The layout process has begun for the final assembly. I used a pattern board. I don't know the technical name for it, but it is simply a large piece of cardboard with a grid drawn on it. It is used for laying out patterns. I picked this one up for $2.50 at Salvation Army. I used some blue painters tape to mark off the lengths of each section. Since I had obtained my wool from various coats, the size of wool strips I had was varied. I knew that I would have to splice some sections together to make the final strips and wanted any seams I made to fall on the section of the gather so as to best hide the seam.
Here is the piles of strips waiting to be collected, measured and joined.
I started by laying out all the pieces which would make up each sleeve. I chose the pieces which would best get the most out of each piece of wool with the least amounts of seams which would show. This is the final layout and the splicing can begin.
I spliced all the sections together by whip stitching the ends together. I did all the splicing using silk thread as close as possible to the color of the wool.
After flattening out the butted ends you can see that when the seam is tightened the wool tended to splay at each end. I simply used a straight edge over the seam and trimmed the edge nice and straight again.
Finished seam ready for assembly. This shows up quite easily in this photo, but when the final garment is viewed the seam is virtually invisible as I aligned each splice to fall right on the area of the sleeve which would be covered up by further embellishment.
