Blue Bees 6

SLEEEEEEEEEEVES...

Ah, those fashionable, yet practical Renaissance Women. In most of the paintings of the period, women are wearing detachable sleeves. This helps keep dresses economical, fashionable, and comfortable.  Sometimes the sleeves matched; sometimes they didn't. Some had thicker winter sleeves lined with fur.

With the Blue Bee dresses the name of the game was a straight line - so no extra puffs. I had enough solid blue linen, but NOT enough coat fabric, so that choice had been made for me already. I knew I wanted these sleeves to fit tighter at the armhole than sleeves I'd done in the past. Luckily, I had braved my way through learning this tutorial so making the pattern wasn't so difficult. 

Since these were detachable, they needed to be lined, as much as I didn't want extra layers. I went with extra silk from the coat lining.

Finally, what about pattern? I wanted to distinguish the sleeves from the dress, especially if we wore the dresses without the coat. English patterns of the time seemed to repeat at regular intervals, and something geometric would be easiest... I admit I went with the low effort option. I overestimated the amount of 1/8" navy satin ribbon I would need so I had extra, and settled on a diamond pattern. 

​The new cording presser foot I got for my sewing machine also accepted the ribbon and made topstitching (with a zig-zag) a breeze! I was also able to use up some grey plastic pearl beads I bought on sample but wasn't able to use in another project. Sewing them on was not nearly as bad as the French knots I did for Ryan's ribbon sleeves!

I used enough of my white marking pencil that I actually had to resharpen it (gasp!). In the end Kate and I decided we needed to see the cuffs she had so skillfully embroidered, and so we turned up the cuffs and tacked them in place. I'm not sure if the upturned cuff is really period, but it looks quite nice with the overall style impression I wanted to make.