Kirtle Sleeves

This weekend I made the upper sleeves of the costume, the ones that can be sewn or laced to the kirtle shoulders.  An outer layer of black cotton was lined with cotton drill and I ironed on 1" wide strips of interfacing along the sleeve edge, where the eyelets for the bottom sleeves will be.  

There are benefits to waking up at 5.20am on a Saturday.  You can garden in your dressing gown and Birkenstocks and the neighbours will be none the wiser!  And you can handknit the piping cord for the top shoulder of the sleeve.  Pinning it to the top of the shoulder was not working, the pins couldn't work through the piping, so I carefully sewed it in place by eye; using the zipper foot on my machine and sewing inside the stitching line of the piping.

Following Margo's instructions to the letter, I sewed the arm seam together; folding down the piping so that it lay flat - as there was no instruction either way.

I followed the 1.5cm seam allowance for the lining and sewed a narrower seam allowance for the outer sleeve so that they would sit smoothly.  Margo's instructions left me with just one problem... the top, piped, edge does not join (below).  I unpicked it and resewed the piping so that they did.

I then happily set aside the rest of the instructions to handsew the lining to the outer sleeve.

Pining the top edge

Folding in the lining and the outer sleeve over

Top seam finished

Bottom seam finished

And I have two sleeves.  Margo suggests stitching them to the the kirtle but I am undecided.  A laced eyelet would be more adaptable but bulkier; I'm going to decide later on in the outfit.

Rascal, meanwhile, made himself at home :)