boat neck ANEGADA | long sleeves

The boat neck ANEGADA pattern is a long-time fave of mine. It has two sleeve options – half sleeve with arm band and half sleeve without - that are perfect for transition seasons and lend themselves well to the aesthetic I was going for. But what if you want to make it a long sleeve? It’s a simple hack, but it’s often nice to have a bit of guidance, so I wanted to give you some steps and tips here in a blog post.

Before I get started on the steps, let me tell you about the feels. I have a long sleeve ANEGADA in a super cute starry sweatshirt material that is one of my most worn items when I head up to the chilly northern climates to visit family around the holidays. As I don't need a ton of warm clothing for my area, I decided to make this in a t-shirt weight knit. I am even more pleased with this latest top than I'd expected! We've had some crazy weather lately - super hot one day, then chilly and rainy the next - so I threw this baby on hot off the machine. I LOVE it! This particular knit has a bit of an interesting texture on the "wrong" side, so I decided to use that on the outside. In hindsight, that may not have been very smart because the neck doesn't roll properly. Knits tend to roll toward the "right" side (I know this now thanks to the Love to Sew podcast episode on sewing with knits! Thanks, ladies!), so it's a little funky right now. But I'm hopeful that a few washes will have it going the way I want it. And, if that doesn't happen, no worries. I'm please with it as is! 

If you don't have it yet, go grab your boat neck ANEGADA pattern here!

Modifying the length:

Step 1: Identify your desired finished sleeve length. I like my sleeves on this style to be a bit short, hitting just above my wrist bone, so for me that’s about 52 cm (or 20½”).

Extend the fold-line on the sleeve to the length calculated (for me, that’s 51 cm), but do not extend the underarm yet!

Step 2: Identify the sleeve width at the wrist (just above the wrist band, for view A).

We want just a tad bit of ease at the wrist for both views so that we can get our hands through the opening, but also taking into account that we’re working with knit. With a wrist band (view A), we’ll also want the ease to give the tiniest bit of poofiness when the wrist band is attached.

Draw your wrist line perpendicular to the extended fold-line you created in Step 1 (for me, that’s 12.1 cm).

Step 3: Draw a line from the underarm curve to the wrist point. “True” the corner where the underarm line meets the wrist (this means to make the angle of that corner 90º).

Modifying the wrist band (view A, only):

The general rule-of-thumb for knits is to reduce the band to 90% of the measurement being bound (before adding seam allowance).  Depending on the stretch of your fabric and how snug or loose you’d like your wrist band to be, you may need to adjust this percentage a bit.

Today, I’m working with a 100% organic cotton knit that has a pretty tight knit to it so that it has only about 25% stretch and not much recovery. You’ll see on the pattern that I’ve recommended this type of fabric (under 50% stretch) to be cut on the bias, even though that’s typically reserved for woven fabrics. I would like my wrist band to be on the looser side, so I’m going to reduce the length of the band by less than 90%, before adding seam allowances. The math goes like this:

Garment construction remains the same as in the pattern.

Have you made a boat neck ANEGADA? I’d love to see it! Be sure to share your photos on Instagram with #boatneckANEGADA, and tag me @halfmoonatelier! You can also use the #youcanhackit hashtag!