I make a fair amount of the clothes my girls wear. I try to look at
what is popular, sort out what I like and think is appropriate and do
similar things with the clothes I make for them. I bought a ready wear
shirt for my daughter this weekend by Ecko Red. I would like to copy
the technique they used on the sleeves. The best term I can apply to it
is that the sleeve is shirred on a seam running from the top of the
shoulder to the wrist. There are two seams in the sleeve; the usual
underarm seam and the aforementioned seam directly opposite it on the
top of the arm. As best I can tell, the seam incorporates 1/4" elastic
into it to gather the fabric lightly along the seam. The fabric is a
poly/cotton interlock with 5% spandex so the fabric has quite a bit of
shape recovery on its own. I tried to find a picture of this shirt or a
similar one on the web but with no luck. I think the shirt was part of
the winter collection and all I am finding is short or sleeveless shirts
on the web.
My thought is that I should take a sleeve pattern from one of the
shirt patterns I use. Copy it, cut it in half lengthwise, add seam
allowance and then add ease. I think I could do that by clipping and
spreading the pattern so the underarm seam remains the same length but
allowing me to add fabric to the "overarm" seam for the shirring effect.
I'm not sure how much to spread the pattern. I'll probably start with
1 1/2 times the length and reduce if necessary. Do you think I am on
the right path? I wish I could point you to a picture.

Marilyn