Help on Sewing Western Shirt?
Hi, I am sewing myself a western shirt and since i have never worked with patterns before, I have just been making it up as I go. All is well,and now I decided to add long sleeves. Any tips on going about doing this? i.e adding it on the shoulder/underarm area and hiding the sew line? Should I sew the sleeve into a tube before or after I attach it to the shirt? All sort of questions..and the instructions to the pattern arent helpful at all.Thanks!
Are you working with a pattern? It's pretty difficult to draft a good smoothly fitting sleeve when you're doing it by the seat of your pants. I'd suggest you might want to pick up a good pattern -- Kwiksew has some excellent western style shirts, with good sleeves and armscyes.
e.g.: http://www.kwiksew.com/Catalog/cat_detail.cfm?pid=3506&QL=MenShirts
There is little or no ease in the sleevecap of a shirt (dropped) sleeve, so just match the notches and dots, put the sleeve side against the feed dogs, and sew it in flat. Then sew the underarm and side seam.
Suggested reading: David Coffin's book on Shirts; viewing:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O0adKTfoWVw (note she is sewing in a sleeve that has no ease in the sleeve cap, so it doesn't matter whether the shirt or sleeve is next to the feed dogs) or Connie Crawford's beginners DVD, which takes you through basic shirt construction: http://www.butterick.com/item/CC770.htm??tab=connie_crawford&page=3
Blouse sleeves (set in sleeves) are best sewn in "in the round" (as a tube), as they hang better that way. They typically have a fair amount of ease in the sleeve cap, so need to be prepared before insertion.
How to Make a Unitard : Attaching Sleeves and Finishing a Unitard