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Lesson Info
Button Hole (YO Method)
So I have a new book out. It's called Wee Garter Stitch, it's Must-Have Knits for Modern Babies & Toddlers. Amongst the patterns are some wee sweaters. The reason why I'm bringing this up is because I use a couple different buttonhole methods, and I think buttonholes are just a great skill to have. So. This first method I'm gonna talk about. Here, actually I'm not even gonna bring this one up yet because we're not talking about it yet. Is the simplest method. Let me unbutton a couple. You can see they're just tiny holes made, and I'm gonna show you how to create really tiny holes. So this is a really good method for using smaller buttons. If you're using a super chunky yarn and larger needles, it will work with larger buttons, but I feel like once the buttons start to get big, you want something a little bit more stable. But this is really good for these. This is a buttonhole you would want to use with something that had a little bit of a shank like this button. It would work with ...
something like this. Obviously on a bigger scale. But like a toggle. It needs, it doesn't work as well if you're doing something, this is ginormous but, if you're using a flat button this wouldn't necessarily be the method that I would show you. I will show you a method that will work for that though. So, I'm gonna set this sweater aside, and we are going to work. So in studio, if you want to cast on 10 stitches or so to a needle, or you can pick up your other ones, that would be great. And I am going to show how you create the button swatch. So I also wanted to just pause and let you know that there are bonus materials for this course. You can find that in the Bonus Materials section obviously on the course page. And in that, I've given you a practice sheet. In the practice sheet, I give you directions for swatches, just general swatches, and also directions for things like this buttonhole that I'm about to show you, so you can find that there. If you wanna check back later and work on it later. If you're secretly watching from work right now and you can't pick it up, (laughs) I gotchu. All right. I've just knit a few rows. They're totally arbitrary. This could be, you would obviously work whatever the pattern switch for the pattern you're working on or whatever your heart desires. So to create the simplest form of buttonholes, I'm gonna work a few stitches because you would never put a buttonhole right at the very, very edge because there would be no stability to it, it would open up and then your button would fall out. So I've worked a few stitches. Now I'm going to yarn over and then I'm going to knit the next two together. And see, that's created the hole. The yarn over creates what will be the buttonhole. So we'll work a couple more stitches, and again this number doesn't matter because we're just practicing. It will matter, of course, if you're working with a pattern. This is also a method for making eyelets if you want that. I'm thinking about you, Renfair. Eyelets. For a corset. (Person offstage) Hmmm. Hmmm. Okay. So then. Just keep doing that. You need some stitches in between. The stitches in between, if you were designing something, would vary for how far apart you'd want your buttonholes. So then, that would be on the right side. On the wrong side, you would work the stitches in whatever pattern, you might be working a rib, I'm working in garter. Knitting all the stitches, and you would also knit, see I'm at a yarn over, you would knit the yarn over as if it were a regular stitch. And that is really all there is to it. That's it. Then after that you would work a couple of rows, depending on what the pattern called for, just so there'd be some stability after that at the edge of your band, if you're working a band and you're not working it into the side of a project. And I'm gonna flip this piece over and show you what it looks like in a second. Okay. Here, I'll pull at one. See, you can really see you've got this row of holes. That you could use for buttons or you could just use as a holey detail, whatever. But that's all there is to it. Super simple. All right, so go ahead and at home work a little. I have this piece to show you. This is one, this is what your swatch will look like if you follow the instructions in the bonus materials. And I also recommend once you make these little swatches that you label them so you can refer back to them later when you're trying to remember what it is that you've learned.
Class Materials
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Ratings and Reviews
Toni Imwold
Thanks Vicki for teaching a great class. I consider myself to be an advanced knitter but I still learned some great tips and ideas from you. The cowl patterns look great and I plan to knit one soon.
Chris Lopez
This was an amazing class. I've been a knitter for 40+ years but still picked up some new skills and refined some existing ones. Vickie is a wonderful teacher and her enthusiasm for her craft shines through in all she does. Please keep adding more classes with her.
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