Sew Beautiful Magazine

* This article can be found in Sew Beautiful Issue #110, January / February 2007 *
For a printable PDF version of this article, click here

About the Designer

Debbie Glenn is the designer of Love and Stitches patterns and an instructor at the Martha Pullen School of Art Fashion. Her work is regularly featured in Sew Beautiful magazine. For information on Debbie’s Spring 2007 Machine Magic School, traveling classes or patterns visit her new updated web page, www.loveandstitches.com, or address inquiries to Love and Stitches, 14 Cherry Hills Drive, Aiken, SC 29803, (803) 642-1852.

“A garment has no claim to beauty without a closing that is just right in every detail. For how can it be charming, or how can it be beautiful, when the
ill-fitting placket pulls to one side, or puckers up the
material, or completely distorts its lines?”

- Fashion Institute of Chicago,
Fashionable Clothes Making, 1926

The placket seems to be the one area of a garment that causes trouble for both novice and advanced students. With that in mind, Debbie Glenn shares step-by-step instructions for her unique folded placket. Please note that while Debbie discovered a way to make a folded placket that eliminates all visible raw edges, this placket may only be used on fabrics with no apparent wrong side. Add 2-1⁄2-inches to back skirt width for a 1/2-inch wide finished placket.

Painless Plackets

1. Pull a thread and cut along center back the desired depth of the finished placket (9- to 13-inches at neck, 4- to 6-inches for a skirt). At lower end of center back, cut clip perpendicularly 1/2-inch to the right and 1/2-inch to the left (Photo 1).
2. Press right cut edge under 1/2-inch (to wrong side), turn left edge up 1/2-inch (to right side), leaving a 1-inch opening at bottom of placket (Photo 2).

3. Fold left side up 1/2-inch again (encasing left raw edge), leaving a 1/2-inch opening at bottom of placket (Photo 3).
4. Pinch up fabric at base of placket so right single fold touches left double fold, leaving no opening at bottom of placket. Secure this little tuck with a pin (Photo 4). TIP: Make sure fold of this little tuck doesn’t extend beyond far left edge of placket or it will be visible.

5. Finally, fold right side under 1⁄2-inch again (encasing right raw edge); lapping right side over left. There will be a double pleat with a tiny tuck inside at end of opening, pressed to left (Photo 5 and 6).

6. Secure placket edges by hand or machine using a straight or pinstitch. To stitch by machine: Un-pin tiny tuck and flatten out this area, temporarily un-lapping right and left sides of placket; refer to Photo 7. TIP: For easier pinstitching, cut scant 1⁄2-inch strips of Sol-u-Web and use “water-soluble fusible mesh” to secure right and left folds. Stitch from right side from top edge down securing right fold, adjusting width of pinstitch so left swing of fingers catch fold underneath (L=2.0-2,5; W=1.5) (Photo 7).

7. At bottom, stop with needle down 1/8-inch below clip at end of straight stitch series, re-lap placket, pivot 45 degrees, stitch finger stitch in and out into same hole, pivot 45 degrees then stitch across bottom, stopping just beyond fold; refer to photo 8.

8. Pivot and continue stitching up left side being careful not to catch right placket edge in stitches (Photo 8).

9. There will be raw ends exposed between the layers at bottom of placket (Photo 9). To enclose these raw ends, press placket flat, then stitch just above raw ends to form a small rectangle (photo 10).

For a printable PDF version of this article, click here