Felix Sew-Along: Sleeves
Alright, if you're putting sleeves on your Felix Dress, today is for you! If not, just sit back and wait for our next post. The instructions in the pattern booklet show the 3/4 length sleeve so for the sew-along I'll be demonstrating on the flutter sleeve. Both sleeves are inserted exactly the same no matter the shape though.
To begin, line up the armholes of the self and lining matching the side and shoulder seams and notches. Sew the two layers together inside the 1/2" seam allowance.
Take your sleeves and fold the underarm seams together with the right sides of the fabric facing. Make sure that you're making two different sleeves, you can see above that I have two opposite sleeves.
Sew the underarm seams and finish the seam allowance as desired. We serged ours as we've done for the rest of the finishing on our dress.
Press the seam allowances towards the back of the garment.
Place a double line of basting stitched around the sleeve cap starting at the single front notch, traveling up through the top shoulder notch, down to the back double notches. Leave thread tails to ensure you have something to pull on to gather the caps slightly.
Start with your sleeve right side out and your dress inside out. Place the sleeve inside the armhole so that the right sides of the sleeve and dress are facing each other. Pin around the armhole matching underarm seams and notches. Pull on the thread tails to fit the sleeve cap into place.
Sew around the armhole at 1/2" attaching the sleeve in place.
Finish your seam allowance as desired, we serged ours as we've been doing throughout the dress.
Repeat these steps for the other sleeve. You can lightly press the seam allowance towards the sleeve, I usually finger press mine over once the sleeves are hemmed so as not to flatten the sleeve cap too much.
To hem, you'll simply press 1/4" up twice and stitch in place. One thing I like to do with a thin fabric like this is to reduce bulk along the hem. You can see here you'd have three layers of serged seam allowance sitting on top of each other. To avoid this I trim out the seam allowance below the two folds. You'll find it's much smoother for the next step.
Stitch along the edge of the hem anchoring it in place and repeat for the other sleeve.
And that's it for your sleeves! If you have any questions as always, let us know in the comments below. Thanks so much for following along so far!
