Season Six Tweed jacket –making the sleeves

If you have been following what I have been up to recently, you will have seen the Prototype Shetland Tweed jacket I made, followed by a couple of proper jackets.
Now I have nailed what I need to do, I thought I’d share a few bit of making them.

So, next thing I need to sort out are the sleeves.

To make sure I always cut the fabric in just the right place, I have marked the edges with a highlighting pen to show the positioning of the stripes.

This is marked at the cuffs (see left) and at the sleeve-head (see above, left), where I also mark the horizontal stripes that need to align across to the body.

Now I have cut the fabric, I need to prepare it before stitching. To keep the cuff edges crisp, I have interfaced a two-inch strip along the cuff fold (see left, top).

I then chalk the stitch-line for the cuff mitre.

The cuff is then folded diagonally from the corner point, and I stitch along the chalk-line. I then trim to a standard seam allowance, and press the cuff flat, giving me a nice simple single seam line from the corner of the cuff vent.

I then sew the two parts of the sleeve together along the back seam.

While I have the sleeve in a flat form, I can easily set the three buttonholes for the cuff vent.

Again, to make things as easy for myself as possible, I am going to sew the elbow patches in place while the sleeve is still in a single flat form.

The patches are real leather and have pre-pierced sewing holes around the edges.

These have to be hand-sewn in place and I use a strong top-stitch thread, sewing in a blanket stitch around the patch.

It is SO much easier working the patch while the sleeve is still flat.

Once the patches are done I can finish the sleeves off by sewing the front seam.

They are then ready for setting.