Ok – so you can imagine that as Faith was being assembled that it was tempting, very tempting to put her on.  Most of us couldn’t even come close to any amount of that and so if we allowed ourselves the pleasure of laying the sleeve over our arm, it was just enough.  While we did it the first time for pure fun and voyeurism, the eyebrows immediately went up as it taught us something.

Faith is heavy.  In fact, her weight tripled with the silk and gold thread applied.  So when you placed an unfinished sleeve on your arm it was weighted down.  And the stiffness of the fabric was so apparent.  Your mind immediately goes to all the portraits and those funny looking arm positions.  Well dearie – that is all that they could do.  I know that first hand.  We saw it in spades when Elizabeth wore it.  It wasn’t that she was trying to be careful with the embroidery – she couldn’t bend her arms!

And another thing we realized was that the natural skew of the fabric on the bias was gone with all the ‘pinning’ of the stitching.  So when an arm bends, the fabric accommodates the bend by stretching along the bias.  The body of the sleeve can’t do that any more at all.  So all the stress gets transferred to the seams.

Hence the plaited braid.  It wasn’t for pretty decoration at all.  You had to have something on the seams to prevent the sleeve from ripping apart when you moved your arm.  It all made sense, because I tell ya – stitching that over the seam is HARD.

Susan from Down Under was there at the right time and got to ‘wear’ the sleeve too.  LUCKY her – I am sure she will carry the memory of that one for awhile.

Tricia