Going into this, I want you to understand that everything I know about sleeves is only known in theory, not practice. I'm as likely as not to set a sleeve inside out or backward. But here we go.
I actually ran into my first snag before I really started in on the sleeves. I was taking photos for the skirt post when I noticed some gaping where the shoulder strap met the back panel. I had taken the time to adjust my pattern to make sure that part fit correctly! So what happened?
My very final adjustment happened. I had tilted the shoulder strap out slightly to reduce gaping in the front-armpit-ish-area of the armscye. I did not re-adjust the back angle of the strap to match.
While I was griping about having to fix that, @frauleinninka came to the rescue again, saying that other people have had the same problem, and suggested it might be best to leave it in for movement. I tried to pin it closed anyway to see just how bad it was, and it was less than half an inch on both shoulders.
Which is to say that I proceeded without making any adjustments to the bodice.
I drew out the original sleeve pattern from Regency Women's Dress onto my gridded wrapping paper and measured the top and bottom edges. Then I measured the armscye seam line on the bodice and the widest part of my upper arm.
One thing I know about sleeves is that the armscye seam lines have to match up, kind of. The shoulder of the sleeve is usually a bit wider (longer?) to account for wiggly fabric and allow for easing or gathering at the sleeve head.
The first two mockups weren't full length, I just wanted to figure out that sleeve head, since the shoulder sits so far in on the back of the bodice. Also, the pattern didn't say how the sleeve seam should match up with the bodice, so I had to figure that out.
That first mockup used the sleeve pattern without any adjustments and it was way too wide, but I was expecting that from my measurements. I removed 2" from the width of the whole sleeve and tried again.
The second mockup was better, but I decided the gathered/eased part of the sleeve needed to be at the top of the shoulder, not towards the back.
I didn't make any further adjustments to the pattern for the third mockup. I did the full length of the sleeve, though, and moved the excess easing/gathering to the top of the shoulder. It went unexpectedly well! I needed to shorten the sleeve a bit to get the length I wanted, I decided to take in the underarm seam by a half inch on either side, and I decided to tilt the sleeve a bit.
I had been lining up the sleeve's seam with the line of prick stitches I had done where the waist drawstring began. Doing that made the sleeve go perfectly up and down, whereas my arms tend to tilt forward I bit (or, rather, I tend to held my arms in front of me, rather than letting them hang at my sides). Basically, I just decided to rotate the sleeve to move the sleeve seam forward and up by about an inch.
Mockup three and a half, with just those little adjustments, went even better than that third mockup and I declared it Good Enough. I transferred the shape of the last mockup onto gridded paper, made markings and notes about setting the sleeve, and cut my sleeves out of both my lining and outer fabrics.
The seam lines were marked on the lining fabric with a Frixion pen, then I layered the outer layer over it (making sure I had a left and right sleeve) and basted both layers together along the line. The sleeves were then ironed to remove the marks.
The underarm seams were done with a backstitch, ironed again, and felled. I then ran two lines of gathering stitches along the easing area - one on either side of the seam line.
The non-gathered part of each sleeve was pinned into the armscye first, then I eased and pinned the top in. I sewed the sleeves in with back stitches - which I'm getting faster at - and ironed the seam allowances toward the neckline of the bodice for a nice, crisp seam.
I consulted The American Duchess Guide to 18th Century Dressmaking again about finishing the armscye seams. It confirmed what I remembered - armscye seams were often left unfinished or just whipstitched. I decided to do one better and turn the seam allowances in toward each other before whipstitching, which gave me what was basically a french seam, just done after construction instead of during. This worked around most of the seam, but not so much on the gathered parts.
Then the only thing left to do was the sleeve hems (cuffs?)! I put the dress on to confirm the length and pin the hem/cuff (and to ooh and aah over my work because self-validation is important). The hem was then ironed, repinned, and felled.
And... that's it! My classic white Regency dress is done!
I'll be back in two weeks with final photos of my dress, along with some of my original inspiration, since I never talked about that.
In the meantime...
Stay warm. Stay safe. Stay healthy.
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