Where, oh where, should I put the buttons? Use the buttonhole spacing calculator in this article. (You did use the pick up stitches calculator to make the band in the first place, right?)
First some text. After all, this is a blog entry.
After picking up 81 stitches along the length of the right front of Jim's sweater, I knit a 1/2" in 1 x 1 ribbing, which happened to be the pick up row, 5 rows of knitting and the bind off row. I needed to knit the left band, and add buttonholes.
Since there were 5 rows of knitting, I decided to work the buttonholes on the 3rd row. That places the holes near the center of the band, but ensures there are at least two rows, plus the bind off row, to be knit after working the buttonholes. I wanted to use the "one row buttonhole" method, because I think it looks good, and I decided 2 stitches wide buttonholes would accommodate buttons of the size I prefer.
I thought I'd add 5 buttonholes. Would this be enough? I used my usual method for figuring it out: flipped through several knitting books. I searched for men's cardigans with round necks. Hmmm... Not very many! The only one I found had 6 buttonholes. So, I decided: It will be 5 buttonholes. Jim only buttons the bottom two when he wears cardigans, so, it can't be a big catastrophe one way or the other. If it's a real catastrophe, I'll rip. (Arghhh.) If it's ok, I'll just keep the 5 buttonholes.
Here's the tool I used. The calculation assumes you will first pick up the front band along the front edge, then knit a short strip. (Mine has 5 rows of knitting, plus the bind off row.) After knitting the front bands, you will knit the neck band, and place button hole on the neck band. This is illustrated above and to the left.
Note: The form is pre-filled out to match the illustration which is an 81 stitch, 5 row (plus bind off row) band with 7 buttonholes, (this is different from Jim's sweater because I don't want the number 5 to appear twice in the entry form).
You can edit the values in the form to get instructions for a custom band.
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[...] had, in the past, seen direct evidence of the popularity of The Yarn Harlot. She once mentioned my button hole calculator at her blog, and let’s just say… well…you can read my reaction [...]
Pingback by The Knitting Fiend » Blog Archive » Behold the Power of WendyKnits.Net! — 5/2/2007 @ 4:35 pm
Okay. I’ve never worked a pattern that picked up stitches for the button band. The buttonholes were always included in the rows. How do I calculate that?
I also am having problems figuring out how to calculate the shaping of a sleeve cap. I’m trying to make up my own pattern for a baby sweater.
thanks!!
Cara
Comment by Cara Torres — 8/10/2007 @ 6:19 pm
Cara,
Enter the number of stitches on the needle. Then, when following the instructions, just skip the part about picking up the stitches.
Comment by lucia — 8/17/2007 @ 6:28 am
I’m knitting a man’s cardigan, and knitting it in one piece,
band,front,back, front and other band. the fornt is 17 1/2
inches long and is supposed to have 6 buttonholes,starting 1″
from the bottom.Canyou tell me how to space the buttonholes evenly,please?
Comment by Priscilla Kelly — 10/12/2009 @ 10:47 am