How to Sew Lace Cuffs on Your Sleeves

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Adding lace to your garments is a fun way to instantly dress them up. Whether you’re making lace sleeves or adding lace to a pocket, it can transform a plain shirt into something much cuter. Today I’m showing you how to attach lace cuffs to a sweater or long sleeved t-shirt. This project takes just 10 minutes and it’s a great way to alter your clothes with minimal effort!

Supplies & Materials

For this project, you will need:

• Stretch galloon lace. This lace is similar to the kind I used, but it is a little wider*.
• A long sleeve shirt or sweat shirt.
• Matching thread.
• A sewing machine with a free arm**.
• A serger (very useful but you can use a regular machine)
• Quilting clips
• Straight pins
• Quilting ruler
• Rotary cutter & mat (this one includes a ruler!)
• Iron & ironing board

* The lace I used was about 4″ wide and this looked nice with my shirt. A lot of galloon lace is 8-9″ wide but you can still use it. If your lace is this wide, recommend cutting it in half length-wise. You can then sew the raw edge to the shirt sleeve. If doing this method, it looks neater to put the cuff inside the sleeve (we’ll cover that later).

** Most regular sewing machines have a free arm. This is the part of the sewing table that extends beyond the needle/bobbin area. It is the narrower part of the machine base that doesn’t touch the table. Because it doesn’t tough the table, you can slide things like cuffs and pant legs around the free arm more easily. On many machines, you need to remove the attached accessory box, base, or sewing table attachment to access the free arm.

Watch this video to see how I sewed the lace cuffs on my shirt! Please subscribe to my YouTube channel for more videos like this!

Steps for Sewing Lace Cuffs

You will start by cutting off the end of the shirt sleeves so the lace is the correct length for your wrists.

1. Try on your shirt and tuck the shirt sleeve inwards to shorten it by a few inches.
2. Hold the lace up to the end of the sleeve to gauge how much of the sleeve you need to cut off. Decide how far down your wrist you want the lace to go.
3. When you have the shirt folded where you want it, use tailor’s chalk to trace along the fold line.
4. Take the shirt off and place the marked sleeve on your cutting mat. Straighten the sleeve so the seam is laying flat and the end of the cuff is lined up with one of the grid lines on the mat.
5. Place a quilting ruler or other straight edge on the sleeve about 1/2″ to 1″ below the line you marked with tailor’s chalk. You want to leave a little extra room so you can fold under a nice hem.
6. Cut the end of the sleeve off.
7. Lay your other shirt sleeve on the cutting mat and straighten it out.
8. Place the piece of cut-off sleeve on top of the remaining sleeve and line up the edges. Use this as a guide to cut the end off the remaining sleeve.
9. Fold under a hem between 1/2″ to 1″ and press the hem in place with your iron.

Sewing the Cuffs

After cutting the shirt sleeves, you can cut and sew the lace.

1. After pressing under the hem, measure the width of your sleeves. Multiply this by 2 to get the circumference of your sleeve. It doesn’t have to be super exact because the fabric can be stretched a little bit.
2. Lay your lace on the cutting mat. Cut off a strip that is about 1/2″ longer than the circumference of your sleeve opening. Cutting the extra length ensures that you can sew a 1/4″ seam allowance when stitching the edges of the lace together.
3. Find the right side and wrong side of the lace cuffs. This can be a little tricky, but the wrong side usually has more of a matte appearance and less detail.
4. Fold both cuffs in half length-wise with the right sides together. The cut edges of the lace should be touching.
5. Use quilting clips to clip along the raw edge. You can use pins if you don’t have clips. However, pins don’t have a very secure hold in lace so you might need to use extra.
6. Using a serger, sew a 1/4″ seam allowance along the raw edge of the lace. Repeat with the other cuff. If you don’t have a serger, use a zig-zag stitch on a regular sewing machine. On a regular machine, I recommend stitching the seam twice to make sure it’s nice and secure.
7. Press the seam to one side.

Pinning the Cuffs

Now that our lace cuffs are sewn together, we can pin them to the sleeve openings. You can attach the lace on the outside of the sleeve or tuck it inside the opening so it looks like the lace is poking out. I personally like the look of the lace being on the outside because the scallop detail is pretty on both edges.

1. Line up the seam of the lace cuff with the seam of your shirt. Slide the lace around the outside of the sleeve or tuck it inside (your choice).
2. Use straight pins to pin the cuff to the sleeve. I like to use extra pins when sewing lace.
3. You may need to stretch the lace slightly to fit it around the sleeve, and that’s perfectly okay. Because it’s stretch lace and stretchy fabric, it will bounce back after sewing.
4. Repeat with the other sleeve.

Sewing the Cuffs On

Finally, we will sew the cuffs onto the shirt. To do this, you will need to access the free arm of your machine. This may require removing the table attachment or accessory box from your machine.

1. Set your machine to a zig-zag stitch. I like practicing on the cut-off sleeve piece to check that my tension and stitch length is correct.
2. Slide the cuff lace-first over the free arm of your machine. If your cuff is narrow, you may need to stretch the lace and wiggle it onto the free arm.
3. Line up the edge of the shirt sleeve with your presser foot so that you will be stitching about 1/4″ from the edge of the shirt sleeve. Make sure the sleeve hasn’t folded under itself when you slid the cuff onto the machine.
4. Starting at the seam line, stitch all the way around the cuff, removing the pins as you reach them. You may need to stretch the cuff a little as you’re sewing. It’s okay to stretch knits while sewing because they will bounce back when you’re done.
5. When you get back to the seam, stitch over your initial stitches by about 1″ to help make it more secure.
6. Repeat with the other sleeve.

You now have beautiful lace cuffs on your sleeves! If you liked this tutorial, I’d love to see how your project turned out. You can tag me @craftingwithclementine on social media (Instagram, Pinterest, Tik Tok, YouTube, and Threads) or let me know how it went in the comments below!