Placket Pin Cushion

Ever wonder what to do with shirt plackets when cutting up shirts for quilting or other projects?   I wondered this very thing recently as I was working with a men's shirt to test making memory bears for a coming commission order.

The front plackets on the shirts are typically not used when cutting them up for use in various projects, but I hate to just toss stuff that could be re-purposed into something useful.

I started by trimming back any of the body fabric so that it wasn't visible under the shirt placket.  I then wove them together on top of a 5" square of cream fabric much as you would strips for a lattice pie crust.

I trimmed the sections as needed to be able to get the buttons inside the seam line.  Placket with buttons went one direction and the buttonhole placket went in the opposite direction.  And then pinned everything down.

I ended up moving the strips as close as I could together so that the buttons were well within the seam allowance.  I then stitched both sides of the plackets down to hold them in place.

And then stitched the front to the back, leaving an opening to turn it right side out.  Stuffed it with polyfil stuffying and stitched the opening closed. 

I'm happy with how it turned out. 

I'll be doing this on a bigger scale for a pillow when I'm working on the memory commission that is coming in.


Back was a leftover piece from the shirt.


Gratitudes:

1. the pattern I'll be using for the memory bears is easy to sew up.

2. for having been able to work from home and save on what I've been spending on gas while not getting paid