Sleeves

Having complete the cut through dress and bodice, what more do we need for a fitting?

The sleeves perhaps.What good can a dress do, especially for our character Mrs Bennet without a set of sleeves?

So here we begin making the pattern and mock up for the sleeves.

Interestingly, and thankfully, for a fitting you only need to make one sleeve and it does not even need to set in to the arm hole, not until the final garment.

This is a simple straight sleeve pattern block, and like the bodice is used as a basic beginning, then the pattern will be edited to fit the specific costume being made.

Part of drafting this straight sleeve pattern block, was also learning how to adapt it quickly in to a tight fitted sleeve.

Like when beginning the bodice block the sleeve block begins similar way. By drawing out the basic rectangle structure you begin to create the skeleton structure that the sleeve block will be built upon.

The dotted lines seen here are to help creating the shape of the sleeves head. The front and the back are different lengths. The back of the sleeve head has to deal with more movement of the arm and shoulder and so is often larger or more accentuated in it's shape.

All squared lines come down to the bottom of the straight sleeve block, as these lines will also be used to create a curved bottom for the sleeve.

To help work out the shaping of the sleeves the lines were divided in two and marked on where the line for the top of the sleeve would curve up or down depending on if it is the front or back of the sleeve block.

The elbow line is one of the first lines to be marked up along side the skeletal lines as it is very important to the pattern. Knowing where the actor/actresses elbow should be helps to position the sleeve correctly, and fit the sleeve if there is to be a gradual slimming of the pattern piece towards the wrist.

Like above where the lines were divided in half and depending on if it was the front or back of the sleeve the line was move up or down, exactly the same is done at the bottom of the sleeve. Then a smooth continued curve is drawn between these lines.

The pattern with close ups on the curves and the finalised over all pattern.

It is always good practise to make a new copy of the block, without the construction lines. This new copy is then used to create the edited version of the block that was originally constructed.

To create the fitted look around the wrist first you need to cut along the elbow line half way to the middle from both sides.

Then from this cut you need to fold the quarter line into the middle, creating the new shape as shown above.

To the front of the sleeve, where the new space has been made you add a piece of paper underneath, filling in the gap. The amount of space that was created and filled in is then taken off from the bottom of the front of the sleeve and joined in a curve line to the back.

The new sleeve pattern will look similar to this one, having been cut in to and folded.

On the back of the sleeve pattern the cut gap now becomes a dart to give shape to the sleeve and help it fit better. This can be filled in with paper and marked with notches or can be left and cut with the pattern.

The sleeve editing that needs to be done for Mrs Bennet's costume is a half sleeve.

This is a pattern made to the elbow line, so the original pattern block is brought back in and traced around, but only up until the elbow line.

For period sleeve the sleeve head sits higher on the top of the shoulder, giving the illusion of the small dainty back, and so the back of the sleeve head need to be larger and more pronounced for ease of movement.

The front of the sleeve is smooth and flush against the bodice, but the back of the sleeve is gathered, again to give movement to the sleeve.

The sleeve is then finally at the bottom of the new sleeve along the elbow line, the back is dropped down and the front brought up, as was done before with the full length straight sleeve. The amount a sleeve is dropped down or brought up is dependent on the style that is desired for the sleeve.

A dart can also be added in to the sleeve pattern to help give shape to the sleeve, however this is usually decided in fittings.

This is how our final sleeve pattern looked, having edited it down from the straight sleeve block.