Today we will be assembling and attaching our cuffs!

Let’s begin by basting the sleeve pleat.  The notches to form the pleat are labelled A and B on the sleeve pattern piece.  I’ve color coded these with large black pins in the photo below.

How to Sew a Buton Up Shirt (59 of 99)

Place the sleeve with the placket spread open and the right side facing you.  Bring notch A to meet notch B.  I’ve marked the end of the pleat with a small green pin so that you can see how wide the finished pleat is:

How to Sew a Buton Up Shirt (61 of 99)

Give the pleat a gentle press and baste across the bottom of the pleat.

How to Sew a Buton Up Shirt (62 of 99)

Ok, now we can prepare the cuff!  Place the cuff facing on your work surface with the wrong side facing you.  If you have interfaced only two of the cuff facing pieces, use the un-interfaced pieces as your facings.

Press under the top of the cuff 1/2″.

Button Up Shirt Sew-Along (66 of 81)

If you like, you can baste this fold in place to keep it very crisp and even.  You’ll need to remove this basting later so if you hate stitch ripping you could also glue this in place!

Button Up Shirt Sew-Along (67 of 81)

Place the cuff and cuff facings with right sides together.  Line up the curved bottom edges.

Button Up Shirt Sew-Along (68 of 81)

Stitch around the outside of the cuffs using a 1/4″ seam allowance – begin at the top (sew over the folded seam allowance), and stitch around the curved bottom of the cuff.  Leave the long, straight edge free of stitching.

Button Up Shirt Sew-Along (69 of 81)

Trim and grade the seam allowances to reduce bulk.  Clip triangles of seam allowance off of the curved corners:

Button Up Shirt Sew-Along (71 of 81)

Don’t turn the cuffs right side out yet (I always feel like I should at this point!).  Pin the cuff to the sleeve with right sides together.  The cuff facing will be against the right side of the sleeve.  Keep the cuff facing out of the way of your pins.

How to Sew a Buton Up Shirt (63 of 99)

Stitch the cuff to the sleeve using a 1/2″ seam allowance.  Make sure to keep your pleat pressed correctly and your cuff facing out of the way!  Below is a photo of my cuff facing kept free of my pins:

How to Sew a Buton Up Shirt (66 of 99)

And a photo of the stitched cuff/sleeve:

How to Sew a Buton Up Shirt (65 of 99)

Grade the cuff seam allowance only.  Leave the sleeve seam allowance full length and press both seam allowances towards the cuff.

How to Sew a Buton Up Shirt (67 of 99)How to Sew a Buton Up Shirt (70 of 99)

Here is the tidy package that you will have created!

How to Sew a Buton Up Shirt (69 of 99)

Pin the cuff facing in place over your seam.  If you like, you can baste it in place instead of pinning – this will ensure precision in the next step!

How to Sew a Buton Up Shirt (71 of 99)

From the right side of the cuff, edge stitch across the top of the cuff (remove the basting afterwards if you basted!).How to Sew a Buton Up Shirt (72 of 99)

Now finish your cuff by top stitching around the entire cuff (1/4″ from the cuff edge).

How to Sew a Buton Up Shirt (75 of 99)

And we are done for the day!  On Wednesday we will add our collar and on Friday we will finish our shirts.

How are your shirts looking?  Please comment if there are any unclear steps for you – I would be happy to elaborate:).

June 28, 2022 — Matthew Meredith