TL; DR – Here’s how to finish the front plackets.

Target did a collab with DVF. I didn’t particularly like the dresses, but I did love the sheet-sets. So I got some, and I made another Rosalie.

I really think that this is an amazing beginner pattern, but it really isn’t clear how to finish the placket and how to do the collar. I won’t reinvent the wheel for the collar; my go-to is the one for the Kalle Shirt Dress from Closet Core Patterns. BUT, this time around, I took some pictures and I’m going to walk you through the steps for finishing the placket.

You might want to put in a strip of interfacing to stabilize the placket, depending on the fabric type and the finished look you are going for. I didn’t do interfacing because this was a stable enough cotton that I thought it would be overkill. The strip of interfacing would basically go on the half of the placket closest to the seam.

Line up the top of the placket with the top of the shirt, right sides together, with notches matching at the waist. You’ll notice that the placket DOES NOT go all the way down to the bottom of the dress.

Sew it and then press the seam towards the placket AND fold and press about 3/8″ of the placket towards the wrong side.

Now, fold and press the placket over, wrong sides together, towards the seam. The folded-over part should just cover the seam.

Now, fold the bottom right sides together and sew 3/8″ from the bottom (see the black line).

Trim the corner and turn it right side out.

This will also give you your hem on the inside. It’ll be a deep/wide hem, but it’ll be clean!

Now, to finish the placket, we’ll do a stitch in the ditch. You don’t HAVE to do one; depending on the fabric, you might rather a top stitch finish instead. But I wanted the print to shine, so I’m making life hard for myself.

Start by pinning the placket on the right side of the fabric on the dress side as close to the placket as possible.

Check to make sure on the wrong side that the pin has caught the placket. The seam should also be enclosed.

You can see in the picture that the seam is in fact enclosed and that the pin has caught the placket fabric. I don’t usually press first, but it made it SO much easier to pin. Repeat all the way up the placket to the top.

Now to the machine. There is a stitch in the ditch foot, but I HATE it, so I just use my regular foot on my machine. Make sure that your needle is as close to the placket as possible without it touching.

Slowly start sewing while removing the pins along the way. The idea is to put the stitch in the proverbial ditch of the seam line. I like to tug a little on the placket to make sure the seam is exposed.

Once you’re done, you can kind of roll the placket fabric over the stitch a little bit, or re-press it so that it doesn’t show as much. When you’re done, you should have a neat placket!

As you can see, it’s not perfect, but there aren’t any exposed seams, and the line is invisible enough on the top that you would have to get really uncomfortably close to me to notice while I was wearing it.

Rinse and repeat for the other side, add buttons or snaps or whatever, finish the hem, and enjoy!

Let me know if this was helpful! Also, isn’t the final product adorable?