ALL BUTTONED UP
QI love knitting garments but feel like my buttonholes let the final look down. They either look a bit lopsided or the buttons don’t stand out as much as they should. Any tips gratefully received!
Barbara Mayford, via email
Knitting creates a stretchy fabric – which is great when you’re pulling a jumper over your head, but not when you want buttonholes to stay in shape and buttons to line up. Try these simple tricks to ensure that your buttons and buttonholes ‘make’ not ‘break’ the look of your lovingly knitted garment!
You’d imagine that placing your buttonholes in the centre of the button band would be the right thing to do, but not so! What happens is your buttons pull at the buttonholes and you end up with buttons giving the impression they are sitting on the very edge of your button band.
Instead, work your buttonholes two rows earlier (one row on very chunky yarn). This means the buttonholes will appear centred when they are stretched out by the buttons.
If your button band is ‘grown on’ – i.e. worked at the same time as the front of the garment, again, consider moving the buttonholes a stitch or two inwards, away from the front edges of the button band itself, for the same reason.
Button bands are often worked in one single piece – from one bottom edge up to the neck and down to the other bottom edge of the garment front. Alternatively the pattern might call for the button band and buttonhole band to be knitted separately and joined at the back neck. Either way, make sure to mark your button placement at the same time as you make your buttonholes so you know exactly where to put them and avoid a wonky finish, placing lockable stitch markers or lengths of contrasting waste yarn through the relevant stitch for each button placement.
To hold your buttons in position in the button band and stop them looking floppy, there are several ways to stabilise them: When sewing on large buttons, you can sew a small, flat button on the reverse of each one to counterbalance with weight of the larger buttons and keep it more stable in position on the button band.
You can stabilise your button band as well as the actual buttons. Stitch a length of grosgrain ribbon just under the same width as the button band onto the reverse, which will prevent it from stretching out.
You can do the same on the buttonhole band, but remember to make slits in the ribbon for your buttons to go through! Edge these using buttonhole stitch with a sewing needle and matching thread. Rachael
How to place your buttonholes
How to make buttons firm