Rydia Sleeves, Part I

I first began my journey on what looks to be the easiest part of Rydia's outfit: her long, flowing sleeves.  When you boil it down, there really is not much to them, yet somehow they still manage to take an inordinate amount of time.

 

Part of the snag I ran into was how to get the yellow border around the opening while still effectively hiding the inner seams.  I decided to do a test run with some scrap fabric and hand-sewed it to get a feel...

Practice attempt did not go as well as planned.  Originally, I was going to give French seams a shot --- this would hide the seams on both the outside and inside edges.  However, my mind simply cannot wrap itself around how to do that when working with one continuous piece of cloth.

I took custom measurements based on my 5' 6" height to develop a pattern for the sleeves.  It looks like the point on each sleeve hangs just below Rydia's knee when her arm is out straight, and falls below her knee when her arm is folded.  I used tissue paper to make the pattern (for best results, iron or flatten prior to making a pattern).  Here you can see the work in progress with the yellow trim around the sleeve opening:

It's a slippery material.  This is good because it will help the sleeves to "flow" nicely.  But, it makes it darn tricky to sew.  I've tried working with slippery fabrics before with lots of frustration and mixed results.  This time I am [hopefully] coming at this more prepared.  I found a helpful video that provides some tips on working with slippery fabric.  It was incredibly helpful!  I never eealized before that all those different dials on the sewing machine had a real purpose.

Lesson learned: for sewing slippery fabrics, use a lower tension setting, smaller needle, and shorter stitch length.