Buttonholes!!

Hello friends!

I have to confess that I had just about stalled out on finishing up the dresses I am making for Lucy and Clara. Why? Because each dress requires 7 buttonholes. Since my modern machine was in the shop,  I was sewing the dresses on my Singer 99K. It's a sweet little machine, even if the foot pedal is hard to control.

So last week I dragged out the buttonhole attachment and the cams and the instructions. Then I made samples (inspired by Susan's exhaustive demonstrations at Spare Time)


The purple fabric is a sample of different sizes (not all of the ones I have as I ran out of fabric) and the pink fabric is a sample of different bights (thicknesses). This attachment makes buttonholes like a dream! In all of the samples above, I went around the button hole twice. So easy! And the fabric has a raised stripe which would have completely befuddled my modern machine. (It had significant difficulty with the texture on this fabric.)

But even with those encouraging samples, I was still terrified of actually stitching the buttonholes into the dresses. I dragged my feet on getting Clara to try on her dress so that I could get the hem marked and the button holes placed. But finally, yesterday afternoon, I tackled it.

I was so impressed (with my machine and myself), that I made a video! So now you get to hear me and my machine AND watch the buttonhole attachment in action!


My apologies for the wiggley video. I was trying to do everything myself. And then, of course, Lucy walked in and interrupted, so I had to stop and start again.


Success! Now I just have to topstitch the hem on Clara's dress and sew on the buttons (a good playground task), and her dress will be done! Lucy and I plan to shop for her buttons this afternoon. HOORAY!

Comments

Nadia said…
So...are you for hire? Cause I could really use a seamstress in my life!
Karin said…
Well done you! I am always hit and miss with button holes. I have an unfinished jacket because I cannot figure out the button holes!
Mamabear: Generally, no. There are so many things rambling around in my mind that I really need to get out of my brain and onto fabric, that I almost never take sewing jobs.

But the more sewing I do, the faster I get, so (in theory, anyway) the more time there might be for sewing jobs...
Karin - Jacket buttonholes would still scare me. You can't get very thick fabric under this buttonhole attachment. I might just opt to do what LindsayT does - take it to a shop that will do the buttonholes for you.
(I don't know that there are any in my area, but still.)

And I have yet to make a bound buttonhole.
SEWN said…
Very cool! I have the Singer buttonholer thingamagig, but not any of the cams. I will have to find some. Your buttonholes look amazing.

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