Stitch to Style

Hi everyone,

 As promised, today I'd like to show you how to add sleeves to the boxtop (view B) in the This or That pattern.   Here's the boxtop with sleeves that I made for my Summer Wardrobe in the group of plum, green, and white fabrics.

 

I chose a mesh fabric from my stash that happened to go with the pants (Easy Ageless Cool) and shell (Putting It Together) that I had made earlier.  Please keep in mind that this boxtop can also be worn over the other striped shell in the wardrobe as well as the dress/tunic in the flocked white fabric, a pattern hack from the Putting It Together shell.  One garment = 3 new looks. (I covered the how-to's of that dress/tunic in my previous blog.)

As you can see from the envelope, the boxtop (on the left) has no sleeves.  But we're creative, and we can add them if we want them.  First, I decided on how big around I wanted my boxtop to be by consulting the measurements included in the pattern.  Then I used the following steps to draft a sleeve pattern--really easy!

The original pattern has dots that mark the armhole.  I laid the pattern on some tracing paper and marked those dots. I also marked the shoulder point.

 

Here's a view of the straight line for the top of the sleeve with those markings.

Then I drew the sides of the sleeves by drawing perpendicular lines 5/8" away from my original marks, to give me the seam allowances.

Finally, I added the hem.

Obviously, these sleeves are straight.  They're short (9", I think) and I didn't want to taper them.  The idea of the Summer Wardrobe was easy and casual, so the straight sleeves fit right in.

I was lucky.  The selvedge of my fabric was firmly woven, so I cut my sleeves to have that finished edge at the hem.

 

Of course, my first step in sewing the boxtop was to follow the instructions to stitch the binding to the neckline.  It's a nice, neat finish.   Take another look at the finished boxtop at the top of this blog--you'll see that I used a more firmly woven fabric for the neckline binding.  The mesh fabric was too loosely woven to use. I had also serged all my edges.

Then I stitched the side seams.  I chose to leave the lower portion of the side seams open as vents.  At the top of the side seams, I secured my stitching at the dots marking the armholes.  I was ready to pin the sleeves into those armholes.  You can see my turquoise dot marking the top of the sleeve.

 At the left of the photo above, you can see the seam allowances at the sleeve underarm.  When stitching the sleeve into the armhole, push those underarm seam allowances out of the way so they don't get caught in the stitching.  There's a pin at the left poking into the bottom of the sleeve showing exactly where to begin your stitching.  

Once the sleeves are stitched, press the sleeve seam allowances toward the sleeve.

Taaaa-Daaa!  You've made a garment you didn't know you could make!  I love pattern hacks, and I hope you'll play around with your patterns too.