Welcome back to our series on Summer Sportswear! As we continue with the theme, in this installment. Shari is back with a new look for the Sporty Shirtwaist. Follow along as she shows us how to add a delightful little detail called a Mitered Placket, and combines the Liberty Jane Button Up Shirt with the Thimbles Gigot Sleeve to create a lovely new Shirtwaist design!
Here's more from Shari...
Although the earliest more masculine looking shirtwaists allowed women to engage in more active pursuits, women grew bored with their plainness and began to add more and more feminine details. A few tucks, pleats, or gathers, to add a little fullness to the front and puffed sleeves to give them a bit more dimension – the puffier the better.
The Gigot sleeve (also known as the leg-o-mutton sleeve) was one of the most distinctive fashion design elements of the 1830s. These sleeves could reach enormous widths, taking up to 2 ½ yards of fabric for each sleeve. Many critics deemed them a ridiculous waste of fabric and by the time Queen Victoria ascended to the throne in 1837, they had all but disappeared.
*pictured above, the Thimbles and Acorns Gigot Sleeve Dress
Gigot sleeves remained out of fashion for fifty years before the fad reasserted itself again toward the end of Queen Victoria's reign. The hourglass figure was in style and large Gigot sleeves helped to create the illusion of a smaller waist.
One must admit, there is something rather attractive about these large puffed sleeves. The book Anne of Green Gables was published in 1905 and the young heroine of the story, Anne Shirley longed to have a dress with pretty puffed sleeves.
Puffed sleeves are so fashionable now. It would give me such a thrill, Marilla, just to wear a dress with puffed sleeves.”
“Well, you’ll have to do without your thrill. I hadn’t any material to waste on puffed sleeves. I think they are ridiculous-looking things anyhow. I prefer the plain, sensible ones.”
“But I’d rather look ridiculous when everybody else does than plain and sensible all by myself,” persisted Anne mournfully.
In my previous tutorial, I showed you how to hack Liberty Jane's Button Up Shirt into a simple shirtwaist. Let's see if I can turn it into a shirtwaist that would give Anne a thrill.
I started by adding a little fullness to the shirt front pattern piece. To do this, I split the pattern piece from top to bottom in several places and put it back together adding about 1 1/2” of width in total.
After cutting out the pieces, I sewed gathering stitches along the shoulders and neckline to gather the added fullness into the shoulder seam and collar.
Sew the shirt together, following the original instructions, until it's time to add the sleeves.
Cut out the a set of Gigot sleeves and plackets, using the bonus GIGOT SLEEVE pattern piece provided in this SWC Bonuses Section. Apply the plackets, as shown in this tutorial.
Once the plackets are in place, pin a sleeve to each armscye of your shirt, making sure the placket side of the sleeve is on the back side of the shirt. Draw up the gathering stitches, evenly centering the fullness along the top of the armscye. Stitch. Clip the curves and finish the seam allowances, if desired.
Sew up the sides seams, following the original instructions. To finish the sleeve, turn the bottom edge under a 1/4” and then another 1/4” to form a double-fold hem and pin in place. Hand stitch to secure. Apply a small snap at the bottom edge of the placket for a closure.
As is typical with fads, the popularity of the enormous gigot sleeves, in the 1890s didn’t last long. They deflated down to smaller and smaller puffs until around 1915 when a loosely fitted sleeve was the most fashionable. Looking to make something a little different? You can use this sleeve with just about any shirt or bodice pattern with standard size armscyes to add a bit of Edwardian panache.
A good fad never truly dies, however, and when I was in junior high school in the early 1980s, I longed for those beautiful puffed sleeves, just as much as Anne Shirley. By this time, I had started to take sewing seriously and with the help of my grandmother we sewed this blouse for me.
And just 45 years later, there are hints in some fashion circles that these sleeves may be coming back into fashion again today.
If you're looking for a few modern examples for dolls, we've got a few from these designers too!
- Dan-el Designs Casandra
- Doll Joy Puffed Sleeve Top
- Genniewren Arabella Top
2 Comments
Leave a comment
Jane P
June 22, 2025
The blouse in the Geniewren pattern resembles blouses we wore with hip hugging bell bottoms in the late 60s and early 70s. Very hippy style.