Sleeves: Hawthorn Jacket and Boxwood Hoodie

Whether you're making the Boxwood Hoodie or the Hawthorn Jacket, or even the T-shirt, you're going to need to put some sleeves on. So I'm gonna show you the way that I find putting on sleeves is the easiest, especially if you've never done any kinda garment construction before, or are struggling with your sleeves. Trying to set in that sleeve is just difficult. Try out this method, and I think you're gonna find it's a little bit easier. So I have made a mini sample here of the Boxwood Hoodie, so it's a little bit easier to see the whole thing. But what I have here is my front and back pieces that I have stitched together at the shoulder seams. So that's the only thing I've done is just the front and back, stitched at the shoulder seams. Now, if you are going to set in a sleeve, that means you are going to then stitch your front and back at the sides, and then you're gonna have an arm hole opening, and you're going to need to sew your sleeve. And you have this circle, top of your sleeve that you need to fit into this circle opening of an arm's eye. It is a little bit more complicated of a way to do it. It can be done, obviously, but if you've never done sleeves before, doing it sort of in the flat makes it a little bit easier. So to do that, again, go ahead and put your front and back pieces together at the shoulder seams first, and now you're going to lay it flat. Now you have this curve. We have a nice curve here that we're going to fit the top opening, or top of our arm's eye on to, then we're going to sew from the cuff, all the way down to the hem in one long seam. So it makes it a little bit easier. So, once you have your front and back sewn together at the shoulder seams, go ahead and lay this flat. You want the right side up. So I shouldn't, my seam allowances are down. I don't wanna see them. I want the right side up, and now I need to grab my sleeve piece. I talked about pattern markings at the very beginning of this is my miniature little sleeve piece. So you can see the whole thing. But there are markings for the top center of the sleeve. And then there is a single mark for the front, a double mark for the back. This here at the center, this is what I wanna align with my seam between my front and back that I have here. And then I wanna make sure that the mark, the single mark that's for the front goes with the front of my hoodie piece, and the double mark goes with the back. One thing that you might run into is, say you have already cut out your pieces, you've put 'em together and now you don't remember which one is the front and which one is the back. You can always say, put a pin in the front so you know it's always the front. Or if you just forget, you can always grab your pattern piece, go ahead and lay it back on and see which side it lines up with. And you can see which side is the front and back if you don't know or have forgotten. So just make sure that you know which one is the front and back, and that you put the front and the back of the sleeve with those appropriate marks. So you need to transfer those markings. I mentioned there was a variety of ways that you can transfer your marks. Excuse me. My favorite way to do that is with a pin. So I take and I put my fabric down on my pattern piece and then right at the mark, I'm gonna go ahead and just put a pin. Now I have my pin marking what is the top center of my sleeve, and I can do the same thing and put a mark at my single mark, which is gonna become the front, and I can do the same thing and put two pins to be my double mark for the back. So I just find that pins are a very, very easy, quick way to mark. I don't have to worry about whether that mark is removable or not. I don't have to worry about if anything is gonna come out of my fabric. It's just a quick and easy way to do that. Now you wanna make sure that you've done those same markings on your actual front and back pattern piece. So I'm gonna put my double mark for the back, single mark for the front. So this is something where you can do all of your marks as you're cutting out your pattern pieces. And if you are someone who's using your removable marking pen or pencil, that's gonna be easier to do. Since I prefer to use pin marks, and I have a lot of pattern pieces I'm cutting out, sometimes for me those pins might fall out. I don't want 'em as I'm working on my pattern pieces to get stuck with any pins. So I like to just wait and do my pin marking, like I just did, when I am ready to do them. So now I have my marks in my sleeve, and I'm gonna line up my double pin mark back with the double pin mark, backside of my hoodie. I have my one here in the center, this gets aligned with my seam. My shoulder seam, between the front and back. And I have my single pin mark that is the front. So I'm going to first, start by pinning all three of those points and the ends first. So I'm gonna go ahead and just use my pin that was my pin mark, take it out, put it right back in through all layers. And go ahead and align these single pins. Just take one out, go back through both layers. And now I want to align the end and put a pin. Now do the same thing on the other side. I wanna line up those double pin marks. Just choose one of those pins, put it through all my layers. And now I wanna line up these ends, and go ahead and use a pin and hold that together. Now that I have the center and the front and back seam, my single and double notches marked and my ends, now I need to go back in and ease in any fullness, or the additional fabric that is in the front and back, top of the sleeve, 'cause there will be some. There always needs to be some. That's what allows you to move your arm when you're wearing your garment. And to do that, I just like to go from wherever the marks I'm working, I go to the center. And then once I put in a new pin I go to the new center of the center. I always just work in the middle in half. That way, I'm making sure that I am evenly distributing all of that fabric and I'm not trying to start on one side and work my way the other direction. And then I have a bunch of fullness that I I wasn't able to evenly distribute. So if you always start in the center and work your way out in both directions, it's gonna be a lot easier. So I'm gonna do this, making sure I have a pin about every inch, inch and a half or so. I find that the more pins you have along a curved edge like this, the better, the easier. Once I've done one side, now I can go ahead and work my way on the other side. And you will generally find that it's easier to do the front than it is to do the back. Most patterns have more ease, more additional fullness written into the back of the sleeve than the front. And you want that because your arms, you wanna be able to give someone a hug. So you need all of that ease to be in the back area as opposed to in the front. That's one reason, another reason why it's very, very important to make sure you are putting the front of the sleeve with the front of your shirt, and the back with the back, because if you have ever done it backwards and I have in the past done it backwards. As soon as you put that hoodie on or that jacket or whatever it is, you're gonna feel like you're wearing it backwards. So just make sure you're getting the front with the front and the back with the back. Once you have everything pinned, now it's time to stitch this. Whether you're doing, whatever project it is you're doing, and they're generally done with 1/2 inch seam allowances with these mood patterns, but just double check that you're doing the correct seam allowance. But I find that it's easier to stitch with the sleeve down. So the sleeve is on the bottom, and I have my front and my back up here on top. That way I can see the fabric as I'm stitching, I can make sure that nothing is getting folded or gathered. Everything is laying nice and flat. And then of course, as I stitch my way up to the seam allowance, between the front and the back, I wanna make sure that stays laying open, like I want it to. So I'm just going to stitch from pin the pin. So essentially I'm stopping every one and a 1/2 to two inches to remove those pins. I can adjust the fabric as I go to make sure that it's laying flat. Like so. Keep that seam allowance open as I stitch over it and continue down the other side of my sleeve. But it's essentially straight stitching. I'm not trying to work in the round as I would be if I was setting in the sleeve, it's just flat and much easier. So once I have that stitched, I have now my sleeve sewn onto the front and back. So if I lay it out flat or hold it up a little, you can see I have my front and I have my back, and I have my sleeve sewn in. Now you're gonna take and you're gonna fold your, you would do the other sleeve first if you wanted to, but you're gonna fold it so that your right side's together. Your front and back, right side is together and your sleeves are together. And now we're gonna sew one big, long, straight seam from the cuff of our sleeve, all the way down to the lower end of our hoodie. So the only thing you have to really worry to line up is you wanna make sure that you're lining up these seam allowances that are in your underarm, pinning those so that they go in the direction you want to, which in this case I want them to be open. And then you wanna make sure you're aligning your raw edges. So the hem at the lower end, and then you can go ahead and put in a couple more pins in between, 'cause obviously you'll be making a full size. This was my miniature little sample here. But you'll need a few more pins to hold all that together. Same thing. We have our pins here at the underarm. I wanna make sure I'm aligned up here at my cuff. Go ahead and put in pin there. And then a few more along the edge. And now we have just one easy, long, straight seam to stitch. Again, using the correct seam allowance, so I'm at a 1/2 inch again. My machine's doing a couple stitches in place, or you can do a backstitch to make sure it's secure. Remove those pins as you stitch up to them. Make sure your seam allowances lay flat as you stitch over them. Right like so. And then stitch all the way from the hem to the cuff. Being sure to backstitch at the end. Okay. And go ahead and clip your threads, and now you are done. So now you have your sleeve, right like so. You see your sleeve that you've sewn into the front and back. I'll go ahead and turn it right-side out, so you can see. But it's much, much easier to put a sleeve on if you're doing it when your garment is laying flat, so your front and back are laying flat, and you can see how easy and quick that was to put that sleeve on. And that is when you leave it flat, as opposed to trying to set in that sleeve. So, sew your front and your back together at that shoulder seam, lay that flat, then sew your sleeve on, then do one long straight seam from the cuff to the hem. And it'll be so much quicker and easier to put those sleeves on. So use that tip, whether you're making the Boxwood Hoodie or you're making the Hawthorne Jacket, any other project, even in the future that requires you to put sleeves on. Rather than setting in that sleeve, do it in the flat and make it a little bit quicker and easier.