One-row button-holes can be made neatly and securely!
If you’re a knitter who has advanced to sweaters – whether for adults or children – you’ve probably encountered the need for button-holes in your knitting! Button-holes can be tricky to get the hang of, and there are many different ways to make them. Trying a new button-hole technique could make all the difference for your next cardigan project.
There’s also a huge variety of buttons out there to choose from. I love the versatile style of these and these ones (pictured above), each about an inch wide. But these adorable owls and lobsters (pictured below) would be amazing on a little children’s sweater.
Whenever I go shopping for buttons I always end up coming home with several different kinds, even if I only need them for one project at the time! Building up a button collection of your own is a fun task, so you’ll eventually be prepared and ready for different button situations.
These adorable buttons are longer than they are wide – so choose your button-hole width based on the narrower length.
There are many different ways to knit a button-hole. One of the first methods many of us encounter is a two-row button-hole method (shown second on that page), where the knitter first binds off stitches for the button-hole on the first row, then on the second row coming back, casts on new stitches over top of the gap created by that first bind-off. This is an easy way to get the hang of button-holes at first, because all knitters know how to do at least one basic bind-off and cast-on.
An alternative to this is the one-row horizontal button-hole method, where both of these steps are done on the same row. The advantage with this technique is that it creates less of a gape in the button-hole itself, since both the bind-off and cast-on happen on the same row. It requires just a little bit more attention, but the skills you need are very similar.
In the video clip below, I’ll show you how to work the one-row horizontal buttonhole. It just takes a few minutes to learn!
How to work the one-row horizontal buttonhole
I hope you enjoyed the little clip, and if you’re new to the one-row button-hole technique, be sure to give it a try! If it’s still not your favorite technique, be sure and keep looking around for other methods and see what you like best. Fall is coming soon, and so is sweater weather, so we’ll be making a lot of button-holes very soon. Trying a new technique could make all the difference!
