Sleeve placement

Hello everyone!

I am following a pattern from a magazine, called Country Arans For Children. The pattern is the jacket that is illustrated on the front cover of the magazine.

It says to: Fold sleeves in half lengthwise and marks centre of cast off edge. Sew seam to side edge placing centre at shoulder seam. Note: armholes should measure approximately 16 cms (6 1/2) ins.

I didn’t think that looked right, so I changed it to 20 1/2 cms (8) ins.

On the left sleeve, is where it says in the pattern, it seems kind of scrunch to me.
On the right, is where I changed it to.

I don’t want to sew the sleeves on and have it not fit properly.
Any help is greatly appreciated!

Do you mean that you lengthened the armhole? If so, did you adjust the sleeve to match?

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No, I didn’t. I just stretched it down a wee bit.
That’s why there are just stitch markers holding it there at the moment, because I am unsure.
The pattern says to sew it so the arm hole is 16 cms, I stretched it down a bit more to make it 20 1/2 cms because the sleeve seemed too scrunched.
I am just wondering if I sew it on at 20 1/2 cms instead of 16 cms, if it will not fit properly.

OK, I’m unable to help. I don’t sew in sleeves so I’m not experienced with it.
@salmonmac @Creations or anyone?

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It’s fairly common for sleeves to be a wee bit larger than the armhole they go into, but that’s more for shaped, set-in sleeves and not this T-shape. If you don’t think the armhole will be too large for the child, I’d say sew it in the way you prefer.

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That’s okay, I appreciate you trying to help me with my issue.

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That makes sense. I just thought it looked kind of strange with what it was saying in the pattern.
Thank you for your help.

20.5 cm sounds quite big for the length of a child’s armscye but I agree with you that it looks neater than the 16 cm given in the pattern.
A larger armhole and sleeve is easier to get a child into than a smaller one though.

Couple of things I can think of. Wash or steam the pieces before sewing to see if the size changes much, there may be a size change as the yarn relaxes, then re pin and consider.
Tack it in from the shoulder down and see how the stitches on the sleeve match up with rows on the hole without having too much excess nor stretch and see how it looks. I like to use embroidery thread to tack sleeves or even run a mattress seam around in embroidery thread to see how things look and fit if I’m not sure, it can be pulled out later and doesn’t tend to cling to the yarn.
If possible try it on the child.

Lovely sweater!


The smaller sleeve join looks strange to me too. There’s every reason to have the larger drop sleeve on a child’s sweater. The jacket will go over other clothes and be less annoying to the child at the larger size. I’d go with the larger sleeve opening regardless of the pattern recommendation.

See if the percentage measurement shown in this tutorial helps. It’s saying that the width along the top of the entire sleeve should measure about the same as the width across the front or back of the sweater.
https://www.knittingfool.com/SweaterPatterns/KF_DropSleeveEntry.aspx

Your knitting looks beautiful! This little jacket is going to be a treasure.

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I never thought of washing or steaming the pieces to see what happens with the sizing, or to just sew it on and take it out later. Thank you for recommending those.
I can’t try it on anyone, my kids are too big. I make things to sell and this is one of them.

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That’s it, the one on the wee girl is the one I’m making.
Thank you for the link, I definitely give that a read through.