....dressmaking class no 4

Oh blimey get the unpicker ready! For some reason this week it seems like I just could not sew for toffee.  Well in between unpicking this is what did get done

• The contrast band for the sleeve was made up. To make this easier to sew round we took off the outer cowl as if we were going to put in the bottom bobbin, 

• At the top of the sleeve there are three marks, the two outer ones mark the start and finish for the gathering stitches that are needed to ease our sleeve into the armhole of our dress. Using the largest stitch available - no 4 on our machines sew 2 lines of stitching that run parallel to each other, they must not touch and should be sewn into the seam allowance, leave long ends on your threads at both ends as these will be used to draw up the fabric.

• Sew up the sleeve seam and place this inside the band so that the raw edges of the sleeve and the contrast band are together, then machine them together. The seam is pressed up and then top stitched by moving the stitch dial from A to B so the needle moved to the side and was sewn on the right side, using the join as a guide lined up with the middle of the foot

• The next step was to fit the sleeve into the dress, first job is to line up and pin the seam of the sleeve and the seam of the dress.  Now to make sure that you have the correct sleeve in place, check your notches, 1 for the front and 2 for the back, they may not line up exactly but so long as they are not too far out this shouldn't affect the fit.

• Pin outwards from the seam keeping everything lined up until you reach the mark where the gathering starts on your sleeve top.  Place a pin in the mark at the top of the sleeve and the shoulder seam, this divides the gathered area into two halves making it easier to manipulate the fabric.  Draw up the fabric and manipulate until it fits, before you tie off the gathering threads ensure that there are no flat bits or bunches of gathering.  Sew with the inside towards you so you can see if the gathering is being flattened by the machine foot. Woop woop the sleeve is in!  repeat on the other side if you want a pair or just put in one and start a new fashion trend.

My first sleeve was a real pain but the second one went in a treat so I guess this is another sewing area where practice makes perfect or at least considerably better.


This just left enough time to hem the bottom.

• First a 1 cm hem was turned up pinned and ironed followed by 2.5 cm hem, pinned and then tried on to check that it was level (ish) and not too short. So it was just a case of sewing all round, the advice given was rather than using the top of the fold of your hem as your guide use the 20 mark on your sewing plate, I had to deviate from this otherwise I wouldn't have sewn in the hem, I turned it up by eye rather than measuring it!

So just the final neck facing to attach and the dress will be complete.   

How do you get on with sewing sleeves? did I miss out any key steps?