Buttonholes, buttons and hem

Hi!

Welcome to the last part of our Salt and Pepper shirt Sew Along (you can check out all the steps HERE). Today we will sew the buttons and button holes, and also we will finish the hem. Ready?

HEM

As the shape of the hemline is curved,  it is not possible to make a wide hem. So, to do a perfect hem, first try on the shirt on and decide how wide your hem is going to be, just in case you need to cut the excess.

The shirt/shirt dress hem is finished by a regular stitch. When the hem is narrow (5mm) and curved, we recommend you to follow the next steps:
Mark the final hem depth measurement (5mm) 4 times from the lower edge of the garment (2cm in total) and press that measurement towards the wrong side of your garment to create a folded mark. At this point, you have a fold which measures twice the width of the hem.

Fold again the width of the hem towards the inside of the garment (half of the measurement you folded on step 2) and press. Stitch 1mm from the folded edge and press again.

Finally, fold again, so we have a 1cm wide hem. Press, secure with pins and baste. Sew very close to upper edge and press again. And that´s it! your perfect curved hem is ready to go!

BUTTONS AND BUTTONHOLES

Next step is sewing the buttonholes. The upper buttonhole should go between 1.5cm and 2cm from the top of the button placket.

Now, from this point down, mark a buttonhole every 8cm, until you have 7 buttonholes.

Once all the buttons are marked, take one of your buttons, and place the center on the buttonhole mark. Now, mark the length of the button.

Sew the buttonholes using your sewing machine, or by hand, as you prefer.

To open the buttonholes, place a pin at each end of the buttonhole, and open carefully using your seam ripper.

Once the buttonholes are opened, make a mark in the middle of every buttonhole on the placket where the buttons will be sewed. To do so, pin both button plackets in place, and using a marker, mark the placement of the button.

And that´s it! Our Salt and Pepper shirt is ready! You only need to press it gently and wear it with your favorite pair of jeans.

We hope you have enjoyed this Sew Along and all the techniques we have shared with you. More sewing is coming on the blog soon, so stay tuned!