Category Archives: Tutorial

My Mini Betty

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Mad Men first arrived on UK TV at the same time as I was learning to sew.  I had no idea what I was doing so rather than spend money on expensive fabrics, I’d cut up my husband’s worn work shirts and use the big pieces to make dresses for our daughter.  These would be typically toddler in style, with voluminous skirts and puffed sleeves.  We called them her “Betty Draper dresses”.

Five series of the show later and dear daughter hasn’t seen a single episode, yet she knows all about the stylish Mad Men ladies, thanks to Julia Bobbin‘s Mad Men Challenge.  Many times I’ve found her studying last year’s copycat creations, so when she asked if I would make her a sixties-style dress and Julia very wisely initiated a second Mad Men Challenge, it seemed a heavenly match!

This print with its ‘mid-century-modern’ colours struck me immediately as a perfect fabric for the job – it’s actually a quilting cotton from Jeff Rosenberg.  But we struggled to find a dress to copy.  Sally Draper’s wardrobe is rather frumpy compared to her mother’s: collars seemingly inspired by Oliver Cromwell; dull fabrics as favoured by religions that forbid frivolity in dress.  What to do?  My daughter knew what she wanted: a full skirt, none of that Swinging Sixties Psychedelia, and – here she was adamant – “no collars”.  I was insistent that the dress had to be for parties and play, not merely for a photo-shoot.  In the end, I designed a pattern with a tentative link to the series and took most of my inspiration from this blogger lady in her beautiful dress from Shabby Apple.

Everyone loves the results.  I’m mostly proud of the pleated waistband: the colour is a vibrant contrast to the grey and the pleats just beg to be played with.  If you’re wondering how such a waistband is constructed, my trick was a strip of interfacing fused at the back and hidden by the bodice lining.  The sleeves were made quickly and easily with casing and gathering elastic.  It’s a good little girlswear technique I picked up from Akiko Mano’s book.  Tutorial below.

 

Tutorial for Short Sleeve with Casing for Elastic


1 If your sleeve has a gathered head, begin by sewing two (or three) rows of gathering stitches.  If you’d like a fuller sleeve, you can add height to your pattern and easily gather the extra: just remember that adding a height of 2cm to the pattern will give you only 1cm extra since the top of the sleeve is folded in half, as it were.

 

2 Stitch the underarm seam.  If you’re using 0.7cm elastic, stop stitching 2cm from the end, leave a gap of 1cm and stitch 1 cm to the end.  Edge-finish and trim.  Press open.

 

3 Fold under 2cm.  This has now formed an opening on the inside of the sleeve.

 

4 Fold seam allowance in half and stitch 1mm from edge.  Attach the sleeve to armscye as per your usual method.


5 Thread the elastic through the casing with a safety pin and sew the edges together.  If you allow an extra centimetre or two of the elastic, you can let out the sleeve later when the child has grown.

 

6 Slipstitch the opening closed.

 

♥

 

Back Pleat with Lining

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Very rarely do I look for something on the internet and don’t find it, but that was the situation when I needed a tutorial for a kickback pleat with lining.  I eventually worked out what to do by staring intently at a RTW dress of mine and scratching my head.  

Here’s the tutorial.  Enjoy (no need to hobble in that pencil skirt no more)!

How to Sew a Back Pleat with Lining

In this demo, I’m using scraps but on a dress or skirt, you start here after you’ve attached the centre back zip but not yet sewn the seam below.  The lining is loose and should be some 4cm shorter than the outer fabric.

1 Apply fusible interfacing to the pleat seam allowances of the outer fabric and lining.  With the lining, you only need to interface the seam allowance, not the body of the pleat (this is why it’s a good idea to keep scraps).  Use light to medium interfacing. 

 

2 Hem the lining

 

3 Apply tailor tacks at the point where the vertical and the diagonal stitching lines intersect

 

4 Clip to 2mm of the tailor tacks

 

5 Pin lining to outer fabric, wrong sides together, matching seams and tailor tacks.  

6 Press under seam allowances of fabric and lining on left side of pleat only (i.e. right side of garment)

 

 

7 Pin and stitch

 

8 On the right side of pleat (left side of garment) flip fabric and lining right sides together and stitch down from the tailor tack 

 

9 Clip corner and turn right side out.

 

10 On the inside, place both extensions to the right (garment left) and stitch along the diagonal through all thicknesses.

 

11 On the left, hem so the fabric fold meets the lining.

 

12 Finally, hem the right side taking care when pinning so that the final fold faces down (out of view) and not to the left 

 

13 Done And the outside:

Adding Seam Allowances

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One of you emailed me with a question that got me thinking: how do you add seam allowances?  I wonder if it’s one of those things so simple that everyone assumes they know how everybody else does it.  I hope some of this looks familiar!

Method 1 With a Sewing Gauge

Adjust slider to the desired SA and place along the stitching line.  Draw little lines against the edge of the gauge.  Repeat at regular intervals and join with a ruler.

For curved areas, draw smaller lines at shorter intervals.  To join up, I go freehand: a good method if you haven’t a fashion curve (or prefer not to use one).  Turn the pattern so the line curves in towards you (i.e. not away from you) and with your elbow pivoting on the table and your hand still, turn your forearm in a smooth arc with the pencil skimming along the little lines.


Method 2 Using a Fashion Curve

Align the desired seam allowance with the stitching line and draw along edge.

As before, on curves such as the armscye, keep realigning and mark lines a little and often.

 

So far so simple.  But there’s more…

 

3 How to Add Seam Allowances to Darts

Draw seam allowances up to the dart (on both sides).  Pin dart closed, folded in the direction you want it pressed on the garment.  The seam allowances and stitching lines should now meet. Cut along the seam allowances.

Remove pin and the pattern looks like this:

Try not to skip this step or you may have a shortage of fabric in your dart when you come to sew the seam.

4 Adding Seam Allowances to Angles

When two stitching lines meet at a right angle, no problem: the SAs are also right angles.  It gets trickier when the angles are sharp, large or curves, for example in the neck to shoulder corner, or waist to side.  If you serge your seams, what follows is perhaps less of a concern.  If you press seams open or don’t trim the allowances much (for example, if you might need to let out a garment later), you may want to add the following to your method:

Step 1 Draw the Seam Allowances up to the corners but don’t cut.

Step 2 Fold the pattern back along the stitching line then cut along the seam allowance on fold.

Do this on all curves and angles that are not L-shaped: i.e. fold back at stitch line, cut on fold along seam allowance edge.

The opened up piece will have pointy bits like this:

When the seam allowance is pressed open after stitching, there is enough fabric to align with the fabric of the cross seam.

 

So, any revelations?  Did I miss any tricks?! How do you add yours?

 

 

Pattern Making Equipment

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Here’s the equipment I use in drafting patterns: some essential, some items less so but I find that they help.  Most of these you’ll have already.  Please add to the list with your own favourites or suggestions.  Tips on favourite brands welcome!

1 Pattern Paper – Of any kind.  In the past I have used parcel paper, newspaper, greaseproof paper (great for tracing) and gift wrap.  Then I splashed out on 300m of the proper stuff which is tough and, given sufficient light and a decent eyesight, can be used as tracing paper.  I consider it one of my best investments: I save so much time by no longer faffing with scraps! 

Blogstalker mistrusts it.  The roll is like a big, heavy pillar.  Soon as it arrived, he peed on it like a doggy on a post!

2 Glue Stick for when paper pieces are not large enough or for mistakes.

3 Sticky tape – Two tips here.  Buy the frosty, “magic” tape that you can write on, not the shiny kind.  Also, get a dispenser as it’ll save you time when you need a piece in a hurry and your other hand is busy!

4 Paper Scissors – Tips again! A) with long scissors, you’ll be more likely to cut straight lines accurately. B) If your fabric scissors look like your paper ones and you get them mixed up, tie a strip of bias or ribbon to the fingerholes of the fabric scissors and wrap some papery masking tape (painters tape) around the paper pair.

5 Long ruler

6 Mechanical pencils – a.k.a. propelling pencils.  I was sceptical but my tutor persuaded me to buy these so as to always have a sharp line (important for fine detail like darts).  Along with her recommendation for “frosty” tape, this is one recent adoption that I’m never going back on.

7 Rubber – otherwise known as an eraser!

8 Set Square – not an essential, but if you don’t have a fashion curve, this is great for drawing accurate right angles and parallel lines (tutorial soon).

9 Tracing wheel – tbh, my plastic one leaves hardly an impression.  If you need to buy one, a Toothsome Tracey is a better alternative.  Or, place two layers of fabric between paper and the table and the teeth can sink in.

10 Sewing gauge - for marking seam allowances.  Useful if you’re not yet up for the commitment/expense of buying a fashion curve.

11 Bradawl – you can also use a pin, the point of a pencil or a compass.

12 Tape measure

13 Calculator – good for calculating dart width , e.g. when making the Basic Skirt Block.

14 Fashion Curve - this does many things: mine has a 50 cm ruler, seam allowance markers, bias markings, curves for neckholes and armholes.  Not all fashion curves are the same (mine’s from Shoben) so think what you would like to use it for before you buy.  One feature I particularly like is the centring scale, e.g. for finding the centre of a dart, you place the crosshair in the approximate middle then slide it until the measurements are equal on both sides of it.  Quicker than a ruler and calculator!  This is another purchase where I had to bite the bullet, hoping the expense wasn’t an indulgence but I quickly decided it was worth it.

Finally, if all this looks interesting but scary, check if there are any classes at an adult education college near you.  If there isn’t, phone up and ask for one!  You never know, somebody else may have done so too and interest in all things sewy is on the rise.  I’m currently voting for a tailoring course!!

  

Indian Pink Dress

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If it wasn’t dripping in healthy colour, I’d call this my “Frankenstein Dress” as I’ve stitched it from 3 tutorials and in the spirit of experimentation.  The Sleeves I made back in October (don’t worry, I’ve kept them in the fridge!), the Bodice is from Pattern Magic 2 and the skirt is based on Adele Margolis’ “Pegged Skirt” instructions in my favourite drafting book. 

A pegged skirt is wider at the hips than at the hem, the shape of a typical clothes peg.  A tulip skirt is a more fashionable term for pretty much the same.  If you’d like to create the tulip effect using darts for shaping and if you want to ensure that it fits you well, it’s easy enough to draft with the Basic Skirt Block as your starting point.  Tute below. 

Pegged trousers could presumably be drafted by a similar method, with the darts changed to pleats.  It’s a very eighties look though, best avoided by the less than willowy!

The fabric I used is calico, dyed Powder Pink with a tiny pinch of blue (a gloved pinch, I hasten to add: this stuff isn’t good to handle).  I was aiming for a dusky pink but got a richer, deeper shade I’d like to call Indian Pink, or maybe Honeysuckle.  I had no luck finding a matching concealed zip but eventually settled for a lapped one.  To me, lapped zips are a bit of a forgotten skill so I referred to this great tutorial.

The dress was a pleasure to make and soon as I realized I was happy with the fit of the pegged skirt, I adapted the pattern to make a full lining.  The sleeve lining was stiffened with interfacing to help retain some rigidity in the square shoulders.


Tutorial: Drafting a Pegged Skirt

Step 1 Begin with the Basic Skirt Block (make a muslin to make sure it fits you).  Draw a straight line from dart point to the corner of side and hem.


Step 2 Cut along the line and close dart.

 

Step 3 Draw two new dart lines in the area between the centre front and the original dart.  They should be about 4-6cm in length, depending on your size, with the inner line being longer of the two.  As for their exact position, it’s up to you.  You could draw them and place the block against you to see what looks ok in proportion to you.

 

 

Step 4 Cut out the area between the lines drawn in previous step.  Open out the two parts of the block by hinging them at the side-hem corner.

 

 

Step 5 Place pieces on a larger sheet of paper.  Separate the two major sections by a distance of 4.5cm (or 5cm for bigger sizes) in the area of the original dart point.  Place the smallest piece in the gap and draw two new darts on each side of it.  This is the fiddliest bit, but you can move the middle piece about till each of your darts has equal leg lengths.

 

Step 6 Fold darts toward centre and redraw the waistline, keeping close to the original and smoothing out any jaggedy bits.  Draw seam allowances and the hem allowance (notice my rubbish short hem allowance?  I ran out of paper!  Don’t do that!).  Draw a fold line to complete the pattern and cut out.


Step 7 Repeat all of the above for Skirt Back, remembering to add the centre back seam allowance in the final step (if that’s where your zip will be).

Facing Magic

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I needed a simple bodice for the dress I’m designing and used this cowl idea from Pattern Magic 2.  It’s from the Different Facings, Different Looks chapter in which Nakamichi demonstrates how with some simple dart manipulation, you create a garment front which is a different shape from its facing, though, crucially, the two are the same length at the point where they’re stitched together, i.e. the neckline.  The method can be used to achieve different looks - a V-shape or a square, for example.  I went for the simplest round facing.  This is how it looks in the book:

And here’s a tutorial for how to do it: 

1.  Start with a copy of the basic bodice block.  If yours has shoulder darts, move them away from the neck and shoulder lines.

 2. Draw the neckline for the facing.  Approximate measurements are given below; you can vary them slightly.  Carefully measure the length of the new line, e.g. xycm.  Close waist dart.

3. Trace this line and make a pattern for the facing from it.  Remember to add the fold line and seam allowances.  It should look something like this:

4. Draw a line from the bust point to the neckline which meets it at a right angle.

5. Cut at the neckline then cut along the new line.  Close the armhole dart, either part-way, or completely for a more dramatic look.  Now, place on a larger piece of paper and extend the centre front upwards.  Draw towards it from the shoulder side of the neckline.  It’s important that this line is the same length as the facing neckline, i.e xycm from step 2.

Now trace the bodice outline and complete the pattern by adding seam allowances, cutting instructions, a foldline and the grainline.  Unless your fabric is very drapey, cut the bodice front on the bias.  

You can alter the back bodice by the same method for a lavishly cowled, open neckline: I kept the original basic bodice back.


I hereby declare this bodice my February contribution to Project Pattern Magic.  Have you checked out this challenge?  Lisa’s project for this month is a beautiful dress featuring the Bamboo Shoot.  If you’d like to join us, remember no project is too small (nor big!) and you have months to prepare.  Just blog about it on the last Wednesday of any month or, if you’re blogless, send me an email with your pics and I’ll host a post for you.

Check in next week for the details of the rest of my dress: I’m hoping it’ll fit me better than what’s-her-face Boleyn!

Gifts IV: Cossack Hat

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Only two sewing days till Christmas!  What to do?!  How about adding to the mayhem and stress by making a Cossack Hat?  You know… so as to stylishly meet the oncoming Siberian winter?!  Here is daughter’s, rustled up from the leftovers of her coat. 

The thick, fluffy fur is from Jeff Rosenberg.  I used leftover acetate lining for the inside.  You can get away with a quarter metre of fabric and lining, though you might need twice more if you’d like the nap of the fur sweeping in a particular direction. 

For my hat, I used shearling-like fur leftover from a Christmas stocking I once made.  Whilst daughter is Empress Lara, I’m more Taras Bulba! 

Since the fur is doubled at the point where it wraps around the head, the outside of the hat is bigger than the inside.  When making your pattern, base the inner part on the hat size and make the outside larger, tapering towards the crown.

 

The Pattern

You’ll need paper, a compass, a ruler and a pencil.

Step 1 The Crown 

Begin by measuring the head circumference, work out the radius then using a compass draw a perfect circle the same size as your head.  If you’re making this as a surprise for someone, use one of the online hat size charts like this one to estimate.  Head size can vary quite a bit but if someone looks like they’ve got a big head, they probably do and vice versa!  Big or thick hair also adds on a bit! 

Just for reference, my head is 55.5cm, the dummy’s is 55cm, daughter’s is 52cm and OH is 60cm!!  My radius is 8.8cm, i.e. 55.5cm divided by 3.14 (Pi, or Π) divided by 2.

Once you’ve drawn your circle, add a seam allowance of 1.5cm (the compass comes in very handy for this as you can draw another, larger circle around the first one), or more if your fur is very thick.

Step 2  Pattern for the Side of Hat and Lining 

If you aren’t in a rush, you might want to experiment with a few paper shapes.  The simplest thing would be to cut a rectangle, the width of which is the same as the hat size, plus seam allowances.  I made such a hat out of paper and thought it too Pork Pie (Pork π?) so I decided to go for a slightly tapering shape (above right).  As for the height of the Hat, anything over 10cm looked a bit Nefertiti (left) atop of my small face.  A height of 9cm looked just right: this on the inside is 3cm of fur sewn to 6cm of lining.  A shorter hat might blow off your head in the wind!


Making the Hat

1. Sew sides of fur.  Fold on fold line and try on for fit.

2. Sew sides to crown. 

3. Repeat 1 and 2 with the lining fabric. 

4. With right sides together, sew lining to fur, leaving an opening of 20cm.  Turn right side out, pin at fold line below opening and slipstitch the opening closed.

Tips for Sewing Fur

  • Sewing faux fur gets a bad press but I think it’s very forgiving on those seam lines which hardly show.  Using a seam ripper, when necessary, is pretty quick too.  Trim fur at the raw edges if all that lovely fluffiness is obstructing the seam guidelines on your machine.

  • Use a medium zigzag stitch.  On the right side, comb out the fluff around the seam.  I use a wire pet brush or a pin.
  • Vacuums and lint rollers ready!  If you’re secretly sewing fur for someone who lives with you, allow plenty of time for clearing up.  Otherwise, your loved one might come home and wonder what poor creature you sacrificed!
  • Buying fur: white fur looks great on very dark or very pale skin but may not be great for the in between complexions.  Check fur colour against your skin (and teeth).  Avoid grey fur if this is close to your hair colour as people might confuse the hat with your actual hair and will think you’re looking unkempt!  Avoid faux leopard if you resemble Mobutu Sese Seko.  Kids on the other hand look good in anything, especially monster fur.

Merry Christmas, everyone x x

Gifts III: Quick Pencil Cases

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These pencil cases are super easy and great for using up leftovers of favourite fabrics.  It’s also a good project for beginners wishing to practise sewing zips; however, do watch out for fabrics with a geometric pattern that has to match across the two sides of the zip (such as in the top example).  An irregular print will be easier.

Buy an ordinary zip, not concealed, and bear two things in mind.  Firstly, it has to be of a sufficient quality to put up with frequent use.  The other thing to remember is that the zip has to be the length of a new pencil, or slightly longer.  Mine are 24cm.


Step 1: Cutting the Pattern and Fabric

Make a paper pattern for a rectangle that’s the width of your zip plus 4cm and the height of at least 24cm.  Do make sure your angles are square!  Cut one rectangle of your fabric and one of your lining.  My lining is babycord which is velvety and soft yet with helpful parallel lines:

Next, trim just one zip side of the lining by 2mm:


Step 2: Sewing the Zip

Open zip.  Put the fabric and lining wrong sides together, raw edges even.  Using them as one, and with the fabric and zip right sides together, edges even, sew together.  Start with a back stitch.  On approaching the zip pull, leave the needle in, lift up zipper foot, pull the zip closed and sew to the end.  Backstitch.  Repeat on the other side.

Tip!  If you can’t get the zip pull past the zipper foot even when it’s raised, you could try doing as I do:  pop the foot off, close zip, replace foot.

 


Step 3: Making Pull Tabs

This step is optional – skip if you’re in a hurry!

Find or make a design for your pull tabs, adding a 2cm seam allowance.  Interface a scrap of fabric (this is where to use up those off-cuts of interfacing that normally get thrown away).  Draw your tabs x4, cut around them and sew.

Turn inside out (I use old tweezers) and press.

Pin tabs over zip ends, keeping raw edges together.

 

Step 4: Sewing Short Ends

With the pencil case inside out, sew the short ends using your 2cm seam allowance.  This should cut out the unsightly silvery stops at the ends of the of zip.

Two things to note: 1) keep the zip exactly in the middle.

And 2) Very important: remember to leave your zip partially open!  Otherwise you’ll sew the pencil case shut inside out….

Trim seam allowances.

 


Step 5: Making Corners

This is another optional step by which you convert from a flat to a boxy shape.  Still working on the wrong side, pinch each corner so that the seam is in the middle and the short end seam allowance is away from the zip.  Sew with either a 2cm seam allowance (for a boxy shape) or 1.5cm (for a flattened box shape as in my first image).  

Trim seam allowances, turn right side out and you’re done!

Let me know how it goes… and how long it takes!  I made four in an hour.  The first was to jog my memory and took up half the time.  The other three were a production line.  If you’re making several at once and in different fabrics, it helps save time if they all take the same thread.

Gifts II: Space Invader Cushion

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This cushion is a Christmas surprise for my son (he’ll get other stuff too, don’t worry… ).  It’s to help gradually transform his bedroom from a little boy’s abode into a cool grunge lair.  Making it is very simple.  At the back, there’s a 10cm of overlap of fabric which eliminates the need for a zip or buttons.  The bright piping adds interest and is beginner-friendly, though be sure to make more than you think you’ll need!

I’ve had a go at this before, many years ago when I used a print fabric (a sweet “Ready Steady Robot” design from Alexander Henry, long discontinued) and it was quicker still, but this time I wanted to use applique after seeing the gorgeous asterisk cushion made by Vacuuming the Lawn.  My OH and I looked at various Space Invaders images and agreed at once which little dude would appeal to our first-born the most:

Drawing him isn’t difficult: he’s basically a bunch of squares on an 8 by 11 grid.  Should you want one of your own and you’re in a hurry, I’ve put him on a Space Invader Excel Graph for you.  Or would you prefer the version of him cheering with his hands in the air!?  Here it is: Cheering Space Invader!

I chose cotton sateen as it’s washable (this is a cushion that the cats will sneak up to sleep on).  It has a richness of colour and a shine that isn’t unlike the brightness of a monitor.  One bonus of working in this bright yellow colour was that even after I interfaced the fabric, I could trace the design through it from a sheet of paper.

Oh look, once you cut the dude out, you can use the offcuts to play Tetris!


The Space Invader Cushion Tutorial

You will need: a cushion, 0.75cm of full-width fabric (more for a bigger cushion), 0.25cm of applique fabric plus fusible interfacing.  2mm piping cord.

1. Firstly, buy (or somehow obtain) the cushion and design a template for the applique to fit.  My cushion is a 55cm square and the Invader is printed onto an A4 sheet.  I cut a 55cm paper pattern for the cushion, plus 1.5cm seam allowance all around (that is, a 58cm square).

2. Fuse some interfacing onto your applique fabric and cut out your design.  Stitch the applique to your cover fabric.  I use a stitch length of 0.4 and a width of 2 on my Elna zigzag.  It takes a good 45 minutes to do an A4-sized Invader!  For  the piping, I cut 4cm bias strips and inserted a 2mm cord inside.  This creates piping to fit a 1.5cm seam allowance.

3. Next, pin piping to the cushion front seam allowance, lining up the raw edges.  Overlap the ends of the piping and clip piping seam allowances at the corners:

4. Add cushion backing.  Make the pattern first: half of the pattern for the cushion front + 5cm for the overlap + 3cm seam allowance for the overlap side.  Cut twice.

5. Pin and stitch the backing, first one side then the other.  Stitch twice over the overlap, especially if your cushion is a firm one.  This will prevent the stitches ripping when you insert the cushion.

I really hope my son doesn’t read this but when I was his age, we had an Atari 2600, an early video game console, on which I’d blast away at Space Invaders for hours each day, or till my mum realized and chased me off into doing something more useful.  Don’t remember the little buggers looking this cute though…

Status Sleeves, cont’d

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Here’s an easy tutorial on drafting corner pleats for sleeves.  Sleeve pleats have been a frequent feature of RTW tops, dresses and jackets in recent years and are one of the many ways of adding detail and structure to a part of garment that had for a couple of decades remained overlooked. 

I’m beginning to believe that just as padded shoulders of 1980s womenwear gave the impression of power, the extra width gained from these corners pleats somehow serve to enhance the status of the wearer!  Unlike in the 80s though, the means are more subtle and the result feminine. 

The pictures show the pattern with the underarm seam sewn but the seam allowances and sleeve hem unsewn.  The drafting is very beginner-friendly: you’re just adding squares to the sleeve cap.  The method is from  Adele Margolis‘ book: ’Design Your Own Dress Patterns: a Primer in Pattern Making for Women who like to Sew’.  

Corner Pleat Sleeves: a Tutorial

(Sometimes, it helps to see all the steps in one.  To do that, skip to here.)

Step 1: Make a symmetrical short-sleeve block

Make a copy of the short-sleeve block (sloper). (If you only have a long-sleeve block, copy to 4cm above the elbow and checking your upper arm measurement, ensure you have about 5cm of ease around the bicep.)  Fold at the centre and trim so the front and back of sleeve (left and right of centre line) are symmetrical.   

Yes, with this baby, it won’t matter if you put the sleeve in back to front!

Step 2: Extend upwards 

Pin the sleeve block to a larger piece of paper.  Extend the centre line upwards and create a T-shape.  I raised my sleeve by 4cm but you can be more dramatic, especially if your fabric is firmer!

Step 3: Draw  points on original cap

Draw 2 points on the original cap, equally apart from the centre line.  Mine are 5cm from the middle of the sleeve.  Label A and B.

Step 4: Extend points to top of T

Extend the points to the top line, making sure the lines are at right angles to it, and parallel to the centre line.  Label points.

Step 5: Extend to the side by same amount

Extend and label.

Step 6: Complete the square 

Close up and join to new points X and Y.

Step 7: Smooth out

Redraw around X and Y to make the line smoother.  Now trace around the whole outside area.

Step 8: New outline

Your sleeve, once you’ve unpinned the original, now looks like this: yes, an apron!

Step 9: Complete the pattern

Add seam allowances, grainline, fold instructions (that is, the four points to each pleat square) and knotches.  As there are no balance lines, when it comes to attaching the sleeve to the bodice, pin to the shoulder seam first then to underarm sleeve.  The rest should fit without tucks or gathers.

Step 10: Making up

To make the sleeve from your fabric, fold C to E and D to F.  The fold should stop at points A and B.  Baste along the armscye.

Alternatively…

You may wish to fold the opposite way, from the outer side of the sleeve towards the centre, that is, from E towards C and F towards D.

And if you do so then turn the sleeve inside out, you get this interesting diagonal pleat as on the right….

If your fabric is on floppy side and can’t support such corners, you could try interfacing.

A nice addition to the bamboo shoot bodice?