Revenge of the Coffee Dress

Regulars readers may recall when I sewed the coffee dress, I was disappointed in the sleeves, and was only intensified when I wore it to work one day.  Basically, they are supposed to neatly hug the sides of the shoulders; instead, even hiked onto the top of my shoulders, the slightest movement sent them cascading down my arms.  I knew it wasn't going to work when I was sewing it, but I followed the pattern anyway.  This is what I get for following the directions exactly for once.

The proper way to fix this would have been to rip out: the hand-stitching on the lining on the bodice, the understitching at the top, the stitching at the top between the bodice and its lining, the sleeves from the bodice, and then the sleeves themselves.  Then fix the sleeves and redo all of the stitching that I had just ripped out.  That would have been the right way to fix it; instead, I ripped out the stitching at the top of the sleeve. 

I then ripped out the elastic.  I should have known better than following the pattern's instructions to use a straight stitch on elastic!

Before I started ripping the dress apart, I measured the slack in the sleeve: a whopping 2.5 inches!  Utterly ridiculous.  And I'm pretty broad-shouldered, so it isn't as if this doesn't fit because I am particularly petite or something.  Anyway, not wanted the sleeves to be too tight, I took off 1.5 inches.

I prefer to use a casing or a zig-zag stitch on elastic.  I went with the casing here because I thought I could hide it a little better.  I just folded the top of the sleeve down (along where the original stitching line) and then sewed it close to the edge.  It's a good thing I didn't trim the seam allowance here (and I remember thinking at the time that it was odd that the pattern didn't call for that).

The original elastic length was nearly as long as the sleeve (another reason their darn instructions wouldn't have worked).  Since I took 1.5 inches off the sleeve, I took off 2.5 inches from the elastic.  I inserted it into the casing and then top-stitched the sleeves shut.  Much fast than ripping out almost everything.

I apologize for the blurriness here; I had to turn off the flash so it wouldn't reflect in the mirror.  The sleeves still aren't perfect, but they're much better.  I wore this to a bridal shower and a bunch of people told me I looked fabulous!