Adding the Ruffle Sleeve to a Concord Tee Pattern

As I said in my previous post, I saw this sleeve on a young lady in the streets of NYC. When I saw it I immediately thought of the sleeve from View D of McCalls 7542. Cause it's so obviously "The Year of the Sleeve!"

I know this is a popular pattern and I own it for ALL of those sleeve variations. I'm sure that other versions of the sleeves will show up here on future garments.

The sleeve for this tee was the easiest to make ~

- The most important thing is to make sure the diameter of the sleeve is the same as the diameter of the ruffle.  
- I measure the sewn sleeve's hem diameter.  
- Then I measure the circle that fits closest to my sleeve hem and mark that on the pattern piece.
- The circle is traced onto the cut out ruffle piece.
- I carefully cut the center out and then serged it to finish it.
- The ruffle hem was stitched down a 1/4" and pressed.

Finally the sleeve was pinned to the sleeve and sewn down.

Seriously that's it. Easy Peasy!

Now the Flamingo Ruffle took a little more work ~
For drama I used two circles. At first I thought that I would make two of the same size ruffle and sew one a little lower down from the first ruffle. However, after a good night's sleep, I realized that one ruffle should be larger than the other one.

To achieve the larger lower ruffle, I added 1.5" all the way around the circle. there was no set formula to it, I just went with what I thought would look best. 

1. First the edges are serge finished and hemmed by turning the serged edge under and stitched flat. 
2. The circular opening/stitching line has been drawn onto both pieces. 
3. The circles are layered over each other so that the stitching lines match.  

Next the centers were stitched together on the stitching line.

The centers were then cut out and pressed flat.

Then the edges were serge finished.

The double ruffle was stitched to the sleeve.

I pressed the seam up and stitched it flat on the outside of the sleeve.

Here's a view of the double ruffle attached to the sleeve. Now a couple more things you should be aware of:

- I started with a sleeve that was one inch longer than the elbow length notches on the sleeve pattern. 
- My thought was that this would get me a sleeve that was almost to my wristbone. 
- I didn't want it too long because I didn't want it dragging into things.

It did provide the drama that I wanted and I'm thrilled with the final result!

I really am happy with this dress and hope that the tutorial will help you make a dress or tee with flamingo sleeves!

There are a few more tees and dresses on the way, so that's what's up next on the blog.

...as always more later!