How to Sew Tower Plackets
Tower plackets can be tricky too, just because they are a few more steps than your conventional lap placket that you find on most shirt sleeves. But knock out a few of them and you will find them just as easy to sew as their quicker cousin. Learning details like these are also an opportunity to practice your own precision and attention to detail in your sewing.
In this post and video tutorial, I'll show you how I sew the tower placket that I added to the Fair Fit dress I'm creating. I hope it's helpful for the Fair Fit Method students who are following along and crafting this design, as well as for any of you readers who are looking to learn more approaches to sewing these fine details.
Tower plackets that I'm demonstrating in this post and video are traditionally sewn at the cuffs to create a finer and more complex detail on a shirt than your simpler continuous lap placket. For my dress, however, I'm using the tower placket to create an open neckline.
Make sure that you have customized the length of the placket to the depth of your desired neckline, and if you need to get the pattern you can download it for free in my previous post "PATTERN DRAFTING 101 - HOW TO CUSTOMIZE A SHIRT PLACKET PATTERN."
The process from the video
Lay the placket down over the CF cut line, interfaced side up, on the inside of the garment.
Sew the sew lines and notch the corners.
Fold the entire placket toward the outside of the dress and press. Be sure to get right up against the seams.
Fold each side of the placket in to line up with the sewn line.
Sew the inside button placket from top to hem at 1/16 to 1/8 an inch away from the fold line.
Repeat for the other side, and then line up the front of the placket over the back placket. Use pins to keep them in place.
Fold the top of the "tower" on the placket. Pin in place.
Sew all corners and across the placket.
Mark your buttonholes.
Go ahead and swap out this pattern on your next shirt making project, or give it a try by practicing on some of your scraps before cutting into your design.
Next week, we will take a break from all of this shirt making sewing and dig into some repurpose. I'm going to show you how I repurpose a Me Made and turn it into a new shirt that I've been wearing all this spring.
If you want to create your own custom self sewn clothes and like this way of learning, I want to invite you to check out my signature online courses, the Fair Fit Method. It is a series of online sewing and fashion design courses that will teach you how to create custom clothing for yourself that adapts to your personal shape and style. Using the Fair Fit pattern and the 6 core areas of focus - design, pattern, draping, check fit, sewing, and customization, you can create your own artistically and intentionally designed wardrobe using the step by step videos in each course. To learn more and read the full course descriptions visit the full website here:
