New Sleeves

You know how sometimes you make a new project and when it is finished you are really chuffed with it, then you wear it for a while and something about it doesn’t work quite right; that is like my lovely orange coat.  I originally made it with priest sleeves, and it soon became apparent these were a bit annoying because I could not wear long sleeved woolly jumpers under it and the cuffs were too tight to get on and off easily.  Grrrrrr!

The Priest sleeves are nice but impractical, this is before the change

So, over the weekend I cut some new sleeves and made them up ready to change them a bit.  I still wanted to retain the brocade detail at the wrist but it needed to be much narrower so I can wear my nice fluffy silk and mohair jumper under it.

Today, in my lunch break I unpicked the old sleeves, removed the shoulder shaping and the old sleeve linings ready to be replaced by all new ones.

New sleeves

These are the new sleeves.  I replaced them after work today and they are perfect.  Because the previous cuff was a little tight at the wrist the strain caused the brocade to come apart a little at the seams and I had had to repair it before it gave way completely.  To prevent future strain on the seams I have double stitched all the new seams and then top stitched them down to make them sit flatter as the fabric is quite bulky.  The new cuffs are much shorter and the full part of the sleeves are longer so I can wear all the woolly pullys I want to.

I have fallen in love with my coat all over again because I have worked out the major design flaw that it had first time around.

Don’t be afraid to change something you have made, sometimes you need to have a second pass at the projects that don’t work out right first time around –  take it apart and make it beautiful so that you will love wearing it until it practically falls apart.  Design is about experimenting, and it doesn’t always work the first time, don’t worry, you will learn more from your mistakes than from your successes!  Dare to fail sometimes, all the most accomplished designers and makers make plenty of mistakes along the way before they reach perfection.

Have fun.