I shall wear diamonds on my sleeves!

I have finished the yoke of the jacket and started to work on the sleeve designs this week.

I need to find some suitable plain fabric to join the back sections together now.  I was thinking of a nice mid brown colour.

I saw a patchwork jacket sleeve in a book by Judy Murrah 'Jacket Jazz Encour'; where she has used strips of fabric joined together and then re-cut them to create a diamond pattern.  I decided to use the idea, but to work it in my own way to get the effect I wanted.

After drawing out the raglan sleeve pattern for my jacket I drew in all the diamonds to get the proportions right on the pattern.  After cutting the fabric out I laid the small diamonds shapes on the pattern so I could move the individual pieces around and find out where I felt they looked good together. I settled on this layout finally.

I cut out the second sleeve pieces before I started to stitch the first sleeve together, as I wanted to be sure I had enough of the fabrics to complete both sleeves.  Some of this fabric is no longer available, I wanted to be safe rather than sorry. 

From cutting out the patches and piecing together, each sleeve has taken 3 hours to complete.  So far the work,  from playing around with the design ideas, to the actual design, then the cutting out of the pieces and stitching everything back together has taken 19 hours.  I am pleased with what I've done so far, and can't wait until I start on the front tomorrow!