Techniques: Sewing a Neckline Placket

Not that long ago I showed my favourite method for sewing sleeve plackets and then it occurred to me, the same must apply to sewing a placket collar, everything just needs to be bigger!

Tutorials take a lot of time & effort to create, and I choose to make mine available for free. If you enjoy this guide, you can support me with a donation that feels right for you, here.

I. Here's what you need at the start. Your shirt front piece and two pieces for the placket - they should be as long as you want your placket deep, one piece a couple cm longer than the other. The width should be 2 x desired placket width + 0.5 x desired placket width + 1 x seam allowance (I used 1 cm). In my case, I wanted the ready placket to be 2.5 cm wide, so my pieces were (2 x 2.5 cm) + (0.5 x 2.5 cm) + (1 x 1 cm) ≈ 7.3 cm wide. 

II. First pin the rectangular placket pieces along the center line of your shirt, on the reverse side, the right side of the plackets facing up. Next you will sew a box around the spot where the two placket pieces meet. In my case, the ready placket was going to be 2.5 cm wide, so I sewed 2.5/2 = about 1.3 cm from the center line, until about 3 cm from the bottom of the shorter piece, across, and up again 1.3 cm from the center.

III. Once the box is sewed in place, cut open along the center line, and dow two notches at the end..

.. Like this, creating a little triangle at the bottom. Careful not to cut the stitch.

IV. Next we need some folds. Fold about 1 cm up at the end of the longer placket piece, and press.

Also fold 1 cm (or your seam allowance) on the long edges of both pieces.

V. Next flip the entire thing so the right side of the shirt is up. Pull the shorter placket piece through onto the right side. Also make sure the little triangle comes onto this side. Press both pieces. Then pin the placket down and stitch right along the edge.

VI. Then pull the longer piece over to the right side and fold it in half, pressing. This is what it should start looking like..

.. With the seam allowance and the fold you had done at the bottom nicely packaged inside.

VII. Then pin the bottom of the upper placket piece down so it covers the lower piece nicely. Sew a box at the end (how long you want the box to be will determine how far up from the bottom the placket is closed, i.e. how deep your neckline will be (without thinking about buttons). I did mine pretty long, about 10 cm.

Once the box is sewn, the placket should look like this on the reverse:

And like this on the right side! Next you can add buttons if you wish, and continue constructing the collar. I talk about that here.

xo,

Julia