Buttonholes
Before I forget, this post is about horizontal buttonholes only. Eyelet buttonholes are easy to do, but because they're so small, they are mostly used in baby clothes. Vertical buttonholes are more work than justified (tip: most vertical-looking buttonholes you'll find are actually horizontal ones knit on a vertical band).
I've only knitted a piece with buttonholes, a lovely cardigan that is my husband's favourite knit of mine (he always praises it when I wear it). So it makes me sad that I made such a lousy job knitting those buttonholes, they look awful. You should know that being lazy doesn't always pay, and I wish I hadn't been lazy and had done some serious research on how to knit a good looking buttonhole at the time. I'm doing it now and these are some of my finds.
The problem with buttonholes: they need some kind of reinforcement, so beware of any instructions that teach a simple way of knitting a buttonhole. Most factory knits come with sewn reinforcements, but good hand-knitters are more clever and they reinforce their buttonholes in the process of knitting.
A buttonhole is simply a slit in the fabric, so it always involves binding off some stitches and later casting on the same number of stitches. But there are a multitude of ways of doing this. First, there are of course a multitude of cast-on and cast-off methods, not all equally suitable for buttonholes. Then, there are quite a few tricks to reinforce the edges of the slit, which is necessary for a slit to look like a slit instead of an unshapely hole.
Bind-off methods: the basic bind-off, pass one stitch over the next, is good enough for most purposes. Special types of buttonholes like the bind-off buttonhole and the tubular buttonhole (the best looking on single rib), that involve using spare yarn and binding-off in the end, will not be discussed here.
Cast-on methods: there are a lot more choices for this one. Buttonhole cast-on, as the name suggests, is a sturdy cast-on that is very suitable for this purpose, cable cast-on is also a good choice (and easier to do). For loose fabrics such as lace, the variants of loop cast-on (loop, twisted loop, alternate loop) and the knitted cast-on can be more suitable, but loop cast-ons are very weak and may need extra reinforcement.
If you do not use one of the reinforcement methods, cable and knit cast-ons leave an ugly strand across the right corner. To avoid this, transfer the last cast-on stitch to the left needle with yarn in front (I wish I'd known this!!). In addition, you may knit this stitch through the back loop on the next row in order to reinforce it a bit. Here is a video that shows how to knit a buttonhole without using one of the reinforcement methods discussed below.
Reinforcement methods: there are mainly two methods to reinforce the buttonhole: the reinforced buttonhole and the one-row buttonhole. The latter is sturdier, but less elastic, and generally better looking. The reinforced method is done over two rows and is very similar to the method shown on the above video, but in addition you work an increase (lifted increase looks better) before the first and after the last stitch bound-off, and then, in the next row, you work the respective decreases (p2tog if on a purl row) before and after the cast-on stitches. The one-row method is a little more elaborate to explain, but not more difficult to do. I chose two videos to illustrate it. The first one, illustrates the standard method and uses cable cast-on (which you can replace by another type of cast-on).
The second video illustrates a slightly different one-row buttonhole. It uses the twisted purl cast-on.
If you're going to knit a piece with buttonholes, always test your buttonhole. For simplicity, knit it in your gauge swatch. There are two reasons to do this, (1) test if the method you've chosen looks good for that particular yarn and that particular pattern (specially if you're not knitting a plain stockinette pattern), (2) test if the button fits well. In terms of fit, check, not only, if the button can go through, but also, if it's small enough that you cannot see the buttonhole if you place the button to the side of the hole and even if you stretch it a bit. Ideally the hole should be as small as it allows the button to go through, because buttonholes look a lot better if they stay well hidden behind the button. For this reason the more elastic reinforced buttonhole can sometimes look better than the sturdier one-row buttonhole, but not always.
I've only knitted a piece with buttonholes, a lovely cardigan that is my husband's favourite knit of mine (he always praises it when I wear it). So it makes me sad that I made such a lousy job knitting those buttonholes, they look awful. You should know that being lazy doesn't always pay, and I wish I hadn't been lazy and had done some serious research on how to knit a good looking buttonhole at the time. I'm doing it now and these are some of my finds.
The problem with buttonholes: they need some kind of reinforcement, so beware of any instructions that teach a simple way of knitting a buttonhole. Most factory knits come with sewn reinforcements, but good hand-knitters are more clever and they reinforce their buttonholes in the process of knitting.
A buttonhole is simply a slit in the fabric, so it always involves binding off some stitches and later casting on the same number of stitches. But there are a multitude of ways of doing this. First, there are of course a multitude of cast-on and cast-off methods, not all equally suitable for buttonholes. Then, there are quite a few tricks to reinforce the edges of the slit, which is necessary for a slit to look like a slit instead of an unshapely hole.
Bind-off methods: the basic bind-off, pass one stitch over the next, is good enough for most purposes. Special types of buttonholes like the bind-off buttonhole and the tubular buttonhole (the best looking on single rib), that involve using spare yarn and binding-off in the end, will not be discussed here.
Cast-on methods: there are a lot more choices for this one. Buttonhole cast-on, as the name suggests, is a sturdy cast-on that is very suitable for this purpose, cable cast-on is also a good choice (and easier to do). For loose fabrics such as lace, the variants of loop cast-on (loop, twisted loop, alternate loop) and the knitted cast-on can be more suitable, but loop cast-ons are very weak and may need extra reinforcement.
If you do not use one of the reinforcement methods, cable and knit cast-ons leave an ugly strand across the right corner. To avoid this, transfer the last cast-on stitch to the left needle with yarn in front (I wish I'd known this!!). In addition, you may knit this stitch through the back loop on the next row in order to reinforce it a bit. Here is a video that shows how to knit a buttonhole without using one of the reinforcement methods discussed below.
Reinforcement methods: there are mainly two methods to reinforce the buttonhole: the reinforced buttonhole and the one-row buttonhole. The latter is sturdier, but less elastic, and generally better looking. The reinforced method is done over two rows and is very similar to the method shown on the above video, but in addition you work an increase (lifted increase looks better) before the first and after the last stitch bound-off, and then, in the next row, you work the respective decreases (p2tog if on a purl row) before and after the cast-on stitches. The one-row method is a little more elaborate to explain, but not more difficult to do. I chose two videos to illustrate it. The first one, illustrates the standard method and uses cable cast-on (which you can replace by another type of cast-on).
The second video illustrates a slightly different one-row buttonhole. It uses the twisted purl cast-on.
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