How to shorten shirt sleeves by moving the placket

Welcome to a new sewing alterations class, in today’s lesson, I am going to teach you how to shorten a shirt sleeve by moving the placket and the cuff up.

When we shorten shirt sleeves we can do it in 2 different ways, the first and most basic one would be to simply move the cuff up.

If we only move the cuff upwards, what will happen is that the placket will be smaller and if it has a button, the button will be not centred.

For this reason, today we will show you the best way to make this sewing alteration.

In this class, you will learn how to shorten the sleeve by moving all the necessary elements to make it perfect.

First of all, remember to ask your client to try on the shirt and we will put pins as the final length that the client wants.

Once we have the measurement that we are going to shorten, we are going to start unpicking the cuff and the sleeve placket.

Then we will move on to making the split longer where we will sew the placket again using the original placket.

Next, we will go on to sew the cuff to the sleeve. The shirt that we are using as a reference has contrasting ribbon tape, so we will take that into account.

To finish we will sew the buttons that we have unpicked to be able to carry out this work.

Class

Class taught by Roxana Manzat

As is customary in sewing alterations classes, I am going to tell you what I charge for doing this type of job.

Remember that this price is based on a London workshop in a wealthy area, so keep this in mind when putting it into practice.

For shortening a shirt sleeve by moving the placket, I charged about 29 pounds (£) and if I didn’t move the placket, about 13/15 pounds (£).

Remember that if you have any questions about today’s class, you can send me an email through your account, in the support section.

Send your exercises

As you already know, the best way to learn sewing alterations is by sewing, so for today’s class, I am going to ask you to make the alteration that you have learned today.

For this, I recommend that you use a second-hand shirt or one that you are going to throw away so that you can work without any fear.

Please, send me clear photos where I can see the original shirt, your sewing process and the final result.