1. First, we will be making lined pockets. Remember, you have two pocket pieces, two
linings, and you’ve fused an interfacing strip to the wrong side of the pocket pieces.
Handling your pocket pieces carefully, stitch the top edge of the lining and the top edge
of the pocket together, right-sides together, and leaving a backstitched gap in the middle
of this seam. Like so – the right-hand pocket serving as an example of the finished part of
this step:
2. Next, take the pocket to the ironing board and press the seam allowance toward the lining
(below left). Then, fold the lining and the pocket together, right-sides together (below
right)
3. Now, stitch around the edge of the pocket at the 3/8″ seam allowance. This is self-
explanatory (if you can’t make a perfect 3/8″ seam allowance, practice first! The shirt
needs a lot of accuracy to look good!). Steam press those pockets and let them dry before
proceeding:
4. Trim the seam allowances as so (showing bottom corners of the pockets):
5. Now, we are ready to turn the pockets through that gap we left in the top:
6. Turn your pockets and gently press out the corners with something pokey but not too
sharp. No, I do not have a bone folder or any tool for this – yet. I use… well… I hate to
tell you as someone will be upset I’m doing it wrong. But yes, I use the end of my
scissors. I’m really careful about it though! I promise:
10. And now… get ready to set aside this sew-a-long to practice. IT’S TIME TO MAKE A
BUTTONHOLE! Two, in fact. In the shirt pockets.
11. Now it’s time to set the pockets aside and work on the sleeve placket.
Shirt Sleeve With Cuff§ Laying both the overlap and underlap right-sides to the WRONG
side of the sleeve. Notice also how I’ve clipped the overlap, and folded under ALL seam
allowances (I used 1/4″ but you can use 3/8″ if you like) except for the seam allowances
abutting the slash mark and those at the sleeve’s raw edge. I’ve also edged the plackets
lower than the sleeves; I’ll trim them after my first two seams:
12. Now – two lines of stitching, making sure to back stitch at all ends:
14. You can now trim up the ends of these placket pieces and trim the top folded edges too. I
clip the underlap and overlap seam allowances right at the top of the two seams parallel
to the slash. Shown below, the clipped underlap seam allowance. I haven’t yet clipped the
overlap seam allowance in this picture:
15. Now: fold over the underlap to the right-side of the sleeve so the folded over edge covers
up the first stitching line, then topstitch. I elected to use a regular stitch for this. We’ll
soon be using a topstitch seam for most of topstitching during construction, but not here:
17. Pressing and/or pinning: Make sure that the entire placket facing lies parallel to the grain.
Shown before pinning:
18. Pinned, and now stitched (again – follow instructions as per the above pdf). As you near
the place where the overlap and underlap will join, make sure to straighten that underlap
underneath the overlap. If you get it wrong, you can carefully take out the seam, re-steam
and re-pin, and try again. It’s a little tricky:
19. You can start stitching at the raw-edge as in my example, or you can start at the crossover
on the cap of the placket. There are control advantages to either. Again, just make sure
that cap is pinned securely as it will try to shift while you’re stitching.
20. Above – the finished overlaps. And below – the underside / wrong side of the sleeve
placket:
21. TIME FOR PLEATS!
Sleeve pleats.
Easy enough. Fold as per pattern instructions and using notches then stitch 1/4″ from the
raw edge to secure.
23. Sleeve, near finished! Again – there are more than one way to make a sleeve placket so if
this is different, cool beans. This method is pretty reliable though and it’s what I use when
I’m not feeling too fancy.
Now, on to the back pleat on the shirt body back. Here, remember, we cut out the piece so
that Fold the top pleat so that you are folding symmetrically along the plaid. Here’s the
pleat after it’s been folded and sewn 1/4″ from the raw edge – the yellow thread is the
thread-marked pleat.
24.
25. ts fine. Carefully remove the marking thread and carefully press. Then lay it out and
compare it to the size of the seam it abuts – that of the bias yoke
time to join up the yokes. No jokes. (titter!) Here also is a great example of a camera
angle giving you the wrong impression: my inner yoke (remember, the one cut on grain§,
not on the bias) is about 1/4″ a little smaller than the outer yoke (shown upside down in
the below photo), but the size difference here looks huge here. The SECOND picture
below more accurately represents how well the two pieces compared:
and I should also point out – even with 1/4″ difference, because of my flannel’s fairly
loose weave, it was very easy to carefully stretch the inner yoke so that it matched the
outer yoke and the shirt body. Everything came together fine. Small imperfections in
cutting often work out without additional trimming.
Pinning the outer yoke to sew 3/8″…
26. After this seam is complete, pin the inner yoke to the inside of the shirt, and sew RIGHT
along that first seam. Shown here – both yokes attached. You can’t see the inner yoke at
all as it is under the two layers.
27. Now – finger -pressing, then gently steam pressing, both yokes up, and pinning them for
temporary security. We aren’t topstitching yet – I’m going to address that in the next post,
when we apply the pockets (remember our pockets?).
28. And here, after flipping over the yoke and back piece, is the inner yoke:
29. Now, we are going to join our yokes together at the shoulder. First pin the outer yoke to
the front body, right sides together:
30. Stitch that seam with a construction stitch, clip the corners, and grade the seam:
31. Clip the seam allowance closest to the body, not the public side of the garment – the shirt
body seam allowance (note I used pinking sheers to grade):
32. Press this seam up toward the yoke. Next, fold over the seam allowance of the inner yoke.
I like to add a little Steam A Seam Lite tape here, to affix it to the outer yoke / shirt body
seam allowance. As shown:
33. Now – topstitch! If you carefully folded and pressed and/or fused that second seam
allowance, your inner seam should look pretty good:
34. … and here is how the top stitching stitch looks:
35. And now – go ahead and open up those pocket buttonholes, if they’re dried. I use my
seam-ripper – carefully. There are several ways to open a buttonhole§ and the way I’m
showing you is kind of RECKLESS and BAD-ASS but to be honest, creating thousands
of buttonholes
36. So now! We are done with today’s session. Next session we will be doing a bit of double-
threaded top stitching for applying the pockets, making the front placket (including our
last bit of interfacing), and putting the collar and collar stand together.
