How to Add a Button Placket to any Top Pattern

Who doesn’t love buttons? They can add instant flair to any outfit, especially on kids clothes!  And they also seem to be the first step into slightly more advanced sewing that seamstresses are willing to try – before the jump to zippers. Mie of the Sewing Rabbit Team is here today showing off how you can add a button placket to any bodice pattern piece.  Adding instant buttons to any handmade outfit!

How to Add a Button Placket to any Top Pattern.

Today I am going to talk about this sweatshirt dress and what you can do to change any classic sweatshirt (or t-shirt with raglan sleeves) pattern into something similar.  For example, See kate sew’s RECESS raglan knit tee would work perfectly.

If the bodice is too long or wide it will change the look of this dress to more of an old fashioned long coat….so please make the bodice first and try it on your child before you start making the skirt part. Oh and how do I know what it will look like….yes ahem I might be speaking from experience here…twice did I shorten the bodice after I sewed on the skirt…twice!! I mean….yeah, let’s move on! Now don’t come back and tell me I did not warn you.

The skirt is just a rectangle that has been gathered to the bodice. Easy peasy. I measured the lower part of the bodice (the waist) and made my skirt double that measurement which I think give the right amount of gathers for the type of dress.

Then there is rib in the neck opening and sleeves – again classic sweatshirt style.

Normally I stay far away from buttonholes in knit and uses snaps instead, but this cotton French terry did really not have that much stretch in it so with some fusible interlining along the placket it actually totally worked, phew.

So let’s talk about plackets.

First you have to find center front (CF) on your sweatshirt/t-shirt pattern. It will usually be marked by the pattern maker. Most sweatshirt and t-shirt patterns are cut in CF anyway and asks you to cut your fabric on fold and that will be CF. Otherwise you simply fold your front pattern piece in the middle.

*Reminder – this is a Raglan Tee pattern, which is why the bodice pattern might look different to you in the photos. This same technique will work with regular bodice / T Shirt patterns as well.

Then you have to decide how wide a placket you want. This is a design question so it is really up to you. But think about what buttons you want to put in. Tiny buttons in a wide placket is usually not that pretty. So let’s work with an easy example: 1 inch/2.5 cm. Now you divide your desired placket width in two….yup, told you it was easy math. Since we want CF to run down exactly in the middle of the placket we are going to add that extra half to CF and now we got the overlap and the fold line.

See photo above.

Now since we don’t want raw edges running down there, you have to extend CF further with the full width of your placket plus seam allowance.

You do the same with your skirt at CF and you are good to go.

Here is an overview of all the pattern pieces that you will now have:

And you now have pattern piece that will allow for the inclusion of making a button placket! Looking for a good tutorial on sewing buttonholes and buttons, try this one by Dana.  Once you have the automatic buttonhole feature on your sewing machine down, you will be adding packets to everything…trust me.

They have the potential to add so much flair to any basic outfit.

Thanks so much for stopping by, and until next time…

Happy Sewing!