Not at all Slevils: Adventures in Medieval Sleeve Fitting
With surprisingly little faffing and no angst at all, my 1360s-70s gown now has sleeves! Medieval sleeves have a reputation for being hard (I’ve heard them called slevils more than once) but sleeves are one of the things I’m really good at, so I wasn’t too worried about them.* I think it’s because I’d sewn in a dozen sleeves and drafted at least two before I heard that sleeves are supposed to be awful. I never had time to be scared! But I’m a good little bloggy scholar, and I want my dress to help me get to historical accuracy, so I read pretty much all the medieval sleeve drafting posts on the internet, and got myself all psyched up to sew 14th century sleeves. I started with the sleeve drafting tutorial at the Completely Dressed Anachronist. Nice and clear, and I like the way she discusses the pitfalls of drafting methods. By following it, I got this: I cut it out in toile fabric, sewed it up, and it DID NOT WORK. It was …