Drafting the sleeve for the TVW dress version 2

I have spent the last few weeks trying to make a version of The Vampire Wife dresses.
You can find the previous blog posts here:

https://brackencrafts.blogspot.com/2019/03/making-my-blocks-for-tvw-dress.html 
https://brackencrafts.blogspot.com/2019/03/making-toille-for-tvw-dress.html  
https://brackencrafts.blogspot.com/2019/03/adding-skirt-and-frills-to-tvw-dress.html 

Why? Not sure really. Its a challenge and everyone who is anyone seems to be wearing them so why not? Will I wear these? Not so sure but its fun as a project anyway and I reckon I probably will. I surprised myself by really liking my toile version  which is made from cotton curtain fabric. This though I did with a very basic sleeve to ensure my sleeve block worked and fitted the bodice because I have not made blocks before so this is all very new and interesting though a bit more long winded than I somehow thought it would be. Having said that I could have done what many people do and bought a premade block and altered it but there is something about drafting it yourself from scratch that just appeals to me.

Well drafting the sleeve seemed a bit daunting and to be honest I have probably spent far longer reading about this and thinking about how to do this than is really justified because once I started to actually draw and cut this it was very quick to do.

 First you obviously need to trace round your basic sleeve block - or sleeve pattern if using a commercial pattern as your starting point.

I was running out of paper when I did this so had to use a scrapy bit but it was just about the size I needed so not so bad after all.

I am not sure you can see well on the below picture but you section the top of the sleeve by drawing a line accross the sleeve just below the top shaping then more lines from the balance points down to this line.

Cut the top bit off and cut along all lines - I did this wrong. According to the book you should have a central piece with two bits either side so you end up with 5 segments but I only cut 4 segments. Hopefully this will still work.

 Then after spreading you add some height to the top of the sleeve (about 1cm ) to give a raised sleeve head and I drew round all the bits and added more paper to fill in and taped everything down before making a new final tracing for my TVW sleeve block. In effect then I have two new blocks. One that is taped together and then one is traced - that one I will use to make the actual sleeve.

 Mark between balance points - this is where the gathers will go tho looking at TVW I reckon the dresses may have pleated tops not gathered. I need to have a better look before I try sewing a new version of this dress but then there are loads of pictures online.

 So here is my sleeve with pleated/gathered head for the proper version of The Vampires Wife style dress. I am hoping to get this cut out later today and then next weekend or this week in the evenings if I am not too tired after work to get this sewn together.

The fabric for this version is a lovely but very bright turquioise chintz but I only have 2m and it is not well cut so not actually a rectangle so I am debating which length dress I will manage to get out of this because I now also need to remember sleeve frills.  

This fabric is 100% cotton but has a shiny chintz side and a plain side. The problem is do I cut the frills going the opposite way cos there is a slight difference in the weave giving a directional effect? I may have to do this to get the dress out of this piece of fabric but I have yet to try experimenting with pattern layouts. But then willit notice terribly if I change the fabric directions for some or all of the frills? I suppose if all of the frills it will matter less than if say just done for the sleeves.

I could of course add a different colour or some lace to bulk my fabric out similar to the version below:

I have yet to actually position my pattern on my fabric so will need to decide this as I do it.

I am finding this whole project sooooo exciting!

Thanks for visiting 

Bracken