Yesterday I asked for some advice on buttonholes. As you can see, the yarn over buttonhole has left a lot to be desired on this cabled cardigan. My daughter complained about these monstrosities daily.
Some generous fellow bloggers (reWOLLuzza, paulineos, and jenpedwards) and gave me great advice. Since I couldn’t figure out how to shore these holes up with crochet singles- I’m not a crocheter- I chose to rip out the button band and try again with the one row buttonhole technique. Tutorial found here- http://www.neoknits.com/2009/03/one-row-buttonhole-tutorial. (Thank you reWOLLuzza!)
Thank goodness I used a superwash merino in this sweater. The yarn was only lightly felted and not too difficult to rip back. The look of the one row buttonholes is far superior to the simple yarn over holes and I don’t think we’ll have the same trouble with them. They are nice and tight.
Update on the City Tweed cabled sweater: Somehow, I didn’t join an arm exactly in the center side of the body and I had to rip back to 3 pieces. It’s not a total tragedy because the sweater body could use a bit of lengthening and now I can do that… but it did make me a little sad to lose a day’s worth of knitting.
andresueknits.wordpress.com 
I’m with you. I don’t like a yarn over button hole. One row button holes always look nicer to me, more finished.
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Looking great! Glad I could help… 🙂
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Looking good!
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I agree, the yarnover buttonhole is not my favorite. My favorite is actually the tulip buttonhole for horizontal buttonholes. The one row looks really good on your buttonband! I like it!
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I just looked up the tulip buttonhole and it looks great! Plus, it doesn’t use the cable cast on which I find very difficult for some reason… I’m going to save this technique to try out on my next button band.
I found a great tutorial on it at http://techknitting.blogspot.com/2012/03/horizontal-buttonholes-including-new.html.
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That’s exactly the tutorial I used when I was learning it!
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I like the tulip button hole! I don’t find the cable cast on difficult, but mine ends up sloppy and loose in the first stitch or two… which is fine when I’m casting on for a sleeve, but might not work for a button hole. I may have to give it a shot next time though.
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The sweater looks great. I agree, Yarn Overs for button holes never look quite right.
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Your one-row buttonholes do look great. Kudos to you for ripping and redoing! It took me a long while to get over the “oh my gosh this is going to take so much more time” phase and just RIP and REKNIT anytime I’m not happy with something. Great job!!!
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lol. I know what you mean! When it takes several weeks to complete a project, the last thing I want to do is rip it back out!! Which is why my daughter had to live with these awful buttonholes for several months while I worked up the motivation to fix them! 🙂
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Ha, Her appreciation was probably greater since she had to wait 🙂
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