Sewing Project: Bishop Sleeve Sweater

It’s almost the end of the year and I just finished my bishop sleeve sweater. It’s the last piece I’m going to be able to complete for the #2019makenine -challenge. That brings me to 8 pieces out of 9 so I guess it’s pretty good. I have intention to finish the last garment, the winter coat, next month though!

So as usual, I’ll now share with you the process of making the sweater, starting from the pattern.

The Inspiration

At the beginning of 2019 I didn’t have a clear idea about this sweater. I just knew I wanted to make one because this kind of fabric works great with interesting shapes. I must admit that I’m not a sweater kind of a person, so I wanted to choose a non-traditional design. In the end I opted for the bishop sleeves. Here’s the picture that I used as my inspiration. It’s from Pinterest.

It’s quite a normal sweater, but it has these pretty sleeves. Instead of folds, I decided to simply gather the sleeves and attach narrower cuffs. The shoulder is very dropped.

The Fabric

I managed to find a fabric in a similar color than the one in the picture. It was in the fabric scraps -bin so I don’t really have an idea about the exact name. But it’s some sort of 2-way stretch sweater knit fabric. Pretty minimal stretch I’d say. Used about 120cm / 1,3yd.

The Bishop Sleeve Sweater -pattern

To draft this pattern I used the dartless bodice block. You can find the instructions here.

If you already have one you drafted with a different tutorial, pay attention to the amount of ease to get a similar fit: The starting point was 6cm / 2,4in of ease at the underarm line and I added 3 more, so in the end I had 9cm/ 3,5in of ease.

The Sweater Bodice -pattern

Here’s a picture with all the moves I did to convert the basic bodice block into this sweater.

First of all, I wanted a wider neckline. You can make it smaller, too, but make sure it’s big enough to allow the head to pass through. With a more stretchy fabric this won’t be a problem anyways.

Then there’s the dropped shoulder. As this is a Very dropped shoulder, I drafted it differently than usual. Actually it was an experiment that ended up working out. 😀

First I continued the shoulder slope line 9cm / 3,5in past the original shoulder tip and from that point, 3,5cm / 1,4in downwards, parallel to the grain line of the bodice and then marked a reference point. This is the new ”shoulder tip”.

I drew this round shoulder line finishing at the reference point. Front and back pieces are identical btw.

Before drafting the armscye, I drew the new side seams.

Dropped shoulder usually results in a wide bodice and -sleeve, but I was looking for a slimmer sweater in order to make the bishop sleeve puff to stand out better. So I only added 3cm / 1,2in to the side seams at the underarm line and continued straight down from there.

To draw the armscye line, I measured the height of the original armscye line (from underarm line to the shoulder tip, in yellow). And used this measurement to mark the end point of the new armscye line along the side seam.

Considering there’s going to be a 5cm / 2in wide hem band, I decided to have the hemline of the bodice at 15cm / 5,9in from the waistline. You can make the front piece a bit longer, depending on your bust size.

You don’t really need a pattern for the hem band. Just measure the circumference of the bodice hemline. Then decide whether you want to gather some of it with the hem band or just use the same exact measurement. If your fabric has a lot of stretch, you’ll be able to cut a shorter hem band.

The height will be twice the desired height because the hem band will be folded in half. Add seam allowances to the calculations.

Copy the pattern pieces and adjust the armscye line by placing the front- and back pieces together like this. (There will probably be a gap to get rid of.)

The Sweater Sleeve -pattern

The dartless bodice block comes with a sleeve. Now we need to adjust it to the new shape of the bodice. Basically this means lowering the sleeve cap and shortening the sleeve length.

You can keep the armhole notches of the sleeve where they are and copy them on the bodice armscye, too, at the same distance from the side seam.

As this is a dropped shoulder, you don’t need any ease at the sleeve cap. You can start by randomly lowering the sleeve cap. For example I ended up lowering total of 4,5cm / 1,8in.

Once you have the sleeve cap ready, you can calculate how much you will be shortening the sleeve length. Measure (1.) the amount you lowered the shoulder slope of the bodice and (2.) how much you lowered the sleeve cap. Then calculate shoulder slope (1.) minus sleeve cap (2.) measurement. The result will be the amount you must shorten the sleeve.

In my case, 9cm – 4,5cm = 4,5cm.

Bishop Sleeve -alteration

Now you can finally convert the sleeve into a bishop sleeve by adding volume at the hemline.

First, decide the circumference your final sleeve cuffs will have. You can add 1cm / 0,4cm extra because of the bulk the gathering will cause. I went for 23cm / 9in.

How much volume should you add then? Well, this depends on the size of the puff you want. Consider also the weight of your fabric. The more you gather, the more bulk it will create.

The volume my sleeves have, is 2,5x the final length, so 23cm x 2,5 = 57,5 which can be rounded up to 58cm.

Continuing the calculation, the hemline of my basic sleeve was 30cm long. So 58 – 30 = 28cm. This was the total amount of cm I was going to add.

I added volume to both sides of the sleeve and into 3 slashes in the middle. 28cm/ 4= 7cm.

So I added 7cm to each slash and 3,5cm on both sides.

You can give this asymmetrical shape to the hemline, too. In that case leave the back side a bit longer.

In the picture above there’s also the sleeve cuff pattern. You already have the length measurement. Just decide the width of the sleeve cuff. Mine was 2x 2cm / 0,8in.

The Toile

I made a quick toile without the sleeve cuffs and hem band to check the fit and shape.

Just a note: If your final fabric has stretch, you should use a similar fabric for the toile. Mine had very little and I didn’t have other fabric at my disposal, so I just used the normal muslin.

I was happy with the result, except for the neckline, which I decided to close just 1,5cm / 0,6in from both sides.

Sewing the Bishop Sleeve Sweater

This sweater didn’t take me long to sew. Here you can see all the different pieces I cut. Notice the bias strip for the neckline in the same fabric. The height is 3cm / 1,2in. If your fabric has enough stretch, you don’t have to cut it on bias.

I started by sewing stay tape at the (back) shoulder line and then serged the shoulder seams.

Then I gathered the sleeve hemlines and attached the cuffs.

Next up, attaching the sleeves. After this I could serge the sleeve seams and side seams of the bodice in one go.

I closed the bias strip and hem band into loops and pressed them folded in half.

Here’s a picture of the bias strip pinned to the neckline before sewing. I sewed it at 0,6cm / 0,2in from the edge on the right side..

..and then trimmed off some seam allowance before turning the bias strip to the wrong side. Then I top-stitched it near the edge, covering the previous seam allowance.

Lastly I attached the hem band with the serger and stitched the inner edge of the sleeve cuffs.

The Result

Posing time! Here’s my new bishop sleeve sweater. What do you think?