Shoulders and Sleeves
The Paned Cap Sleeves There are two pairs of outer sleeves, the paned cap sleeves and the long sleeves. For a long time, I interpreted the paned cap sleeves as what we called "shoulder rolls". I had been taught that they were cut as two crescents, the inner diameter of which spanned the upper two thirds of the armhole. They were seamed together, stuffed, decorated, and whipstitched into the bodice armhole. But in recent years, I've come to the conclusion that shoulder rolls on Elizabethan bodices, doublets, and gowns were NOT made this way. On examination of many images, they appear to actually be very short sleeves, with a gathered or puffed overlay, which was often covered with strips of fabric called panes. You...