A Little Off The Cuff

I have a fairly stout build. Broad across the shoulders, but a bit short in the arms and legs. It's not so far out of the norm to look unusual, but it does make it a challenge to fit long pants and jackets.

Like this jacket, for instance.

This jacket is a cycling windbreaker that I bought a number of years ago, and it's always been a bit long in the sleeve, despite fitting well everywhere else. Initially it wasn't much of a bother because the fabric is extremely light and there's a bit of elastic in the cuffs that kept the sleeves from sliding down too far.

At least, it used to keep the sleeves from sliding down too far.

Over time the elastic became much less elastic, and as a result I no longer have hands.

So it's high time to give this jacket a little trim, about 2 inches should do.

I thought about going all the way to 3 inches, but there's always the risk of trimming off just a bit too much and exposing a scandalous amount of wrist, so 2 inches will be plenty.

Well there's no going back now.

The key to being able to sew a hem like this easily is to press it first. This makes things so much easier to manage once everything's shoved into the sewing machine, so I took my time here to get it right.

A nice double fold with 3/8" seam allowance and 3/4" hem.

Which will fit my 3/4" elastic...

Oh, that's 1/2" elastic, isn't it? Hmm. Well, after unsuccessfully trying to cross-breed this with my 1 inch elastic to grow a new crop of 3/4", I decided I'd be better off just going for a 1/2" hem instead.

Carrying on, I used a bit of stay tape to keep the ends of the elastic from fraying.

And then sewed a bar tack on each end to hold it in place. In this jacket, the elastic is only on the palm-side, across the black fabric.

I then discovered that I cut the elastic too short, as I had sized it according to the cuff I had cut off, not realizing that, of course, the black panel on the sleeve has all the taper in it, and was much wider 2 inches up from the original cuff.

So, I picked out those bar tacks and had to sew in a longer piece of elastic.

Then it was just a relatively simple matter of stitching up the hem right at the edge of the fold.

It looks tricky, but it's actually quite easy to do when the fabric is well pressed and not squirming around all over the place.

And with that, cuff number 1 is done.

Then it's second verse: same as the first.

And both cuffs are sewn.

And now I finally have hands again.

And, miracle of miracles, the elastic actually works.

This will definitely help keep the cold breeze from blowing up my sleeves.