Is sleeve cap ease necessary without a raised head?

[retroreason]

I'm very new to this, and I'm Struggling to understand the concept of sleeve cap ease. It makes sense to me that, if you have a raised sleeve head you would need the extra material to create that shape. if I just want a set in sleeve that falls straight from the seam, is there any reason to draft in cap ease? I know its possible, what i want to know is the reasons for or against sleeve cap ease.

I'm going off of early 20th century workwear, working with heavyweight denim, so the ease-ability is very low. some of the drafts I've attempted have an impossible amount of ease for the material.

[Schneiderfrei]

Any of the sleeves I have drafted, already have ease calculated for the particular scye to which they were intended to be joined.

Can you give a more specific example of a draft that has given you problems?

Also, are you thinking here of men's or womens garments?

[retroreason]

men's garments, this draft in particular. i drafted the one piece sleeve, and the two piece a few pages before it, both came out virtually the same.
https://archive.org/details/draftingcottonga00simo/page/12/mode/2up

In contrast I've completed muller & sohn denim jacket draft where it instructs you to slash the sleeve and remove any ease.

just trying to fully understand what makes the design work, and why things are done the way they are.

[Schneiderfrei]

Ok,

So all of the drafts you mention are for cotton garments.  They differ from wool since there is much less possibility to ease extra cloth into the seam when sewing up. In the same way cotton is not able to be shaped with the iron to stretch or shrink the cloth. The drafts in the book on cotton garments have taken this into account and the pieces are shaped differently to a jacket for wool.

You may know the following:

The basic principle of the sleeve attachment is that: Extra cloth on the sleeve side, that can be worked smoothly into the seam will make the sleeve more or less puffy. Extra cloth on the bodice side of the seam will give a more proud shoulder. A shirt is an example of a scye/sleeve seam that is more or less exact, the shape of the bodice flows smoothly into the sleeve. 

In any given draft the scye has an amount of ease worked into the algorithm as well as the sleeve cap.

The scye seam of a cotton jacket will resemble a shirt more than any woolen jacket, simply because there is less possibility to ease the cloth into the seam.

I am not familiar with the Rundschau Jeans jacket draft. But if you are recommended to remove ease, it is likely that they have just provided a generic sleeve draft - for a normal woolen jacket, so you have to remove the ease to be able to work the cotton sleeve in.

G

[retroreason]

thank you, that does offer a bit of clarity. I think it might be time to move on from this draft for now, there is approximately 3 inches of ease in the sleeve, the scye seem very small in general, and the neck is oddly high.

What I would like to do is either, adjust the the sleeve head to remove the ease, probably using the method from the rundschau draft, or lower the bottom of the scye to accommodated the sleeve. I dont know what effect this will have on the shape. It seem when you draft the sleeve you need determine the height and width from measurements on the bodice.

the back neck is confusing to me. Is there a historical and or practical context to the height? my best guesses, the length in the neck acts as the collat stand, you would be wearing something else under it like a scarf or maybe your regular sack coat, or its just the style of the times. its only on some of the work coat drafts in the book.

[posaune]

3 inches is a lot. With "ease"able fabric you can do 10-12 % from the armhole circ. without geting puckers and pleats.  Or you do an italian style sleeve. :-))
When learning pattern making we did the  drafts all  in 1:4  - so if not understanding a draft it was a quick method to check it.
lg
posaune

[peterle]

Patterns from this time have a shoulder seam that lies very much to the back as opposed to today, where the shoulder seam runs on the top of the natural shoulder. Thus the neck looks very high.

Ease for sleeve caps move from 0% to 12% plus to the armhole circumference. When you measure it in your draft you have to measure the real sewing line e.i. one sewing allowance back from the edge and skipping all the sleeve allowances on the way.

AS Schneiderfrei wrote sleeve cap ease provides extra material to make the sleeve head puff a little on the front, the top and the back. It is considered a bit more beautiful when the sleeve can "roll over" to the armhole seam. But it also has practical reasons: most of the ease is worked in at the back and therefore gives some room for the arm to move. Especially when you stretch your arms forward ( biking for example) the back between the arms need more length and the fabric and armhole seams get under stress. Thus some sleeve cap ease and some "rolling width" in the back pattern reduce this stress, wich is more comfortable and better for the garment. So also the purpose of the garment is to be considered (Real workwear should be usable for work).

When you have to match armhole and sleeve cap, always alter the sleeve, not the armhole. The armhole has to be fitted first, then you can draw or adapt the sleeve for it. Deepening the armhole for adaption is not good, because then you also need a higher cap not just a longer cap line. But you can also try to use the rundschau method for reducing the cap ease for the 1918 pattern.

[TTailor]

The back neck placement is indeed odd. It is set 1 1/2" above the top construction line.
Not something I have seen before, so it is not a typical "period" construction of style lines.

I have always used these old drafts mainly as a visual guideline to reproducing a period garment. I will draft one up, and compare the draft characteristics to my own formula and adapt some of the characteristics  from the old one into my pattern.

[Hendrick]

Hi, yes sleepcap ease is desired. Most workjackets have narrow shoulders, so part of the shoulder sits in the sleeve head. So length is needed, especially with narrow, tilted armholes... Try to google "ancienne veste de travail" (French, but you guessed). Even today, some French craftsmen and farmers (wine!) wear this sort of garb.
Sometimes also called "liquette" or "blouse de travail". Here's a link that shows the sleeve easy, don't know if it will work...

www.bing.com/images/search?view=detailV2&id=4C44F5CE6775F963A11FE9AB009D58C9E9EBFDF8&thid=OIP.7ChOcmkJEkxH8U1mnwkBYAHaJL&mediaurl=https%3A%2F%2Fi.pinimg.com%2Foriginals%2F64%2Fb5%2F14%2F64b51476912e28e7c6610f8bfd64c77c.jpg&exph=1024&expw=826&q=ancienne+veste+de+travail&selectedindex=78&ajaxhist=0&vt=0

[TTailor]

When you are measuring the sleeve, and got that much ease, i wonder  are you measuring the sewing line or the drafting line?

[retroreason]

I measured without seam allowance, but given that they dont state what the seam allowance is doesnt help. allowances made for double needle is all it says. 1/4 inch on one side, 1/2 inch on the other, who knows? regardless it still wouldnt eliminate that much ease is i had not.

[TTailor]

thank you, that does offer a bit of clarity. I think it might be time to move on from this draft for now, there is approximately 3 inches of ease in the sleeve, the scye seem very small in general, and the neck is oddly high.

What I would like to do is either, adjust the the sleeve head to remove the ease, probably using the method from the rundschau draft, or lower the bottom of the scye to accommodated the sleeve. I dont know what effect this will have on the shape. It seem when you draft the sleeve you need determine the height and width from measurements on the bodice.

the back neck is confusing to me. Is there a historical and or practical context to the height? my best guesses, the length in the neck acts as the collat stand, you would be wearing something else under it like a scarf or maybe your regular sack coat, or its just the style of the times. its only on some of the work coat drafts in the book.

I did draft the work coat up in half scale as well as the sleeve. To the given sample measures.
I don,t know the answer for the back neck question.
I did notice a few typos in the sleeve draft, which you probably noticed and figured out anyway.
D-A is 1/12 of 19
There is no indication of where to place J so I placed it where many of the old drafts have it, 1 inch adove B and there is a letter T in the draft that has no explanation.

My finding was a sleeve with 3.5cm ease, not 3 inches.
There is 1/4 inch seam allowance on the draft - vertical seams as well as around the armhole and the shoulders as far as I can tell.

[TTailor]

I stand corrected. Working in half scale, 3.5x2 so 7 cm bigger full size, sorry. No answers then!

[TTailor]

One more thought.
I think the topsleeve in the draft is fine. I think the undersleeve should be modified by making point P 3cm -3.25 less than D-F . That should reduce the ease.
Unless we could go back in time and see the real thing, and if and how 7cm of ease is distributed,  we are left making best guesses🤷‍♀️

[Schneiderfrei]

Many old drafts contain fatal errors, maybe accidental, maybe purposely left in to trick the amateur.