Hello friends!
Just for the fun of it, here’s a fun, quick little post and video to inspire you the next time you get ready to cut a pattern that includes sleeves.
A while ago I purchased a knit top that had a seam down the center of the sleeve, and it got me thinking about all the reasons you might want to do the same. Here are a few ideas:
- For design reasons. Use the seam to color block or to add a decorative seam. Hand embroidery, entredeux (here’s another nice tutorial for it), a fancy stitch on your machine to decorate the seam, or even a slot seam would all be fun ways to use this idea.
- If you’re running low on fabric and need to squeeze the sleeve out of smaller pieces. Sleeves take a lot of fabric, so you might be able to conserve fabric by dividing the sleeve into two smaller pieces.
- And maybe most important, if you want to add room for a full bicep a seam can allow you to widen the sleeve to add that extra room.
Here’s a little video to show you how to make these changes.
I hope you enjoy! If you’ve had experience with splitting a sleeve piece, I would love to hear about it. Share what you’ve done in the comments.
Woo hoo I love the shirt. The color blocking looks so good and sophisticated. Please gift me one 😉
Ah, thank you for the tutorials! I’ve screwed up the two-piece sleeve a time or two (or three or…)
Glad you like it! To be clear, a two-piece sleeve is usually different than this, with more natural shaping to give a bend through the elbow. Cutting your sleeve into two pieces is different, but still a good option to have in your back pocket!
Thank you so much for this suggestion and the practical how to video. It looks very do-able. This is a wonderful way to add a design feature and I know that I will be using it to adjust for full bicep.
Thanks for your video on splitting sleeves – reasons why & how to do, Very understandable. Will attempt this after the holidays.
Excellent video. Really appreciated the explanation of seam line vs center sleeve notch