Stuck on Sleeves

I am in search of the perfect sleeve for these woven tees I’ve been making. I like the armscye from the New Look 6543 but I need to tweak the cap shaping a bit. I think it’s too high, for one thing, and tends to pouf out at the top. I read somewhere—but can’t find the link to save my life—that too much sleeve cap ease is often drafted into commercial patterns. Conventional wisdom is that for woven fabrics, 1" to 1.5" of ease is sufficient, meaning that the length of the sleeve cap should only be that much longer than the circumference of the armscye. Most patterns direct the sewist to sew a line of easing stitches along the cap, which are drawn up to ease the excess fabric of the cap into the armscye. Some of these commercial patterns have more ease than that, and it takes a lot of wrestling to set in the sleeve without wrinkles or pleats. This article on the Ikatbag website does a superb job of explaining the shape of the armscye and its relationship to the sleeve cap, and the author goes so far as to say that the length of the sleeve cap should be equal to the distance around the armscye. I am working on wrapping my head around that.

Getting flat fabric to fit around squishy, unique bodies is both art and science.

In the meantime, I’ve added another project to the queue. I decided that my sleeve board needs a new cover. The metallized fabric is dried out and cracking, and the padding underneath is in sad shape. (I bought the sleeve board at a thrift store.)

I need to get out my bin of utility fabrics and find a remnant of metallized ironing board fabric. I don’t use that fabric on my actual ironing board—I prefer a cotton twill cover—but I know I picked up a remnant or two of metallized fabric at Joanns just in case I needed it.

[I also see that it’s probably time to take off my ironing board cover and wash it . . . ]

In the process, I will get to use the cording foot on my serger to attach the drawstring in the same way it is on the existing cover:

We are supposed to get rain again at the beginning of the week, so I might tackle this project then.

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I think I will be getting a Bernina sewing machine. I am not getting the 990. I was talking to the quilt store owner on Wednesday and she mentioned that a lot of the 880s are coming in on trade from people buying the 990s. She’s selling the used 880s for even less than a new 5-series machine would cost, and I’ve been considering buying a 5-series for a while. (I am not an impulse buyer.) I’ve had my Janome 6600P for 12 years now and while it’s been a great machine, I am running up against some of its limitations.

The 880 was not a popular machine. When the Bernina tech was here in April to service my Q20, he and I talked about that model. He had a lot of positive things to say about the design and mechanics of the 880, and all of his comments were wholly unsolicited because he had no idea I was thinking about getting a new machine. After hearing his opinion of that model—and knowing that he’ll be available should I have any issues—I am comfortable with purchasing a used one. He thoroughly goes over any trade-in models before they are released for sale.

The 880 is more machine than I ever anticipated having, and it comes with an embroidery module, too. I don’t need another hobby, but there are occasions when having embroidery capabilities will come in handy.