Jacket Sleeve and Bra Workshop

I am almost ready to cut out the sleeves for my jacket. I made an alteration to the original sleeve to eliminate the puckers, but that just caused almost more problems than it solved. The sleeve on my right (your left) is the altered original sleeve. It isn't hanging too well. You can see it twisting and hanging weird. The sleeve on the left is a pattern I took from Simplicity 3672. Since it was a plus size and two piece, I was hoping it would work. First I laid the original altered sleeve pattern on top of the Simplicity pattern tissue to see which one I would need to cut out. The size 20 was then picked. I folded it at both petite-able lines and then cut my muslin.


You can see the original sleeve better in this side shot. It's so bad it is even distorting the armhole. It also is a bit larger around, which my arm doesn't need.

Here is the Simplicity sleeve. While it's not perfect, it's a whole lot better than the altered original sleeve. You can't really see how much better it is because I didn't do the easing in the way the pattern called for you to where the elbow bends. I just tucked the ease and the sleeve has the seam allowances on the outside, since of course, I sewed up the same side sleeve as the one that I had already inserted. I think it looks like I need to interface the sleeve cap. I don't want to interface the whole sleeve because I don't want it to be board-like. I want it to hang softly. The only alteration I will do is to add a little bit more cap height to eliminate the drag lines.


I wanted to show you the pocket, which you can't see very well. I drafted it from a drawing I made of another jacket I saw on TV. I thought it was a cute, easy pocket to add to any princess seamed jacket.


Now for the Bra Workshop update. It was a long, hard day. The only saving grace was that so many of my friends were there. I got to know some new friends just a bit better too. Sewing with me were Cat MacGregor, Kathi Rank, MaryAnn, Janna, and Jeanette Swanson.

It was an interesting class and while I had a good time, I was disappointed with the final bra.


I hate the shape it gives me and it's deadly uncomfortable. I think it gives me too much of a flattened projection up front with too much side bulge. It doesn't have much coverage at the front of my arm, yet it has too much coverage at the neck edge. And look at that rippling across the front. The apex is too high for me and the bra band is too tight. Of course, they said it looks great. In fact, when I complained how the side bulged out and the underwires were poking the front of my arms, her solution was to reach down into the bra and start bending the underwires in toward my body. Ouch! I don't think that should be the solution. The underwires should lay flat against my body, not have to be bent into submission. Which, of course, just made it more uncomfortable.


It doesn't look too bad from the sides except that you can see that it doesn't have enough coverage at the front arm area. That should come up much higher, IMHO. And doesn't my opinion count?


You can see how tight it is on the band in this picture. It gives me a lumpy, bumpy back, as if I didn't already have lumps without the addition of a too tight bra adding to my problems. I didn't bother to buy this bra-maker's book. I already own the Bra-makers Manual by Beverly Johnson. I'm hoping I can find pointers on how to alter this bra, or another pattern to fit me better than this one. I have a few patterns for bras in my stash. However, bra making will have to wait until the jacket is done. I don't want to wait too long or else I'll forget how it's done.