Life's a Stitch

Before I start on the topic of easily knitted buttonholes, I wanted to let my fellow Typepad bloggers know that I’m not ignoring you. For some reason Typepad won’t let me leave comments on your blogs. They’re trying to fix it, but I’m wondering if anyone else is experiencing this? If you can’t leave a comment, please e-mail me at Boesencrew at shaw dot ca.

I used to avoid all knitting patterns using the B word, that is unless Cousin Lena was planning a trip from Denmark, because I knew I could depend upon her to bail me out of buttonhole jail. Additionally, I avoided the F word (Fair Isle), the C word (cables) and I still go nowhere near the Z word (Zippers). With the support of all you knitters I’ve come a long way. I’m just wondering how I stayed out of the loop and missed this little gem.

Take a look. The one on the right is the standard easy button hole technique I always used, requiring you to knit to where you want the buttonhole, binding off stitches in one row and and picking up an equivalent number at the same spot in the next row. You can pretty up the gaping mess by overstitching afterwords.While knitting my mom’s vest I was amazed at how sloppy they looked with the loose gauge required for the project. So I tore out the band and searched for a better buttonhole.

Maggie Righetti to the rescue. My favourite knitting resource – Knitting in Plain English, had the chapter I needed, entitled Buttonholes are Bastards. No kidding, that sweet little grey haired lady on the back of the book felt the same way about buttonholes that I did. She had six pages of options. I skipped the one that required two people and opted for Virginia Newell’s Three-Row Buttonhole. It’s the one on the left in my picture. Here are her instructions:

Row  1 – Work to the desired location. Y/O twice, then through the back loops, knit the next two stitches together.

Row 2 – Work across to the Y/O’s of the previous row. P the first Y/O and drop the next one right off the needle. Continue across row. Molly says "It looks terrible,but hang in there and have faith."

Row 3 – Work across row to buttonhole. K one stitch through the buttonhole and allow the old stitch to fall off the needle. It’s neat and tidy and required no final finishing work!

Alas, my mother’s finished vest and the buttons I chose for it: