Welcome to my tutorial!

If I am honest, the thought of calculating the spacing of buttonholes on a cardigan is just too daunting and makes me want to give up on writing knitting patterns forever. So naturally, after I designed and knit the Deania cardigan, with knit as-you-go button bands and in 2 or more body lengths, I tried hard not to think about the buttons and figured I’d find a way later to make it close up (I’m a terrible designer truly). It sat for over a year buttonless and sad, it’s short-rowed angled fronts just flapping in the breeze…

You may have heard of Elizabeth Zimmerman’s method of “Afterthought Buttonholes” from her book “Knitting Without Tears”. It’s a similar concept as an Afterthought Thumb on a mitten or an Afterthought Pocket, where you actually cut a stitch, unravel and pull out the stitches on either side, creating live stitches which you then work from or finish off to leave an opening. An Afterthought buttonhole is a much much smaller version of this. Yes, a very fiddly endeavour and one that would leave me with tears and some scary holes in my knitting. No can do Zimmerman.

The method I employed does not use cutting, but rather the stretching and enlarging of a stitch, which you finish off by hand-stitching little tightly stacked blanket stitches around the opening. In this tutorial, I will be referring to it as a Buttonhole stitch. Because you are stretching an existing stitch, there is only so far a stitch will be able to open up, so there are some limitations when using this technique in terms of the button size your can use. As a test before you begin, you can first stretch your stitch and see if you can pass your button through the stretched stitch. If you really have to force it through, you may need to find smaller buttons. Wah.

There are many ways you could go about the hand-stitching of this technique. This tutorial demonstrates the way that I do it, but if you find a way that is more suitable for you, as long as it secures the edge of your enlarged stitch, by all means go ahead and do it your way!

I used mercerized cotton embroidery thread to make my buttonholes on both my Deania cardigans and also for this tutorial. You can use any thread or yarn you like, but I recommend using something at least half the size of the thickness of the yarn you used for your project, or thinner. We don’t want to add too much bulk to the buttonhole! Embroidery thread usually comes with multiple plies/strands in the thread that you can separate. For this tutorial, I used the full thickness of the thread so that the stitches would be more visible in the photos, however for my actual cardigans, I split the thread down to only 3 plies, which looks less chunky and obvious (see photos 18 and 19 below. Buttonhole in purple thread uses just 3 plies). Also keep in mind, the more elasticity your thread or yarn of choice has, the stretchier your buttonhole will be. The embroidery thread I used has zero elasticity which means my finished buttonholes have little to no stretch, which limits me to selecting buttons that are no bigger than the buttonhole itself. If you have yet to choose your buttons, you may want to opt for a thin wool yarn, such as darning wool or sock wool, to give your buttonholes some stretch, and allow your buttons to pass through easier!

The colour of thread/yarn you choose will of course, also affect the overall look of your Afterthought buttonholes and finished cardigan. For this tutorial I used bright colours for better visibility but you may want to choose a colour that matches your main yarn, particularly if your stitches aren’t the neatest. This is, however, an opportunity to be creative with your colour and contrast if you want something more decorative! This technique may take some practice (my last buttonhole always looks the best, so I start at the bottom and work up towards the neck), but I can say that as a person with little skill in hand-stitching, if you can do a basic embroidery stitch, you most likely can achieve cute and even buttonholes for your cardigan. And even if you don’t, the button will cover it up!

Tutorial Begins

You will need:

• Your recently finished and blocked cardigan, ready for buttonholes! (I’ll be demonstrating this technique on a swatch that has the same 6 edge stitches as the Deania Cardigan)

• Mercerized cotton embroidery thread, or fine darning wool, or heavy sewing thread

• Removable stitch markers

• A pen, large gauge knitting needle, or your finger, to enlarge and open the stitch

• Tapestry needle

• Scissors

  
  

1. To start, place your stitch markers evenly spaced along your buttonband. If you are adding buttonholes to a Deania Cardigan, place your markers through the center of the purl stitches that are 2 stitches in from the edge. The top most buttonhole should be adjacent to the the garter stitch band before the collar. 2. Using a pen, large gauge knitting needle, or your finger, poke through the center of your marked stitch and work it around to enlarge and open up the stitch. The stitches on either side of the enlarged stitch may pull tighter, which is expected. Remove the marker.

3. Set-up stitch: Cut a length of your thread/yarn, about 46 cm/ 18 inches, and thread it onto your needle. Note that we will be using one thickness of the length of thread, not doubled. Locate the left leg of your enlarged stitch, insert the needle under this leg from right to left and pull through, leaving a tail of at least 7.5 cm/ 3 inches. 4. Insert your needle in the same spot as step 3 going under the left leg of enlarged stitch and also under the thread. 5. Pull the stitch snug. This anchors the first stitch.

6. Insert needle under the first stitch you just made from bottom to top. 7. Pull through.

8. Buttonhole Stitch: Insert your needle under the same left leg of your enlarged stitch as step 3 from left to right. 9. As you pull the thread through, direct the needle over and through the loop of thread. Pull the thread snug.

10. Repeat steps 8 and 9, about 7-10 times or as needed, stacking your stitches up on the same left leg of your enlarged stitch. I made 9 stitches total, including the set-up stitch. (The amount of stitches needed will depend on your thread/yarn thickness and the size of your enlarged stitch. Ideally you want your stack to be at least 3/4 of the height of your button. More Buttonhole stitches will make a taller buttonhole and stretch open the stitch more, however to avoid distortion of your buttonband, you will have to find a balance that works. See step 14 for more info) 11. As you make the Buttonhole stitches, work over the tail of yarn, thus covering it.

12. Locate the top bar of your enlarged stitch as well as the bar above it. Working in same manner as Buttonhole stitch from step 8, insert your needle from top to bottom under these two bars and pull over and through the loop of thread. 13. Pull the thread snug. 14. Make 4 or more buttonhole stitches over these 2 bars. (The more stitches you make here, the wider your buttonhole. Extra width can help accommodate larger sized buttons, especially if you were unable to fit enough stitches along the first leg of your buttonhole without distortion occurring).

15. Repeat steps 8 to 14, working Buttonhole stitches down the right leg of enlarged stitch and over the two bars below. Make sure you work the same amount of stitches on opposite sides for a symmetrical buttonhole.

16. To finish buttonhole, insert needle from top to bottom under the set-up stitch and pull through. 17. To weave in end, insert needle under the Buttonhole stitches in the opposite direction of your work. If your tapestry needle is sharp, you can pierce through the core yarn to make it extra secure. 18. Remove your needle, and trim thread tails .

18 and 19. Make the rest of your buttonholes in the same way! For the purple buttonhole in these photos, I used half the thickness of the thread (3 plies) rather than the full thickness of thread (6 plies) that I used for the orange and blue buttonhole.

Now check and see if your buttons fit through!