My vision for the perfect wrap dress needed a fancier sleeve, so I decided to dress up the sleeves. I used my sleeve and cuff pieces from the MyFit tee, then used the slash and spread method to create a beautiful bishop sleeve. You can find the first post where the MyFit Tee gets hacked into a crossover top here.
Bishop sleeves are full sleeves that are gathered at the wrist, and typically have some pooling just above the gathers. They are a great way to dress up a pattern and add just a little something extra.
We will be adding width and length to our MyFit sleeve to create a bishop sleeve.
I use medical bed paper for all my pattern hacking and alterations. I started by laying my sleeve piece atop my tracing paper with the sleeve head near the top edge, being sure there was plenty of room around the other 3 sides of the sleeve. I added 3 dotted lines down the sleeve, to designate my cutting lines. Because this was for a young child, 3 lines was enough, but you may opt for more slash lines on a sleeve meant for an adult or older teen. The first line was at the center of the sleeve. Then determine your slash placement by making sure the same distance measurement from the center line to the right or left for the next line.
In the image below, you will see a black line drawn below the sleeve. I drew my line 2.5" (6.5cm) below the sleeve. I added a small piece of tape to the top of my sleeve head at the center line to secure the sleeve pattern.
Cut on the dotted lines starting at the wrist of the sleeve and cutting towards the sleeve head. Do not completely cut through the sleeve. Stop cutting so that the slashes aren't completely severed and this will leave a "hinge" where the sleeve will then spread, but leave the length of the sleeve head intact.
At this point, you can spread as much or as little as you would like to add your desired fullness.
I put 1" (2.5cm) between the center slash, and 1.5" (3.8cm) between my outer slashes. Once you are happy with the separation, tape the slashed sleeve in place. Then draw the new sleeve seam as shown below. I used a ruler to draw a straight line from the underarm point down to my longer sleeve line.
Now add a curve to the wrist edge of your pattern piece. You can choose to curve for the whole length like I did, or focus the curve more on the back half of the sleeve for more pooling towards the back. I opted for the full curve and just free handed the curve, it was about 1/2" (1.2cm) lower than the new line I had drawn.
On my pattern below, you'll see that the original grain line arrow is now at an angle. Draw a new center line down the pattern starting at the sleeve head. This will be the new grainline instruction.
In the next post, we will construct the bodice and go through how I used the circle skirt and gathered skirt calculators to complete the look.
Thanks for joining me today, I look forward to finishing this dress with you.
Cyn
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