The Knitting Fiend

I taught myself Roz’ Buttonholes today. They are perfect, and not to difficult. I asked Roz if I can copy much of what she wrote word for word,and just add my illustrations to show what I did. Roz kindly gave me permission. I’m adding just enough of mine to explain a few things I did differently. ( Calculator for placing buttonholes.¹ To find hand knit buttonholes, visit hand knit buttonholes.²)

I will be writing up entire button band instruction, and turning it into a generator hopefully to appear today or tomorrow. But, visitors following the instructions for that generator may want to see these illustrations, so here they are!

Roz’s instructions are indented, and numbered. (Interested visitors can get Roz’s full discussion about bands and buttonholes, and her many other lessons at North Tipton Creations where Cathie Sanders maintains a library of Roz’s lessons. You can also get the newsletter she edits through the Carolina Machine Knitters Guild.)

HOW TO MAKE BUTTONHOLES: I suggest you practice first. Make at least 2 buttonholes to make sure you are familiar with the technique before you actually start on the real thing. Also, colored ravel cord is great for this project. Save it when you are through, you can use it over and over for buttonholes.

1. We knit 23 stitches for our front band. At the buttonhole row, count in from the right 3 4 stitches. Knit the next 4 stitches with ravel cord. Count 4 stitches from the left side and knit the next 4 stitches with ravel cord (make sure you have a good contrast color ravel cord).

2. Knit 1 row making sure the stitches on ravel cord knitted. Continue to knit at least 15 rows and take off on waste. (I go ahead and finish my buttonhole at this point. That way, if I do lose stitches, it’s easy to unravel down a little ways, rehang and try again).

Above and to the right, you can see I knit over 23 needles. But, I decided to cheat, and I moved the center needle out of work to make a fold line; so, only 22 are knitting. (You’ll see more about this fold line later!) I used cheap crochet cotton as ravel cord, and knit through the required stitches manually. I pulled the needles forward to make sure they knit, then snapped the photo.  I then knit the 15 rows, and extra. (Since this is a practice buttonhole, I’m using leftover yarn. I didn’t change to waste yarn.)

Note: Edited later. I decided to edit the directions to count over 4 on both sides. This makes the front and back of the button band symmetric.

3. With the cast on edge down, and the purl side facing you, fold the band down so that you can see the first set of buttonhole stitches you have on contrast ravel cord. Pick up the top row of loops making sure you pick up every single stitch that has ravel cord running through it hanging onto needles (5 loops are hung). Now pick, up 1 stitch on each side making 7 stitches on needles. Push the work back against the bed. (sometimes it helps to hang a claw weight behind to hold this).

I took a photo of this step. To the right, you can see the purl side of the fabric facing you. The fabric is folded down along the ravel cord, so the two knit sides of the fabric are facing each other. I hung the 5 loops and the extra two loops to the side. You can see the second bit of ravel cord to the right.

4. Now fold band so that the opposite top loops are showing. Hang these onto the needles that already have stitches on them. Be sure to pick up all loops that have contrast ravel cord in them and 1 on each side. You should still have 7 needles with 2 stitches on each needle. (make sure you pick up the extra loops from the same row).

5. Cut a long strand of matching garment thread (approx 18″) and bring it up between the fold so that about half the thread is above the work. You will be working with the strand coming from the fold of the band.

6. Latch off from the folded edge to the open edge of the band. Remove work.

Following steps 4-6, I folded the band from right to left and hung the heels of the stitches on ravel cord onto the needles.  Then, I used my latchtool to pull the 18″ strand of yarn up. I left plenty of yarn dangling below too. I took the photo, then, I used that long strand of yarn on the right to latchtool bind off from right to left. (Left handers may realize they want to reverse everything.  I suspect they find it easier to latchtool bind off from left to right.)

7. Turn band inside out and upside down. Now you can see the unfinished buttonhole stitches. Hang upper set of loops as before. Bring up the lower set of loops to hang onto the matching stitches (don’t forget the extra stitch on each end). This time you’ll only have 6 stitches on needles.

8. Using the strand of yarn coming from the fold, bind off again, working from the fold to the open edge of the band. Tie the 2 strands together at the open edge.

I didn’t take a picture of steps 7 and 8! But, this is actually easy. Just turn the thing upside down; you need to do the same exact thing to the loops on the other side. The picture would look very similar to the one you already see, there would just be one stitch less.

9. Pull your ravel cord out and make sure you didn’t leave any open stitches in the buttonhole. If you did you can easily unravel what you just did and try again. Now rehang band and continue knitting to the next buttonhole. Repeat as before.

the crochet cotton and threw it away. I’m too scatty to keep track of permanent little spools of ravel cord. You can see the button hole to the right. This would be enough to just make a buttonhole, but Roz also suggests something even better. Finishing the edge!

FINISHING: Finish this band as per October’s instructions. I don’t suggest you block this band too much even though it stockinette stitch, it can easily stretch out of shape and be too whimpy with too much blocking.

Ok! Roz says to read October’s instrucitons. So, I looked up October’s instructions and pasted them here.

CARDIGAN FRONT BAND
1. Using a medium weight yarn, tension 6 or 7 pull out 23 needles. Beginning on the left side “e” wrap cast on and knit 2 rows.
2. Set carriage to Hold. Now pull out the center stitch to D position and knit 1 row. Carriage ends at left. Push the center needle back to Upper Working Position and knit back to the right. Continue on for 60 rows. Bind off.

Knitters are supposed to do these two steps when they begin to knit the band. In October, Roz was making a band without buttonholes, so her club members could learn each procedure separately.  I read this and I immediately said to myself: I am not going to push and pull a needle every row unless it’s a must! I’m just going to leave a needle out of work and see what happens. (Hey, this is a practice buttonhole.) So, as you saw above, I left a needle out of work in the center of the band.

3. Pick up and put back on the machine the turning stitches, one on every needle, being sure to pick up both strands of the stitch. Knit 1 row at tension 10.

4. Latch tool bind off.
a. Add this to the facing on a garment you have already made. If the band has stretched and tends to ripple, this will tighten the edge and hold it firm.

Following instructions 3 & 4 makes a nice pretty ridge you can see on the right hand side of the button band.  Instructions 3 and 4 are done after you make the whole band. I turned the whole band on it’s edge, folded along the blank space left by the out of work needle. (It’s automatically folded because those buttonholes seam everything together.) Now, because Roz moved the center needle to hold ever other row, she would hang every stitch along the fold. But, I reasoned: I didn’t move the needle to hold every other stitch; I left a needle out of work instead. So, I need to hang every other stitch. I also hung the edge loop on either side of the line made by the out of work needle. The fact that a needle was left out out of work made it easy to see the edge stitches.

Ok now. This time, I planned to follow Roz’s instructions, but I deviated accidentally. forgot Roz said to knit 1 row at tension 10; I forgot to dial my tension setting up and knit at 7. You should do what Roz said. If you look carefully at my practice band, you’ll see that final row draws the band in a bit. If this weren’t a practice band, I’d unravel and redo it.

I have to say, this band is pretty easy to do. The edge row looks nice on both sides and the buttons look professional. And it’s my first try!

Roz also suggests this edge treatment has other uses:

b. Use to make a permanent crease in a pair of slacks.
c. Use a contrast color for a decorative edge.
d. Use it on an afghan edge as a facing along the long sides of the afghan and latch it to the rest of the afghan. This edge does not roll and does not require a crochet border.