How to make a cowl sleeve

Welcome to a new pattern making class, in today’s class I’m going to teach you how to make a cowl sleeve.

The cowl sleeve is also known in some countries as the draped sleeve. It is a sleeve with a lot of volume in the head of the sleeve and an opening at the top.

In the sample that you will see in today’s class, I have cut the same pattern using 2 different fabrics.

The first fabric is calico, which is a fabric with a lot of body and structure, and the second is a crepe fabric, the latter is much more fluid and drapes more organically.

I have decided to do it this way so you can appreciate how a pattern can change depending on the type of fabric you use, so remember to make prototypes with a similar fabric to your final fabric.

Today’s class starts by removing the ease from the head of the sleeve, you already know that the amount of ease that we use in the sleeve changes according to the fabric/block.

Just in case you don’t remember, I’m going to remind you how to calculate how much ease your sleeve block pattern has.

In today’s class, we are only going to focus on the sleeve pattern. I have used the same body that you can see in the ruffled collar class.

Then we will go on to transform the sleeve to create this cowl with their facing and then we industrialize it.

Class

For today’s class, we are going to practice the pattern maker’s eye, so for today’s class, I am going to give you some measurements but not all.

I do this because depending on the amount of ease you remove, the amount of volume to add would change. Don’t worry, I have given you enough measurements to make this sleeve!!

As always, if you have any questions about what you have learned today, remember that you can send me an email through your user account, in the support section.

Submit your exercises

You already know that the best way to learn pattern making is by practising, so for today’s class, I’m going to ask you to make the cowl sleeve pattern.

You can send me this exercise full size or half scale.

Please try to send me photos where the pattern and its annotations are clearly visible so that I can send you better comments.