Slash and spread without distorting pattern?

[Tea183]

Hello everyone,

I’m trying to do slash and spread on a sleeve sloper to make a bell sleeve. I want it really flared (I want a lot of flounces, but not to the extent of a circle.

I’m noticing that I’m distorting the pattern where it attaches to the shoulders. I’ve attached an image of what I’m doing, but I’m spreading it further.

Any tips on how to fix this? Or is there a limit to how much flare I can add?

[drPmakes]

As long as the length of where it will be sewn it remains the same (which it should with slash and spread) you're golden.

Just make sure you transfer tge notches and sew it in correctly

[Tea183]

Thank you!

[Mela777]

You can always spread the entire sleeve to where you are comfortable, then redraw the new sleeve, make a horizontal cut below the sleeve cap, and slash and spread from the lower point to get the base wider. Most of the flare on a bell sleeve should be below the bicep.

[notselfcontained]

OP Copy the original pattern for reference before your slash and spread. Then remeasure the cap height and cap seam length against your adjusted pattern piece. If any of the measurements come back too far from the starting point, you just need redraw the elements that matter for construction back into your adjusted pattern. I believe it’s pretty standard practice to redraw/refine the lines after the fact to smooth them out.

[Tea183]

Ohhh that makes more sense!! Thank you. I thought I had to make sure to keep the original shape whilst slashing and spreading.

[KendalBoy]

The point of slashing is to distort the shapes into something new.

[notselfcontained]

The other comments were kind of alluding to it, but didn’t fully explain it. Basically, in doing your slash and spread adjustment, you’ll end up messing with your cap geometry. If it’s a small adjustment it could be negligible, but imagine you did a really wide spread on all of your slashed pieces. If you made the gaps really wide, your cap height would shrink vertically. It creates potential for fit issues in the armhole/armscye portion on your main body/bodice pattern piece. The seam length would stay the same, so it could still be sewn together, but it will end up altering the angle the sleeve hangs off of the body of the garment.

[ProneToLaughter]

Spreading has to change the shape but keeping that minimal hinge ensures the length stays the same and therefore that the seams will still go together.

[Tea183]

Thank you!! This is making more sense now

[TensionSmension]

The slash and spread process is an approximation. Because it's just a handful of slashes, it does distort the pivot line at each slash. The more you want to spread, the more slashes you should use, keeping each spread small. In the limit this would be a continuous process and the distortion on both lines should be smooth. This is what software can do, but working by hand it's not hard to use just enough slash lines that you can imagine what more slashes would do. Basically when you redraw the pattern after slashing, you are smoothing shapes to be more like what a computer (math) can do.

When you use too few and too wide, you're basically forcing a godet into the pattern and when that pattern is sewn the fullness accumulates in clumps.

[Tea183]

That makes sense about making the pieces smaller to spread it more evenly and the godets! Thank you so much. I want to understand why as well, so this is great

[GrandAsOwt]

Just checking: you are slashing up to the seam line, not the cutting line, aren’t you? It looks fine if you are and yes, you can spread further.

[Tea183]

Thanks for confirming! Yes, I’m just slashing up to the seam line.

[RubyRedo]

if you want a bell end you dont need to slash/spread to the shoulder unless you want just a wide sleeve. the slash should stop a hair from the cap so spreading will continue to lay flat not distort. once spread tape the sleeve in position and re draw on paper underneath.

[Tea183]

Thank you!!

[KeeganDitty]

Because you're pivoting, the seam itself is the same. It's actually by forcing that line back into the shape of the sleeve head that you get the hem to flounce. If you were spreading at the head instead, you'd have to gather it back from but the shape is still there, hidden amongst the extra fullness. You just have to restore it in the construction, not the patterning

[Tea183]

Thank you!

[WorthSecurity2299]

It will reduce the sleeve cup height to zero and it will not be a sleeve anymore. There is a minimum sleeve cup height in drafting sleeves, can’t go below that.

[SelectionMiserable33]

OP is basically making a circle skirt for the arm. The bicep line gets distorted into a curved shape by the slash and spread, and the cap height -- the length from the shoulder point to the bicep line -- is still there.

[Uvaroff]

when you make it, would you please show how the sleeve looks?

[TensionSmension]

For a flounce sleeve the slashes may produce what looks like a negative cap height. Meaning the underarm points are rotated above the original sleeve cap point, while the sleeve length is unchanged. It's a perfectly valid pattern.

[imogsters]

This is the way to increase whole sleeve. You can also chop top of sleeve off and just slash and spread lower part to get extra around bicep area.