Add a shoulder button placket to a T-shirt or sweatshirt

If you too have ever had to finish your sewing project and not be able to put your head through the neckline when trying on (or more often that of your baby doll!), this new tutorial is for you. ! In this video we explain how to simply add a button placket to the shoulder on any t-shirt or sweatshirt pattern.

There are several reasons why you might want to add a shoulder band opening: 

• your neckline is narrow or close to the neck,
• your material is not very stretchy or if 
• you or your child have a big head (this happens to everyone!)
  
  Thanks to this technical video, you will be able to hack some of your favorite patterns or adapt them to give them a second use, such as making an anti-UV t-shirt in lycra knit, for example, with a Simple T-Shirt pattern. The lycra mesh being tighter than a jersey, the T-shirt can only be put on after the addition of the shoulder tab. This will save you from buying a specific pattern!

Quick and easy to do, this tutorial allows you to enlarge the head passage by the shoulder seam allowance. 

Material needed to add a shoulder button placket

To carry out this project, you will need your usual sewing material, scraps of your main fabric or a matching jersey, fine thermo-adhesive canvas, buttons or press studs, a piece of pattern paper, a ruler and a pencil. 

Patronize a button placket on the shoulder

For this modification, you are going to add two pieces to your pattern: the first, a facing for the front piece at shoulder level, which will be a partial lining of the shoulder and the second, a button placket, assembled at the back , which will slip under the front shoulder (see video).

Start with the front facing: place your pattern paper and the front piece of your pattern in front of you, seam allowances included. Copy the outline of the left shoulder: start along the shoulder, then extend by copying the neckline and the top of the armhole over a few centimeters. Draw a line parallel to the shoulder line at three centimeters. Cut all around, your front facing is ready (see video).

For the back tab, copy the layout of the facing that you have just created. Duplicate it, placing the piece in symmetry along the bottom line. This part will have to be folded in half during assembly. Cut all around, your shoulder pad is ready.

The last step is simply to lengthen your neck band by 2.5cm from the base length.

Cut and mount a button placket on the shoulder (see Video): 

Cut each of the two pieces you just created out of fabric and iron-on. Iron-on your pieces on the back of your fabric. Overcast or overlock the edges. 

For the assembly, you will start by assembling the front and the back of your garment at the level of the right shoulder: place and sew according to the seam allowances of your pattern, your front and your back right sides together by aligning the right shoulder when worn (shoulder without the button placket). 

Then line up at the shoulder line, right sides together, the left front and the facing. Sew. 

Align your back shoulder with the single layer button placket along the shoulder line. Sew. 

Next, you will lay the collar. Take your piece of fabric from the collar. Fold it in half lengthwise, right sides together and sew the ends (short sides). You can then strip the corners, and turn the collar. Divide the strip thus obtained into four equal parts, and place a pin at each mark. 

Do the same with the neckline of your T-shirt, not counting the facing and the back tab in your calculation. Pin the collar to the neckline right sides together, matching the pins. 

At the back, the collar must end at the level of the fold in the middle of the button placket. On the front, it must end at the seam between the front and its facing. Fold right sides together the shoulder tab in the middle of it, and the front facing according to the assembly seam with the front (the collar is sandwiched). Stitch all along the neckline, strip the corners and turn the tabs to the wrong side of your garment. 

You are almost there! You can place the back button placket under the front shoulder, align the edges at the armhole and stitch them together in the seam allowance. All you have to do is put your pressure on. You can now resume assembling your garment by following the steps in your pattern. 

Cheer !