French Seamed Sleeves

In this post I will show you how to “set in” in boys’ sleeves, using a French seam. One of my most popular Instagram highlights shows how to do this method using a girls’ sleeve. So; it was time to make a boys’ sleeve tutorial too!

Boys’ sleeves can be tricky- and it’s tempting to just sew the sleeve in with the side seam. If you take the extra step of setting the sleeve in with a French seam you will not regret it. Putting the sleeve in separately from the side seam helps the sleeve sit in the garment correctly. Putting it in with a French seam just makes it extra special :).

First Step: Insert teeny tiny gathers in the top of the boys sleeve.

– do this with a straight stitch, approximately 2.5mm in length.

-I learned this method from Sarah Classic Sewing on Youtube. You can find her tutorial here.

Second Step: Construct Sleeve.

-this step is the construction of the sleeve, creating a three dimensional round sleeve from the flat piece of fabric.

-I prefer to do this with a French seam. Here are the steps of my French seams:

• Zig zag stitch underarm, wrong sides together.

• Sew a straight stitch as close as possible to the original zig zag stitch, this time with fabric right sides together. This will encase the original zig zag stitch. I do this using a zipper foot.

Third Step: Sew Sleeve into Garment

• Pin sleeve into garment, making sure front of sleeve is in front of garment and the wrong sides are together. Use an excessive amount of pins.

• PIN IT ALL

• Sew the pinned sleeved in, using zig zag stitch (width of 1mm, length of 1.6mm.) The appropriate length and width of the stitch may differ slightly for you/your machine. Test different combinations out and see what works for you.

Step Four: Trim, Pin and Sew.

• Trim. I do this using appliqué scissors. They work best for me. Here’s a link to my faves. Disclaimer: I use applique scissors for almost everything.

• Pin again.

• Stitch again, this time with right sides together, using a straight stitch and a zipper foot. This will encase the original zig zag seam.

Step Five: Repeat with other side and find a model.

Alrighty! Hope y’all enjoyed this! Bear with my videography, I promise I’ll get better over time 🙂 If you try this method, please let me know or tag me in any pics you post on social media. It absolutely makes my day to see people learning from and using these posts!

If you’re interested in this fabric it can be found here.