KNITmuch Issue 1 | Page 36

A better one-row buttonhole Glenna Harris 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 round ones (pictured left), each about an inch wide. But these adorable owls and lobsters (pictured below) would be amazing on a little children’s sweater. They are longer than they are wide – so choose your button-hole width based on the narrower length. 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. 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. Photos and video by Glenna Harris 36 KNITmuch | issue 1