How to Sew a Placket on a Polo shirt

Polo shirts are so versatile. They can look professional during a meeting with a logo or as comfy during a gold or tennis game. So everyone should include them in a well rounded wardrobe. Once you have a well fitted dartless bodice front and back pattern, you can easily adapt it to make a polo shirt.

First make sure the neckline rides right around the clavicles on the neck. It is similar to a jewel neckline. On the front, mark the center front line with a chalk line about 7-9" down. Remember that men's shirts are left over right, and women's are right over left. So for the sake of discussion let's discuss a women's shirt and just do the opposite for a man's shirt. Mark 1/2" to the left of the center on the right side of the fabric with chalk 7-9" down . Then make your placket. Cut a piece of like fabric or contrast fabric 2" longer than intended placket so in our case it would be 9-11 inches long by 3 1/4" wide. This will make a 3/4" wide placket. Of course you can make the placket any width you want by adjusting the width of the placket: wider for wider plackets, narrower for narrower plackets. You can interface the wrong side of the fabric for placket as well with a lightweight fusible interfacing. Then mark on the interfaced side 1 1/4" wide line down the length of placket. This makes a wide section and narrow section on the placket. Place the placket down on shirt front right sides together lining up the lines and make sure the narrow side of the placket is to the left and wide side to the right. Pin in place. Stitch down one side of the line with a 1/8" wide seam allowance. As you approach the bottom of the line sew as close to the line as possible so you can sew on stitch across the bottom of the line, then sew back up the other side widening to 1/8" seam allowance as well. Cut down to the bottom of the line. Turn the placket to the inside. On the narrow side stitch in the ditch down the placket on the right side of front. On the side side , fold the placket in half and lap the right side over left for women's shirts. You will stitch a narrow rectangle across the bottom of the placket and then up the other side to the neckline. Give everything a press . Now you can complete the shirt. Of course there are a few exceptions to this order depending on the features of the collar and how you want to apply it. I think this deserves a video or pictures! What do you think? Let me know .