Replies

1. 
   Elisabeth | Sep 16, 2004 04:22pm | #1

   This is one of those personal design choices where you evaluate your fabric and style and the look you want. Since you said you can't make up your mind that is not a very helpful statement I just made, is it! Well, lighter fabrics and smaller buttons lend themselves to vertical buttonholes as in light silk and cotton blouses. Heavier fabrics and larger buttons tend to call for horizonal buttonholes as in jackets. Small inobtrusive buttons on taffeta would probably look great with vertical buttonholes. If you are using larger decorative buttons then be sure to have enough interfacing support to hold them up and consider horizontal buttonholes.

   Don't let doing buttons get you down! Set up your system of measuring and placing and follow it diligently and you can work your way out of hating it.

2. 
   kayl | Sep 16, 2004 07:56pm | #2

   Generally, horizontal buttonholes on shirts and blouses without a band

   (like a man's dress shirt), vertical buttonholes on a blouse or bandless shirt. IME, it's best if you decide on buttonhole placement and button size before you cut the shirt/blouse, so you can adjust the pattern's overlap if you need to.

   If you detest buttonholes (I had no good way to make them except by hand for many years), you might look into some other methods of making

   "buttonholes" An easy one, for instance, is to fold the overlap back

   along the CF line, then cut another strip of fabric twice the width

   of the extension, plus two seam allowances. Interface the CF fold line on the inside, and the overlap piece. Sew the overlap piece to the CF, leaving breaks in the stitching line wherever you need a buttonhole. Finish the overlap strip, and you're done.

   You might also want to try making buttonholes by hand sometime. A quick and dirty method for marking your handwork area is to mark the

   buttonhole placement points and lengths, and then stitch a box

   around them with a small straight stich, making the box just a little

   smaller than the finished buttonhole will be. Cut the buttonhole and

   work the buttonhole stitches by hand, using the stitched box to make

   sure your stitches are the same length. (The "leg" of the buttonhole

   stitch goes just beyond your stitched box.)

   Personally, even with a machine that does nice buttonholes now, I still find it faster to do a few buttonholes on "difficult" fabrics

   by hand, rather than all the testing to set up the machine to do

   perfect buttonholes on that fabric.

   
   

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   Edited 9/16/2004 1:40 pm ET by kay