Sew Easy #17: How to Make a Sleeve

before starting to make our sleeves let's  review those features we want a well made sleeve has a smooth rounded cap with no tucks or  gathers the ease and the under part of the sleeve as well as in the cap area gives us a nice  armhole line that is straight the crosswise grain is parallel to floor and the lengthwise  grain is straight up and down with no wrinkles let's get those features into our sleeves before removing your pattern be sure that you have transferred this important  mark at the top of the sleeve to your fabric you may have done that as you cut out your sleeve  by cutting a notch or you may have used carbon if not be sure to use a carbon  now before taking the pattern off the first step is to put a row of ease stitches  at the seam line on the cap of the sleeve before i actually put these ease stitches in  let me explain what we mean by each stitch and why we use them and to do this i'll compare them to stay stitching and gathering  stitches with which you're already familiar stay stitching is a regular length stitch put  in at the seam lines to hold the threads of the fabric in place during construction gathering  stitches are lengthened stitches usually two rows which we use to pull up the fabric to form  gathers ease stitches which will be used at the cap of the sleeve are a little shorter than  gathering but a little longer than the regular stitch they are used to shape an area especially  one where we do not want gathers to appear for many years we have put the ease stitch in only  over the cap of the sleeve from notch to notch the experience has shown us that ease under  the sleeve will give us a more comfortable fit so put your needle down at the  point where the seam lines cross many of you will notice that your pattern  tells you to put ease stitching in at this point one rule of ease stitching is all some of  you will need to make but i find i do a quicker and smoother job if i put a second  row in between the seam line and the edge now those two rows of stitching will  be pulled up later to form the cap of the sleeve but i won't do that until i start to  set my sleeve into the armhole next thing we do is join this underarm seam bring the  right sides together to make the seam here is one place i like to finish the edge of the  seam whether the fabric gravels or not on a raw on a sharp sleeve rather the seam is often  in a position where it is seen as being worn and a neat seam finish here is one where  we turn the edge under and stitch it some of you will be using solid colored  fabric and you don't want to make sleeves for the same armhole here's an easy method to  get sleeves that you'll have a right and a left here are two sleeves with the ease stitching  in and up to this point they're identical fold the sleeves so that you  have a single notch on top and so the seams are together then pin the seams and after you've stitched them  you'll have a sleeve for each armhole now in order to finish this unit before we  join it to the large unit i'll make the cuffs and join them to the sleeves at this point you'll notice a  similarity between the cuffs and the collar and the procedure  will be about the same also i'm making the outside of my cuff of a solid color so i place these out here and lay the two  notches together just as we did for the sleeve then place an interfacing on the wrong  side of those sections of the cuff pin them together and start  stitching from the center to each end go back to the center and overlap your stitches your fabric should be held just  a little away from your guide we do this because we want this  row stitching outside the seam line we join this cuff by matching the  notches and stitching right on the seam line that's an easy step and i don't  think i need to demonstrate that for you so here is the cuff already stitched  the interfacing trimmed off down to the stitching line and the seam  itself trimmed off and pressed open here's the other part of the cuff it's also been  stitched the seam trimmed off and pressed open here is the part that i do want to show you the  joining of these two sections at the outer edge we'll turn one section right side out and step  it down into the section that has not been turned match seam lines and pin and then stitch here's another place where i don't  think you need to watch me all the way so here is a cuff has been stitched and the seams layered and then we're going to  press the seam so the interfacing side will be up from this point on i'll show you each of the steps  but i won't take time to complete any of them this step will help hold the edge of your cuff in  place i'm going to stitch this seam down to the under part of the cuff i'll put a pin in so that  you can see about where it's going to be stitched we can stitch it better from the right side next time i'll complete the  blouse unit by joining the cuff to the sleeve and setting  the sleeve into the blouse