A.P.C.-Sleeve Sweatshirt (Clothes for All Seasons + tutorial!)

While I was traveling in England, I was lucky enough to stop in at the Liberty department store. Needless to say, it was amazing–the store itself is gorgeous, the employees are accommodating, I touched like 100 bolts of the softest silkiest fabric ever…

We also ventured down to the men\’s section on the basement level and I got to ogle all the designer menswear I wanted! A.P.C. has been a favorite sportswear designer of mine for years and they had a great selection of clothes there. I mentioned in this post that I copied their double-pocket on a tee shirt for Alex, and the other feature that caught my eye at the Liberty store was a very interesting sleeve that was on a lot of their outerwear. Basically it is a set-in sleeve in the front, and a raglan sleeve in the back. The shoulder seam continues down the sleeve to make this possible. You can see it really clearly on their Urban Mac here. I thought this was really cool and immediately determined to figure out how to do it myself.

I turned to the Japanese pattern book Clothes for All Seasons because I knew it had a regular tee shirt, a raglan sleeve baseball tee, and a sweatshirt (with set-in sleeves) that were all built on the same block. In fact, the tee shirt and raglan tee are the same pattern: the front and back pieces have a cut line for set in sleeve and a cut line for raglan sleeve, and then there are two sleeve pattern pieces that you can swap in. If you wanted to do the \”A.P.C. sleeve\” (as I\’ve taken to calling it) on a tee shirt, all you would need to do is cut the raglan variation back body, regular sleeve front body, and the split both sleeve patterns down the middle, using the back of the raglan and front of the regular sleeve.

I was really hoping that the sweatshirt would be the same way. I couldn\’t remember if there was a raglan-sleeve variation for the sweatshirt/hoodie–unfortunately, there is not! Sadly, I would have to do a bit of pattern hacking. Making a raglan sleeve isn\’t too hard though. I started with the sweatshirt pattern in a size large, and in addition to lengthening the sleeve slightly, I made these changes. (Note: the pattern I am using does not come with seam allowances. If your does, you\’ll want to get rid of them while you make your changes and then add them back afterwards.)

First, extend the grainline marking up and down a few inches.

Then, draw a line parallel to the grainline and starting at the center notch on the top of the sleeve (the notch that is supposed to match up with the shoulder seam).

Cut the sleeve along this line into front and back pieces. The front body stays the same, and goes with the front of the sleeve (each with a single notch in the armscye). For this alteration you\’ll need the back body and back sleeve.

The back gets changed into a raglan sleeve. Align the sleeve and the body like so, with the double notches matching:

And the shoulder points matching. Your pattern pieces might overlap a little, like this:

Then we\’re basically just lopping off some of the body pattern piece and attaching it to the arm pattern piece. Draw a curved line from the notches to the neckline.

Cut along the curved line and attach the shoulder of the body to the sleeve, like this:

Add your seam allowance and that\’s it! Construction order changes slightly as well–you attach the front sleeve to front body and back sleeve to back body, then sew the whole front to the whole back. Then do your cuffs and hem and neckline as usual.

I think this is a really cool change that adds a lot of personality to a simple garment like a sweatshirt. It\’s subtle, but adds interest; no surprise there–subtlety is exaaactly what A.P.C. does so well.

Will you try the A.P.C. sleeve? If you do, please let me know, I\’d love to see your versions!

xoxo,