Well, not all designs end up in the finished product. I wasn't exactly sure what I wanted to trim the sleeves. I wanted some sort of blue stripe across the panes where they were gathered, but I wasn't sure exactly how I wanted to construct the trim. I tried the following four ideas which looked a lot better in my head than then did on the sleeve. I took the pictures for posterity and then quickly tossed them into the trash.
Here is the final design that I ended up going with. I used a heavy weight cotton thread to tack down a strip of blue wool (that I got from another coat). The blue coat matched pretty close to the shade of blue of the silk that I had as the sleeve backing.
Took some time, but I think it was worth it. I really like the patter and the color as an accent. Adds a little bit of design without too much over embellishment.
Here is the final sleeve stitched closed for the last time. I know, it ain't pretty. Frankly, I'm not sure why I took this picture other than because it was one step in the process and In knew once I turned it right side out, it would never look like this again.
I still have some finishing touches to to on the blue trim to close it at the seam, but for now the sleeve is wearable. You can see that the sleeve is slightly more puffy than the last mock-up. I stuffed each section with a strip of a cotton shower curtain. I got the curtain from a garage sale free-bee. Was a loose decorative cotton mesh with a little embroidery on the edges. I cut it into strips and fed a strip inside each of the five sections of the sleeves.
Now, it is ready to wear. I'm really happy with this, even though it has taken three times longer than I thought it would. So far the hand sewing notion seems to be still doable.
