Realistic sewing patterns - sewing cloth around an object

Question

I'm trying to simulate realistic sewing patterns, and so I can not always lay my mesh around my character.

Here I am trying to make a sleeve by connecting two edges of a plane, as a tailor would do. If I directly sew them together, the strings would be in the way when the simulation starts, and the arm would not be inside the sleeve.
My solution for now is making an extra edge, so that the strings go around the arm. However, this creates an additional pulling force on the x axis, that "rolls up" the sleeve. So while maybe a workaround, but not an ideal solution.

Is there a better way to do this?

^{Mesh before simulation}

^{Result with described method}

Answer 1

Bend the mesh of the sleeves a little to create the desired shape. Select the faces at one side and use the 3D Cursor as pivot point (.) to rotate them. Then do the same for the other side of the sleeve.

In my experience, it doesn't matter if the threads (wires) penetrate the model's body. However, the fabric mesh should not penetrate the body of the model because of the collision detection.

Note that Blender only shortens the threads but doesn't merge the mesh. So usually, there still will be visible gaps and you have to remove them manually.

Before sewing, mark the seams as (UV) seams. Then run the simulation, apply the Cloth modifier. Now in Edit mode, select a thread (wire) with Edge Selection mode (2) and choose Select Similar > Amount of Faces Around an Edge from the menu to select them all. Now, you can merge them all with M, Merge > Collapse.

Since you have marked the seams you can easily UV unwrap the mesh and you can use modifiers, a shader, or Geometry Nodes to add visible seams to the clothes.