Pattern - Love Notions Breckenridge Henley
Skill Level - Confident Beginner
Fabric - Cotton/spandex French Terry and jersey from l'oiseau fabrics
Skills - pattern marking, machine sewing buttons
Love Notions' newest pattern is the Breckenridge Henley. As always, options, options, options! Shirt, tunic and dress lengths as well as short and long cuffed sleeves, plus a rolled tabbed long sleeve option.
The fabric suggestions are light to medium weight kits with at least 40% stretch. I chose to make mine with cotton/spandex French terry from l'oiseau fabrics with the cuffs and neckband in cotton/spandex jersey. This pattern is relatively simple once you get the neckband on and of course there's a video to help you with this step. And naturally I have a few tips for you to help make it easier!
Marking
I can't stress enough how important marking is. Make sure you transfer all marks to your pattern pieces. I like to use long quilting pins with coloured heads. I always use green ones to mark the backs of sleeves and white to mark the fronts and I do the same for the armscye markings. That way, I never risk putting a sleeve in backwards.
I did the same for the neckband
I matched the pin colours on the band and the bodice front. There are so many marks on these pieces you can see that it makes the job so much simpler when you have a quick reference to guide you.
Sewing on Buttons by Machine
It took me a long time to get brave enough to try sewing on buttons with my sewing machine. Now I wonder why I waited so long! Sewing with a needle and thread always took forever and cramped my hands up. Once I found out how easy it is, I went out and bought a special foot for my machine, but you can do it without that and I'll tell you how later.
The first thing you need to do is position your buttons. I pinned the placket together in between where the buttons would go to keep it in place, then dabbed glue stick on the backs of the buttons and placed them on the placket. Don't worry about the glue - it won't clog up your needle. By the time you take it to your sewing machine, the glue will be mostly dry.
Now it's time to sew the buttons on. My machine has a stitch for sewing on buttons, but if yours doesn't, I'll tell you how to get around that, too!
I place the buttons under the foot roughly positioned and drop the foot to hold it in place. My buttons have 4 holes and I like to do them diagonally. I put the needle in the left-most hole and then turn the wheel by hand to make sure it's going to slip easily into the right-most hole and when I'm sure I have the button positioned properly, I let the machine do the work. I do each button once to hold it in place.
After trimming the loose threads, I turn the front piece around and do the other set of holes. Each button is now sewn in place with an X of thread.
And to seal the deal, I dab the back of the stitching with Fray Stop to make sure the buttons stay in place.
Now if you don't have a button foot or a button stitch, you can still sew buttons on with your sewing machine as long as it has a zig zag stitch.
Take the foot off your machine. Put the button roughly in place and drop the post right on it. You will need to adjust the position a bit.
Now turn off your feed dogs and set your machine to zig zag. You want the stitch length as short as you can do it - like 0.
Lower the needle almost to your button and adjust the width of the zig zag stitch so that the needle will go easily into both holes - turn the wheel by hand.
I do about 3 or 4 stitches for each set of holes. You can tie off the threads at the back and trim them. And this is where I like to fix them with a drop if Fray Stop.
The placket neckband and row of buttons really finished the Breckenridge Henley. I love that there's a beautiful V and it's not too low. The sleeve lengths give me plenty of options to change the look up and I love that I can make it tunic and dress length as well as shirt length.
You can get this pattern through my affiliate link below.
