How I Made This Dress, Part 2...SLEEVES

 Hello all,

Here's another installment of photos and explanations from my recent dress project! Enjoy!

The inspiration for this dress was this 1940's tiered dress, and the fabric came from Joanns.

We left off in the last post with a sleeveless bodice. This post is about how I made the puffed sleeves!

To start off with, I laid my bodice by the section of fabric I had cut my bodice from. In the photo above, the armhole of the bodice is mirrored against the place where it was cut from. Note: the fold is at the top here. 

Cutting straight down from the top gives me this shape. FYI: The sleeve is facing the other direction than from the last photo.

I rolled the straight edge of the sleeve over twice and hemmed it.

In this picture I'm making a small cut into the folded sleeve to tell me how far to sew gathering stitches.

Here's my first row of gathering stitches: not back-stitched at the end, stitch length 5 on my machine.

I sewed another row next to it.

Then comes the fun part...making the gathers! I gathered until the left side of the sleeve was about the same size as the armhole.

I sewed the ends of the sleeve together. I didn't sew over the hem, though, because I'd need access the hem to string my elastic through.

It was time to attach the sleeve to the bodice. I put the sleeve around the armhole backwards, with right sides of the fabric together, and sewed around the armhole. I don't remember pinning it, but I might have.

Aligning the bottom of the sleeve and the top of the armhole.

Ta-da!! 

It would have been cute to leave it as a sort of butterfly sleeve, but its destiny was to be a puffed sleeve...

I cut 2 pieces of 1/4" elastic a little larger than the circumference of my upper arm. 

I attached a safety pin to one end, and threaded it through my hem/casing, When the end of the elastic was about to disappear into the casing, (it's a good thing to watch for) I stopped and sewed it down. 

When it was about to come out the other end, I sewed it down on that side too. Be careful not to sew over your safety pin when you secure that end of the elastic, by the way!

Then I stitched the rest of the under-arm seam shut, right over my elastic and hem.

I distributed the gathers around the sleeve opening.

Then...I made another sleeve ;).

I hope you enjoyed this sort-of-tutorial!

to God be the glory,

Miss Humphrey