Button Up Key Largo – Adding Trim

Today on the Hey June Blog I am sharing how to make the Key Largo pattern into a button up by adding a placket to the center front! I love the button up blouse trend and also love seeing fun details like added trims to make the garment more unique.

My inspiration image from Take Aim (below) has been pinned to my Pinterest board for so long, it’s probably been years. I even try to clean up my Pinterest board a little bit (Do you do that? Sometimes I think – “why the heck did I pin this??”), and this blouse has stuck around because I was SO set on re-creating it! And, just because it’s fun to know – the inspiration blouse sold for over $300 when it was available in retail. Crazy, right?!

For those interested in how I added trim to the placket, neckline, and hem, I am going to be share that all below. If you are interested in how to add the placket itself, go to the tutorial on the Hey June blog post!

The inspiration blouse is made out of a rayon/silk blend, and I wanted to find something that would look high quality, but not be a pain to sew. I decided to get the tencel twill from Blackbird Fabrics and it worked great! I had never sewn with tencel or rayon/viscose (the cheaper alternative – not sure how they compare) twill before, but I’d heard of so many sewists who love it. I will definitely use it again for future projects.

In a recent trip to LA, I tried looking for a similar trim for the plackets, hems, and sleeves, but I didn’t have much luck. Then, I just googled black trim, and Mood Fabrics had two trims that looked almost EXACTLY like my inspiration!! My mind was blown, and I ordered right away. I washed everything before I started, and the trim got a little tangled and wrinkly, so I made sure to iron it before I started. Here is the link to the sleeve trim, and here is the link to the hem and neckline trim if you are interested. For those that are interested, I used 1 yard of the sleeve trim and a little over 3 yards for the hem and neckline trim.

Wonder Tape made attaching the trim a thousand times easier, especially since my seam allowances were ¼” or less, and Wonder Tape is ¼” wide!

I cut the sleeves the exact way the pattern has you cut them, then I cut a straight line all the way across, 1 ½” up from the bottom of the sleeve. I made sure to keep the pieces together and mark the right side since it was hard to tell. I finished the straight edges by serging, and then folded all of the serged edges to the wrong side and pressed them well. I used Wonder Tape all along the straight edge where I would be attaching the trim. I stuck one edge of the trim to the very edge of the Wonder Tape and used a long scrap piece of fabric to cover the rest of the tape (otherwise it would stick to my machine). I edge stitched about ⅛” in and made sure I was catching the trim. I did the same thing to attach the other piece of the sleeve that I cut off, and repeated for the other sleeve.

I attached the sleeves like normal and noticed that I didn’t have quite enough fabric below the trim to hem it the amount stated in the instructions, so I just serged the edge, folded it under and edge stitched it in place. Not the most ideal, so if I were to do it again I would lengthen the sleeve by about a half inch and cut 2” up from the bottom of the sleeve.

The trim for the placket was easy to sew, but hard to explain. Basically, with one edge of the placket attached, I stuck Wonder Tape to the wrong side of the unattached edge, and placed the trim on the tape. Then, when I folded the placket over to be top stitched, the tape held the placket and the trim in place. (See photo below.)

Figuring out the neckline and hem was a little bit tricky, but it wasn’t very hard once I figured it out. To sew the binding and trim so that the trim would show at the seam edge, I used Wonder Tape and lined the entire right side of the neckline. Then I stuck the straight edge of the trim along the edge of the Wonder Tape furthest away from the neckline’s raw edge. Once the trim was on, I stuck the bias binding right on top of it so that the trim was sandwiched between the shirt and the binding. I left about 1” of the binding on each side of the center front to give room to finish the neckline. Then I took it to my machine and carefully stitched ¼” away from the raw edge. I went all along the trim to make sure I had stitched close enough to catch the trim and went over any spots that I was unsure about.

I trimmed the seam allowance and under stitched, making sure not to catch the trim. This made it really easy to press the binding to the inside and stitch the binding down and still be able to see the trim! I did the exact same thing with the hem.

I posted the videos of how I added the trim with the bias binding to my Instagram Stories (@thedoingthingsblog), along with a closer look at the sleeve before I washed the Wonder Tape out. It is saved to my Instagram highlights under “Trim”.

I put this in the washer to rinse the Wonder Tape out and then let it air dry. I checked all of the trim really carefully and only found a little bit on the placket that hadn’t caught, so I just hand stitched it and pulled it back into the placket and you can’t even tell!

The raw edge of the trim on the plackets ended up getting folded inside of the binding, so I didn’t have to worry about it unraveling, but I was very unsure of how to finish the trim at the center front of the neckline and hem it so that it wouldn’t fray. I tried cutting at a very stable spot on the trim and then used fray check. After washing, one of them was starting to unravel, so I just hand stitched it really well and trimmed it. I think I will probably just hand wash this shirt in the future, but if you have any better ideas on how to finish the raw edge of the trim that still look good, please let me know.

I hope that this has been helpful for you! It was definitely a learning experience for m,e since I didn’t look up any tutorials or know how I was going to do it when I bought the materials. It was a success though, and now I’m dreaming up all of the other things I could make with trim! I would love to make a beach cover up with a tassel or pom pom hem.

Remember that if you’re interested in how to add a button placket to the front of the Key Largo check out the tutorial on Hey June!

This post contains affiliate links. For more information see our Affiliate Links disclosure.