Spacing Button Holes: I
Posted on 08.13.05 by lucia @ 11:48 am
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.

Enter the number of stitches on the front band: stitches. (This is likely a large number. There are a minimum stitches required based on the number of buttons and the number of stitches in a button hole.)
Enter the number of rows in the front band: rows. (This is likely a fairly small number, but I won't let you enter anything less than 3 rows. I recommend button bands be at least 5 rows deep.)
Enter the number of stitches in one buttonhole: stitches. (The number you enter must include the button on the neck band, and must be greater than 2. )
Enter the number of buttonholes in the front band: buttonholes.
Is this a men's band (buttonholes on left) or a womens' band (buttonholes on right)?
Please click this button to fill boxes below.
Pick up stitches; organizing so the skein ends up at the .  
 
The instruction about the skein placement ensures the buttonhole row will be a knit with the wrong side facing. I like to pick up with right side facing, picking up knitting up from right to left. This means I pick up from the neck to the hem on when I work the button band for a men's sweater; I pick up from hem to neck on a women's sweater. Normally, I'd just attach the yarn at the edge where I start picking up stitches and the skein winds up at the end of the pick up row. That means, I begin knitting at that edge. If I don't want to start knitting at that edge, I estimate how much yarn I need to pick up stitches, unwind that much from the skein. I leaven the skein near the edge where I want it, I can pick up stitches from the unraveled yarn. I end up with the skein on the edge where I want it. (I usually waste yarn because I'd rather estimate generously than run out of yarn when I do this.
Work rows in stitch pattern.
Begin row ; the wrong side of the work should be facing you. Work button hole row in stitch pattern as follows:
Work stitches, * work a stitch buttonhole, work stitches; repeat from * times;
* Work a stitch buttonhole, work stitches, (or fewer if you reach the end of the row); repeat from * times.
End of row.
Work rows in stitch pattern; bind off in pattern.
Pick up stitches along the neck edge, work neck band following the procedure for the front band, but working a buttonhole directly above the ones in the button band.

Stumble it (and place in Knitting/crochet!)
Please leave comments! 4 Comments

4 Comments »

  1. [...] 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

  2. 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

  3. 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

  4. 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

RSS feed for comments on this post.

Leave a comment

Line and paragraph breaks automatic, e-mail address never displayed, HTML allowed: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>

(required)

(required)



Previous posts: ( Pick Up Stitches on For Button Band. | Home | Cast On Extra Stitches?)
 
Lucia Liljegren: Copyright 2005-2007 Rights to all site content including knitting patterns, generators and haikus reserved.

today's page