Little Puff Sleeves on Baby Dress

I wanted to show you the sleeves on this sweet little baby dress from my last post.

The sleeves are puffed and they have a little cuff on them.  In this picture you see the cuff sewn to the bottom of the sleeve but it has not been turned up yet.  It is really just a band of fabric that will be turned up to form the cuff.

With the cuff turned up, the proportion of the sleeve is perfect.

Now, I want you to look at the gathers around the bottom of the sleeve. And also the top of the sleeve.  Do you see how the gathers are concentrated more toward the center of the sleeve?  There are no gathers close to the underarm seam.  This helps the sleeve to have that nice round, puffy look!

Here, you see the gathers at the top of the sleeve.

To achieve these tiny gathers, you don't want to use a longer stitch length than necessary to gather the sleeve.  On soft batiste, my stitch length will be between 2.5 and 3.5, depending on how sheer the fabric is.

And notice again how they do not continue down under the arm.

Cute, aren't they?

Babies and Toddlers look so sweet in  little puffed sleeves.

Blue Dotted Swiss fabric.

This is a puffed sleeve that I added a cuff to.  I also whipped gathered lace edging to the cuff.

It is a dress made from Emma's Smocked Baby Dresses pattern.

All Designs Are Copyright Protected copyright 2011 Jeannie Baumeister