Yuuko Ichihara - Foxy Lady #24

triangle collar ruffle

After hemming all the sleeve seams, I went back to the collar and cuffs. I ironed all the 12 triangles, with the help of a piece of cardboard with the same shape plus a flap, which I inserted in the triangles to keep their shape, while ironing. Then pinned all the 12 triangles on the collar, starting in the middle. I then realised it would look nicer with a 13th triangle, so I quickly sewed and turned one more. I placed the triangles again, starting from the middle, overlapping them a bit at the corners. Then I hand basted them to the collar piece. I pinned the two parts of the collar and the cuffs together, right side to right side, and machine sewed them together. I clipped the edges, turned and ironed them.

sewn, turned and ironed collar and cuffs

Probably the correct side to use in the front should be the non interfaced side, but I wasn't happy with how the seams are visible on that side, so I decided to use the interfaced side, which looks much neater. It will be underneath the embroidery anyway.

ungathered sleeves

I ironed the sleeves again, tacked them together where needed. After tacking them together, I trimmed the sleeves, and cut the bottom in a wavy shape, shorter in the front, longer in the back, and machine gathered them, at the cuffs and collar, with the gathering foot. Then I pinned them to the interfaced side of the collar and cuffs. I tried to machine sew them together, but my machine's tension is sometimes crazy, and it was looping the thread a lot on the underside. So I hand sewed them, with a backstitch. Then I turned the bottom of the inner fabric to the inside, and whip stitched them closed. I added two snaps on each collar and cuffs, and I could finally try them on.

properly trying the sleeves on for the first time

I'm pretty happy with how they turned out. They look lush and sleek.

finished sleeved, pre-beads

I then counted the golden pearls in the artwork, 9 for each sleeve, measured the shoulder opening, and divided it by 8. I marked each bead placement, and tacked it with white thread. Then I threaded the needle with golden thread, doubled, and sewed the golden beads in place.

the finished sleeves, with golden beads,
without golden embroidery 

+ It wasn't a difficult sew, even if my machine acted up with attaching the ruffled parts to the cuffs and collar...

- ...but this kind of garments are a pain, because one can only see the result when they're finished. If anything went seriously wrong, I would have to unpick it and redo it.

THE CUNNING PLAN 

Go on to altering the corset, while embroidering the cuffs and collar in between.