1490’s Sleeves
The upper sleeves started with two layers of cotton duck with boning channels for heavy plastic cable tie boning. The two layers of cotton duck were flatlined to the quilting cotton lining.
The fashion fabric– a navy cotton velveteen– was then wrapped around the guts and lining and clipped down. Once it was in place, it was stitched down to the lining and guts, with care not to mare the outermost layer of fashion fabric with stitches.
Once the velveteen was attached, the wide trim I used on the neckline of the under gown was pleated to follow the upper edge of the upper sleeve. It was first pleated and clipped down and then stitched down.
I then used a rotary cutter to cut long strips of my silk fashion fabric from the under gown. I folded these strips longways and pressed. I then stacked two strips on top of each other and used painter’s tape to tape them to an oak board. I then marked diagonal marks equidistance from each other along the length of the taped strip. My wife then assisted in using a dead blow hammer and wood chisel to pink the silk strips at each mark. Once the tape was removed, I was left with silk strips with perfect diagonal (on the bias) pinks.
I then rolled the raw edges under and whip stitched that edge to the bottom edge of the upper sleeve. Once the bottom edge was secured, I went over that edge with a narrow velvet trim as well and whip stitched that down top and bottom. The top edge of the pinked silk was then attached to the velveteen using a prick stitch through just the bottom layer of the folded and pinked silk. This completed the trim work on the upper sleeves
The lower sleeves started out very much the same as the upper sleeves. I laminated two layers of cotton duck with heavy-duty cable ties as boning and the flat-lined that with the quilting cotton lining. From there, the paths of the lower sleeves diverged from those of the upper sleeves.
Once the lining and duck were flatlined together, I laminated another layer on. I added a layer of silk fashion fabric from the over gown. I then cut the velveteen piece larger than my lower sleeve was and wrapped it around the laminated lower sleeve and attached it at the wrist, being sure not to go through all the layers to the stitches did not show on the outer layer of velveteen. I then traced the shape of the lower sleeve onto the back of the velveteen and then unfolded it at the wrist edge. Once unfolded I marked the back of the velveteen with where I needed to pink the circular cutouts. Once again, my wife helped with this part with her dead blow hammer and my half circle leather punches. Once punched, I folded the velveteen back over the silk and attached it at the upper elbow edge as well as the tabs on each side of the half-circle cutouts. At the half-circle cutouts, I trimmed to size and clipped them down. Using more of my silk strips–this time sans pinking–I bound the edges of the half circles.
Around the edges of the pinked circular cutouts, I hand-stitched down gold trim, making sure that the solid portion of the trim covered the raw edges of the velveteen.
I then added lacing loops to the bottom edge of the upper sleeves and the top edge of the lower sleeves. I also added lacing loops to the tabs on each side of the half-circle cutouts on the lower sleeves. I used lacing cordage that I braided from DMC floss to lace the sleeves together. I included a loop at the apex of the shoulder on the upper sleeve that looped around the button on the bottom of the under gown strap to secure the sleeves to the dress.
