Category: Pleated Front Shirt

The Pleats

Folding the linen into pleats is fairly easy once you get used to the process, but hopefully you’ve had some practice already with your muslin toile or by folding a sheet of paper into pleats.

Begin by laying out your linen right side up and taking the second line from the placket.

Crease the fabric into a fold along this line using your fingers.

Press the fold firmly with a hot iron and a bit of steam.

Take this folded edge and drag it into position next to the edge of the placket, forming the first pleat. I tend to gently put some pressure on the inside fold (underneath at this point) to give it the beginnings of a crease, but not yet definitive.

Here I’ve flipped the entire front over so as to crease the inside fold firmly on the line. It’s also a good chance to see how accurate you were. I was surprised that mine came out very accurate – in past shirts this hasn’t been the case.

Turn the entire assembly over to the right side again and firmly press this first pleat, holding things in position with your other hand as you go.

Finally, pin the pleat at the top, center, and bottom to hold it in place during further construction.

For the additional pleats it’s the same process. Take the second line, fold and press into a pleat.

One little tip, as you’re pressing the first fold for each pleat, make sure that the fabric underneath is square to the upper layers. This way the pleated front assembly is as square as possible and hopefully you can avoid trimming at the bottom edge later on.

Here’s the first half completed, all of the pleats pinned in place.

The final thing to do is turn under the outside seam allowance, and press.

Now’s a great time to check how accurate your work has been by laying the pleated front on top of the pattern. Ideally, the pleats and edges should all line up. I wouldn’t worry too much if it’s 1/8″ to even 1/4″ off, though it will start to have an affect on your shirt’s size.

Repeat the entire process for the other half of the pleated front. Then lay both halves right sides up, with the plackets next to each other.

Determine which end you want to be the bottom edge, and then overlap the left side onto the right. This will form the opening of the shirt, so be sure to get it right!

Baste the two halves together along the center placket using a diagonal basting stitch for strength.

And here’s the completed pleated front assembly, ready to attach to the shirt front.

Now’s a great time to starch your pleated front, if you wish, while the pleats are flat and not attached to the shirt. You could baste three rows across to replace all of the pins to make pressing easier.

One last step, I’d recommend checking how square the bottom end of your pleats are. While we formed that nice bottom line by pulling a thread originally, it’s likely that the pleats are a little out of alignment.

Square and draw a line across the bottom edge.

I wasn’t very far off, maybe 3/16″ at most, but I decided to trim the bottom anyway.

Trim the bottom edge square.


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The Placket

The placket forms the center front of the shirt and is where the buttons and buttonholes will be placed. Make sure you are working on the correct end (it’s got the 3/8″ and two 1″ [or graduated inch] wide pleats), and begin by folding over the first 3/8″ pleat to the wrong side, pressing with your fingernails as you go.

Give it a firm press with the iron and a bit of steam.

Now turn under (or over, whichever is more comfortable while you’re working) to the wrong side and press the first 1″ section, forming the placket.

Baste the placket closed with a diagonal basting stitch.

Finally, fell the placket permanently in place. Since we’re working from the wrong side, put the needle into the fabric at right angles to the seam, leaving the diagonal part of the stitch showing on the wrong side only. This way, only a small stitch appears on the front. My stitches around about 1/8″ or so apart.

Here’s the view from the right side. I’m not sure if you can see it, but the needle has caught exactly one thread, leaving the stitch itself pretty much invisible.

And the completed placket. Repeat for the other half.

I wish you could see the stitches more clearly, but they’re almost impossible to photograph.


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Laying Out the Pleated Front

Let’s begin this shirt project by laying out the pleated front. I’ll be using this exacting method to ensure the linen pleats are parallel to each other, however, if you are using a cotton for your pleats or don’t feel the need to be this precise, you can use some white chalk to lay out your lines.

First, cut two pieces of linen about 1″ larger in all directions than your pleated front pattern. This gives us room to work with.

Slide the bottom of the pattern down to about 1/4″ away from the fabric, centering the long sides.

Carefully mark the bottom of the pleats, including the edges of the pattern. I’m using a pencil here for greater accuracy, as these marks will be trimmed away later.

Don’t forget to mark the edges of the pattern as well!

With the bottom edge marked, slide one long edge of the pattern to 1/4″ away from the edge, centering the short ends on the fabric.

Mark the long ends of the pattern indicating the final height.

Pulling the Threads

Find one of the marks you made, and using a pin, carefully begin to pull out the end of one of the threads nearest to this mark.

Free about 1/4″ to 1/2″ – just enough so you can get a firm grip on the thread.

Grasp the thread and pull firmly but carefully, sliding the surrounding fabric down the thread.

Technically, we’re pulling out the thread, but I like to think of it more as sliding the fabric off of the thread. You can see how it forms these small gathers – slowly move them further down the thread, distributing them as you go.

Eventually, the gathers will free up the entire thread, after which it should to slide a lot more easily. You may end up with a broken thread at some point – if this happens, just carefully unpick the broken end and continue where you left off.

Here’s the first thread pulled out, giving us an accurate line to work out that is perfectly parallel to the grain of the fabric.

Continue working until all of the vertical and horizontal threads have been removed.

Finally, carefully trim around the pattern outline, squaring up your piece of linen.


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Pre-washing Fabric

Before beginning to sew your final shirt, it’s important to treat the fabrics beforehand so that they don’t shrink later on or lose their dye when washed, ruining your beautiful project. There are also chemicals used in the modern weaving process that you probably don’t want next to your skin.

For cotton, I like to machine wash it with cool water on a gentle cycle using mild detergent. Then dry on low heat, and give it a good pressing, folding the fabric back in half as it came on the bolt.

For linens, I dislike washing them as the wrinkles never seem to come out completely. You can wash linen in the same manner as cotton, but when drying, take it out when it is still slightly damp, and press dry with your iron to mostly avoid wrinkling.

My prefered method though is to simply spray the linen with water while on my ironing table and press it until dry. I’ve never had a problem with shrinking with this method.


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Setting the Sleeves

Setting the sleeves can be a challenge the first time, but these sleeves are easier since they’re identical front and back. Careful preparation will help you avoid any mistakes.

Begin by laying out the shirt with one of the armscyes facing up. Locate the top of the side seam. Now lay the sleeve on top, locating the sleeve seam as well.

Pin the sleeve to the armscye, lining up the side and sleeve seams.

This is probably the most confusing step, both visually and to explain. Open up the shirt so you can turn it somewhat inside out, exposing the armscye. The sleeve will be inside the armscye, making it easier to pin and sew.

Locate the center of the sleeve as well as the shoulder seam. Place them right sides together and pin from inside the armscye.

Now, in that all-too-familar process, begin making pleats in the sleeve on one half (between the two pins) so that it will fit into the armscye. Then repeat for the other half. Concentrate the pleats nearer to the top of the armscye, as that is where the ease is needed.

There should be between 2″ – 4″ inches of ease in each sleeve, giving a very roomy and comfortable sleeve. In my case, I ended up taking too much off when doing an alteration by ‘rock of eye’ and ended up with only 1/4″ of ease per sleeve, hence my lack of pleats. Need to fix that!

Continue pinning until all of the excess sleeve fabric has been distributed evenly.

After pinning, you should move the first, original pin you placed from the shirt side to the sleeve side, this way it is less likely to be run over by the sewing machine.

You can just make out that pin here after I moved it.

Here’s the sleeve after being pinned all the way around the armscye. Hopefully this has been clear enough for you!

Place the armscye into the sewing machine as shown, with the sleeve itself on the inside and facing up as it is sewn. Sew using a 1/2″ seam allowance.

Be sure to remove those pins as you sew.

Here’s the sleeve after being sewn.

And a view of the sleeve while being worn from the front:

And from the back.

With the shirt toile complete, please try it on, and if you have any errors or just want a good eye to look at your work, please share photos of the front, back, and side, plus any detailed photos as necessary, as well as photos of your draft in the support forum so that I can offer advice and corrections.


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The Sleeves

The cuffs are sewn in the same manner as the collar. Place the two halves right sides together, pin, and mark the corners as necessary. Sew around the front and top edges, leaving the bottom open.

As you get to the corners, instead of taking a sharp turn with the stitches, instead, make a diagonal stitch at the corner. This gives just enough room for the fabric when it is turned, giving you a crisper corner.

Trim the seam allowance to 1/4″ and clip and trim the corners as necessary.

Turn the cuff right side out using the aid of a point turning tool or other pointy object and press firmly.

Moving on to the sleeves now, fold and press over the 1/2″ seam allowances to the wrong side on each side seam for about 2″ – 3″ from the cuff.

Finding the center of both the cuff and sleeve, pin the cuff to the sleeve at the center, right sides together, keeping the upper layer of the cuff out of the way..

Pin both ends of the cuff to the sleeve as well. This gets a little tricky since the area is so small. There should be some excess fabric left in the sleeve at this point.

Pin the excess fabric into the cuff by forming small pleats, as we’ve done on other parts of the shirt.

A view of the wrong side of the sleeve with the pleats.

Sew the cuff to the sleeve using a 1/2″ seam, being sure to keep the top half of the cuff out of the way as you sew.

Press the seams towards the cuff.

Pin the inner cuff in place, folding under the seam allowance. You can basted this closed as I did the collar, but in this case, the length of the cuff is short enough that I didn’t find it necessary.

Topstitch across the cuff seam through all layers. You can also top stitch the outer edges of the cuff if you prefer, though I decided not to.

Here’s how the cuff interacts with the sleeve seam. With the real shirt we’ll finish this off before installing the cuffs.

With the cuff complete, we can move on to closing up the sleeve seam. Pin the sleeve seam together and sew with a 1/2″ seam from the sleeve head area to about 2″ or 3″ above the top of the cuff.

Turn and press the seam to one side.

This completes the sleeves. Next, we’ll install them into the armscyes.


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Drafting the Cuffs

There are two cuff options available for this course and I’ll be showing the construction of both. The first is similar in style to the collar from Devere, while the second is much simpler and based on original shirts from the 1860s.

Begin by drawing a vertical construction lines and marking out the following points from 0 with the appropriately-sized graduated ruler.

  • 0
  • 3 1/8
  • 4

Square out from 0 and 4. Mark the following widths:

  • 5 1/8 from 0
  • 4 3/8 from 4
  • 5 1/8 from 4

Draw a line from 5 1/8 to 5 1/8, marking 7/8 from the top. It’s a little confusing so far, but hopefully will become clearer in the next steps!

Draw a curved from 3 1/8, running square at first to avoid a scalloped affect in the finished collar, down to 4 3/8.

Draw a similar curve from 0 t 7/8. The curves look parallel but not quite (I think).

Finally, close up the cuff in a similar manner as the collar. Square up from the bottom curve 3/4. Then square out from that another 3/4, connecting at 7/8. You may have to play around with this, as I found the measurements don’t quite line up if you keep everything perfectly square.

Add a 1/2″ seam allowance all around except for the center line, which is cut on the fold.

Basic Curved Cuff

This is the simplest form of cuff to draft. Square out from 0 and draw a rectangle 4 3/8 wide by 2″ – 3″ (graduated or not). The exact depth of the cuff is up to you, I’ve seen examples from 1″ up to 4″ like the one above.

Draw a circle in one corner as shown. You can make this as deep or as shallow as you like, or even leave the cuff square.

Finally, add a 1/2″ seam allowance all around except for the center line, which is cut on the fold.


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Drafting the Collar

The pattern for this collar comes directly from Devere’s draft with very little explanation. From what I can tell, and based on other original garments, it makes a one piece stand up collar. You could also perhaps turn the pattern into a two piece collar with the stand and fall by drawing a line parallel to the bottom edge, 3/4″ from the bottom, but that’s beyond the scope of this project.

Begin by squaring out the following points from 0 using the appropriate graduated ruler:

  • 2 from 0
  • 3 3/4 from 0 (total height of collar)
  • 7 7/8 from 0 (length of the top edge)

Square out from 3 3/4 to 8 5/8. This gives the length of the collar.

I would recommend measuring this afterwards with a regular ruler, doubling it and comparing it to your neck measurement. Then compare to the length of the neck and back neck on your pattern. Hopefully they will all be close but if there are large discrepancies it would call for a little investigation.

Draw in the bottom of the collar with a gentle ‘s’ curve beginning at 2. Start parallel to the baseline before slowly curving down into point 8 5/8 (which doesn’t need to be parallel to the baseline).

Devere doesn’t give measurements for actually finishing the collar, so this is as close as I could come up with with the given information. Square up 3/4 from the bottom of the collar (not the baseline). If you look closely you can see that the front edge of the collar is on a very slight angle.

Square out from this line another 3/4, meeting up with a line drawn square from 7 7/8.

Finally, add a 1/2″ seam allowance all around except for the center back, which is cut on the fold.

Banded Collar

If you prefer, you can make a banded collar for your shirt. These were often used in conjunction with a detachable collar so that you could vary your style without owning yet another shirt. We’ll be going over the detachable collar construction in the next project when this shirt is done. This is my own personal draft, so feel free to alter the pattern.

Begin by squaring out the following points from 0 using a graduated ruler.

  • 1 from 0 (height of the collar)
  • 8 5/8 from 0 (width of collar, adjust if necessary as explained above)
  • 5 from 0
  • 1/2 from 8 5/8

Draw a curve from points 1/2 to 5. This helps the collar lay smoothly around the neck.

Draw a line parallel to the baseline, 1 (graduated) inch away, following the curve carefully.

Draw in the shape of the front as desired. This can be a curve as I’ve drawn, with varying radii to match your preferences, or even be kept square to the curved line below.

Finally, add a 1/2″ seam allowance except for the center back, which is cut on the fold.


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The Collar

Now that the shirt body is complete, we can construct and attach the collar. The process is similar whether using a banded collar or this fancier style. Begin by laying both collar pieces right sides together.

On the sharp corners, you can mark the seam allowances to help you turn the corners more accurately if you wish. I just did these two inside corners.

Starting at one end of the collar, sew the ends and top of the collar together with a 1/2″ seam allowance. Do not close up the bottom seam. You can pin the collar halves together before sewing if you want a little extra stability.

Here’s part of my sewn collar. I should have made a single diagonal stitch at each of the corners but it slipped my mind. It doesn’t really matter for this toile though.

Trim each of the seam allowances (except for the unsewn bottom seam) down to 1/4″.

Trim the outside corners down to about 1/16″ to 1/8″ depending on how stable your fabric is.

Clip the inside corner as well as close as you can without cutting into the seam itself.

Turn the collar right side out, using a point turner or even a pencil to ensure your corners are sharp.

Press the collar well. Here’s what the collar should look like afterwards.

Attaching the Collar

Before attaching the collar, remove the small bit of machine stitching and the hand basting that are holding the shirt’s front placket together.

To attach the collar to the shirt, begin by folding the collar in half and finding the middle. Give it a crease with your fingers.

Mark the center with chalk or pencil.

With right sides together, align the center back of the collar with the center back of the shirt and pin. Fold the top (inner) inner layer of the collar out of the way as you pin.

Now pin one end, carefully aligning the end of the collar with the placket beneath it. Continue folding the top layer of the collar out of the way (it gets tricky near the end). Repeat for the other end of the collar.

Here’s what it looks like without folding the top layer of the collar back.

Working from the center of the collar to one side or the other, gradually pin the rest of the collar, working any fullness as you go. Repeat for the other half.

Here’s the collar fully pinned to the shirt. You could also baste this by hand for a bit more control, with the added benefit of not having to worry about running over pins with your sewing machine.

Sew the collar to the shirt using a 1/2″ seam allowance from end to end. Carefully hold the top half of the collar out of the way as you sew, and be sure to take everything slowly, as the neck and collar seams have a tendency to want to get out of alignment, due to the curves involved.

Here’s the completed seam showing the collar from the inside, the back yoke on the left, and the pleated front on the right.

Press the collar and seam allowances up towards the collar. This will allow all the seams in this area to be hidden. Use a tailor’s ham to help with pressing the curved seams.

Turning to the inside of the collar and shirt, pin the inner collar to the undercollar at the center, evenly distributing the fabric, about 1″ from the edge.

Pin the rest of the inner collar as well.

Now fold under the raw edge and seam allowance, allowing it to extend beyond the collar seam line by about 1/8″. Crease firmly with your fingers as you go.

Now baste the collar closed by hand along the neck seam.

Finally and optionally, you can top stitch across the base of the collar.

And around the front area and across the top.

Not very happy with how my collar turned out, but it is a mockup, after all.

Shoulder and Side Seams

Now that the front and back pieces are complete, we can go ahead and join them together at the side and shoulder seams. Begin by pinning the fronts to the backs at the sides, right sides together. Start at the top, aligning the armscyes, and keep even tension on both until you get to the bottom of the seam.

Mark the bottom of the stitch lines just at the point where the front piece begins to curve inward.

Sew the side seam using a 1/2″ seam allowance.

The Shoulder Seams

Pin the shoulder seams together at either end. Note how the seam lines themselves are aligned at each end, and not the corners of the fabric or some other point.

Pin the center of the shoulder seam, distributing the excess fabric of the front equally on both sides. Then pin between each of these pins for a total of five pins.

Sew the shoulder seam, front side down to help distribute the fabric with the feed dogs, using a 1/2″ seam allowance.

Pressing

Press the side seams towards the back and the shoulder seams up towards the yoke using a tailor’s ham to maintain the slight shape.


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