How to fix the stitching on a shirt placket

(FOX 2) - This week, Jill Washburn, our Jill of All Trades, shows us how she fixed the front button placket of her favorite shirt.

Jill says that every once in awhile, you get a piece of clothing that just hasn't been stitched right. Sometimes, the stitching doesn't have to be off by much to cause problems. Jill says that that's especially true when you're dealing with collars and/or buttons.

Fixing a front button placket with Jill of All Trades

In this episode of Jill of All Trades, she shows us how to fix a front button placket that just will not lay flat.

The problem that Jill was dealing with was a button placket (the part down the center of the shirt) that would not lay flat, no matter how many times she pressed or steamed it. Jill says she even considered donating the shirt because she was so frustrated with it. Fortunately, the "lightbulb moment" occurred and Jill realized that there was a fix for this.

The fix for Jill was to add an extra row of stitching on the far outside edges of the placket.

For the fixed edge that was over shirt fabric, that meant stitching the edge down to the shirt fabric. For the open edge that overlapped the buttons, that meant adding a row of stitching that was purely aesthetic, just so the two sides of the placket matched.

Jill started by pressing the placket straight one more time, so that it would be easier to sew. The she started sewing on the side where she would be stitching the placket to the fabric beneath it. She started as close to the collar as she could and slowly stitched as straight of a line as she could on the outer edge of the placket. At times, she was only stitching a couple of stitches at a time.

**NOTE** You may want to test a few stitches on a scrap of fabric to make sure that your stitches are the same size as the existing ones on the shirt. If they're not, you can make adjustments before you work on the real thing.

Once she made her way all the way down the edge of the placket, Jill sewed across the bottom of the placket and then made her way up the other side in the same fashion, slowly stitching her way up the free edge (or overlapping edge) keeping her stitches as straight and as close to the edge as possible. Once you make your way back up to the collar, you're done!

It only took a few minutes to fix the shirt, and the frustrating button placket is a problem no more!

PROJECT RATING: Easy