, you want to be able to pull these threads a little together this edge in order to shape it and push it into place in your arm hole.
2. With right sides together, sew your sleeves edges together. Turn right side out.
3. Turn your blouse or shirt wrong side out. Side and shoulder seams should be sewn already, so that your armhole is complete. Place your sleeve inside your blouse, pushing the sleeves opening into place into your armhole. Match your blouses side seams with the seam in on the bottom edge of your sleeve, and pin. Continue pinning the sleeve and blouse together. Use your east stitches to shape and even gather (by pulling your long threads) your sleeve if necessary to make it fit perfectly into your armhole.
4. Beginning at your side seam, stitch carefully around your armhole. Turn blouse right side out and press.
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Can you explain the advantage of sewing the sleeve in this manner?
I thought it was easier to sew it, by first easing the sleeve cap into the arm hole. I usually pin the middle of the sleeve cap to the shoulder seam and then ease out the cap down through the arm. Once this is sewn I sew the sleeve and sides together at once.
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