[Ohhowsweet]

Hi ladies! Please help me – I’m having the hardest time sewing in flat sleeves (specifically I’m working on 3 copies of the After-School shirt right now, so I’ve had 6 chances to try to get it right). I do my two rows of basting stitches and then try so very hard to fit and ease the sleeve in. But I end up creating a cap, so to speak, and when I try to serge (or even baste again by machine – or even hand baste the layers together!) it still ends up bunching up and shifting some and the finished seam ends up with the yoke piece a good cm longer than the sleeve. Am I just missing something totally obvious?

I saw a few tips online, and tried to instead make a single gathering/basting line at 1/2″ from the sleeve’s raw edge, but that didnt make any difference. Even when I try to focus more on making sure the underarm edges meet, I still get bunching. Please, oh experienced ones, enlighten me with your wisdom. I also wouldn’t mind some of your sewing mojo to help me through this funk! Feeling frustrated 🙁

Thanks!

Melissa

[Mama_Knowles]

I know Nicole has a tutorial for this one on her blog!

[Mama_Knowles]

I found the link to it, http://fiveandcounting-motherof5.blogspot.com/2012/07/after-school-frolics.html I hope this will help you out. : )

[Tamara]

Take a deep breath and read the link Sharon has just provided for you. I pin and do my sleeves exactly the same. Basting the sleeve is only going to give a different result than to actually use the machine to stitch. I recommend two rows of gathering threads for best results.

Tamara

[Lightning McStitch]

Here’s something I find helps…. When you’ve pulled the gathering threads (and I think two rows must be better than one, no?) to get the right length, bring the front thread to the back and tie the two threads together. Do this at each end of each row of gathering stitches. Then the length is set. It can’t ungather itself.

Then you can spread it evenly, finish pinning it and then sew and it shouldn’t move at all.

A glass of red wine always seems to help too.

In fact, I’ve got some sleeves to sew in now, off to pour myself some assistance….

[Ohhowsweet]

Thank you all so much! After looking at Nicole’s tutorial, I realized that I was very much encouraging this “cap” to form instead of really making sure the whole set up stays flat. Physics then reigns and when you lay this cap flat, you can’t help but get puckers, which then causes shifting. I also love lightning’s idea of bringing the thread to the front to tie them together – I’m absolutely going give this a try!

Thank you so much!!

Melissa

[Nicole]

I am so pleased!

I love McStitch’s tip,I use that on adult clothing when you only want ease and not gathers as such.

Love this group.

[meleliza]

I wrap the two ends of my gathering stitches around a pin in a figure 8. This keeps them very secure and you can adjust the gathers/ease as much as you like until it’s how you want it.

[Lightning McStitch]

Now that is smart, cause just occasionally I’ve tied them off a tiny bit short. Right, from now on I’ll do a Philly style hitch ( at least that’s what I’m going to call it). Brilliant meleliza.

[Ohhowsweet]

Brilliant indeed. I knew you ladies would save the day – thank you!

[juliamom2009]

One thing I always do when I ease in a sleeve is take off the free arm on my sewing machine. Then, with the gathered part of the sleeve as the top layer, I hold both ends of the un-gathered sleeve in back of and in front of the needle as it sews. I kind of pull (but not stretch) the bottom un-gathered sleeve as the machine sews. I don’t know if my description makes any sense whatsoever, but I never have problems sewing in sleeves.

[Jennifer1568]

I read a pattern today that shows a different way of doing the gathering stitches. I says to lock one end of the basting stitches for the 3/8 width at the beginning of stitching and then when you make the basting stitches at the 5/8 width to lock the stitches at the end and then pull the bobbin thread toward the middle. It is in this tutorial about making a denim jumper. I could totally see the embroidery on a Roller Skate dress or tunic. http://www.purlbee.com/embroidered-denim-jumper/