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Hey all! A few weeks ago, when I was managing the Instagram account, I asked if anyone had any questions for the Sewcialists. While I thought you’d all ask about how to become editors (seriously though — consider putting your name in next time there’s a callout! It’s a lot of fun!), there were actual sewing questions!
I’m going to take two questions related to my own fears: how to sew around a zipper pull, and tips and tricks for buttonholes. Editor Chloe is going to handle some other questions in another post.
Buttonholes
I should preface this by saying that I don’t love doing either of these two tasks, buttonholes or zippers!
The question we got on Instagram was just a plea for advice on how to make buttonholes. I’ll run through a few options, and show off my new-to-me toolkit!
My last sewing machine had all the feet and a buttonholer; my new(ish) Janome is more of a heavy duty basic machine and is missing some of these key amenities. In face, you have to make buttonholes manually on my machine, and not in a cute or pretty way.
Luckily, I was listening to the podcast Love to Sew one day and Helen (from Helen’s Closet Patterns) was talking about this very handy very old Singer buttonholer. I’m not gonna lie, I was on eBay 5 minutes later and got one of my very own.
I will absolutely confess that I have not used it yet, but it rather closely resembles a giant walking foot and makes key hole and regular straight buttonholes from dies (cut metal templates). They’re appropriate for all low shank machines.
So, back to actually making buttonholes. If you’re freehanding the buttonhole (i.e. bar tacking around a pre-marked line where you want your buttonhole to be), I’d really like to send you to this Instagram highlight from Grace, aka @wzrdreams. I almost cried when I watched this, it was so pretty.
If you’re using the three step buttonhole method like my machine, you line up the needle on the top left side of your marked buttonhole line, then slowly but not too slowly (so, like a medium speed) sew to the end of your marked buttonhole line, switch to the middle setting which does a bar tack from left to right, stop on the right, switch to the right setting and go up from there, repeating the bar tack at the top. You can see why I bought the Singer attachment, right?
Using a Singer buttonhole attachment is another beast entirely. Again, they’re for a low shank machine; they’re vintage; get as many dies as you can in your kit; and watch this Instagram highlight from Helen to see how it works. It’s magic, people. Magic!
If your machine has a buttonhole attachment, use it. I really miss that feature of my old Brother machine. Basically, you put your button in the back of the piece of plastic that attaches to your shank, and the buttonhole setting “reads” how big that button is and adds a bit of extra space so you can get the button in and out of the finished hole.
Other useful tips and tricks:
- Daub your buttonhole with a bit of Fray Check so that it doesn’t keep shredding. I think there are different schools of thought about whether to use the Fray Check before or after you cut the buttonhole — I use it after.
- Get yourself a tiny little chisel to cut open your buttonhole. Listen, there are people who will tell you to use scissors. Those people are not me. My hand-scissor coordination is not good enough to cut such a tiny thing without cutting the stitches on the buttonhole.
- When you do your practice rounds (did I mention that I normally make five or six buttonholes on scrap before I try to make the real deal?) make sure that you interface the fabric and use the exact same fabric that you’re going to make the final buttonhole on. Take it from someone who didn’t do this and couldn’t figure out what went wrong, this is a step too important to miss. No one likes messing about with interfacing, but just do it. It’s worth it.
Finally, when in doubt, rip it out. Yup, it’s a pain and it leaves 80 million tiny threads behind, but we aren’t doing fast fashion, we’re doing it right, amiright?
Zippers
Onto the very specific zipper question, which was this: How do you sew around a zipper pull? I hopped on to say (not that facetiously) that you should do it very slowly. But there’s actually a tip here: Start with your zip open and sew it in place. When you’re about halfway down, move your zipper pull up to the top, so the zipper is closed. Now you’ve sewn around it. Repeat for the other side.
Sometimes the most simple option is actually the one that works the best. This doesn’t work in all cases, but it does work in most. Also, lots of people hopped on to the comments to hype this technique (specifically for invisible zippers, which is what I am grappling with now) from Kenneth D. King and the editors at Threads magazine.
I hope these tips and hints help!
Kerry is a moderate level sewist with many fears and not that much stick-to-it-iveness when it comes to things she’s not that good at. She can often be found @gymnauseous on Instagram.
Invisible zippers are my bugbear! Thanks for the video link, I look forward to watching it.
Those buttomholers don’t fit on every machine! I bought one (a different one, because the jetsons-case one was pretty certain not to fit on my husky star)on eBay-knowing I was taking a chance-and I can’t get it to work, not on the husky star or my new singer heavy duty either. The problem areas are in the height of the buttonholer getting in the way of the lifting lever, and needing a hole in a particular spot on the bed to screw down the accompanying plate.
My first machine was a Kenmore with an oval buttonhole foot. If I’d known I’d never be able to find that again I’f have treated it much more carefully and I’d still own it.
On the subject of buttonholes: does anybody have advice to get both sides of a buttonhole with an automatic buttonhole foot to come our even? I have tried every setting I can discern with no joy. On the huskystar it was rhe return side that was always gappy: on the singer heavy duty it’s the left, first, side.
Hi Lucy, re: buttonholes with uneven sides, see if the mechanic can adjust anything next time you get it serviced. Some people sew their buttonholes over twice to get a denser stitch (I do).
The Singer and the Griest buttonhole attachments are made for a variety of machines, even the slant stitch Singers and are readily available on the web. You must look for one that will fit your specific machine. I have two of the old Singers, a 15-91 and a 201 and they both use the low-shank buttonhole attachment. They work nicely and produce beautiful buttonholes but one caveat: they can be a bear to line up exactly. If I am making something where exactness in placement is critical (shirt fronts come to mind) I use my Brother Inovis 40. I can put each and every buttonhole exactly where I want it and have them all line up. That is not always the case with the attachment. If i must use the attachment for the “best looking” buttonholes such as keyhole buttonholes for a jean jacket I usually have to unpick at least one buttonhole and try again.
As to getting the two sides to come out even with an automatic buttonhole foot I use my finger to slightly retard the forward movement which gives you more stitches per inches than if you let it go on automatic. And I have found from painful experience to never walk away and leave the machine to do its thing; it will invariably hit a snag and hang up when you least expect it.
I also own the Singer attachment in the space-aged box (mine is pink). It produces beautiful buttonholes which I tried out here: https://lizhaywood.com.au/the-vintage-buttonhole/ However, I found there was almost no space in the centre of the buttonhole to safely cut it and we couldn’t work out how to widen the gap, so eventually I went back to my old way of doing buttonholes.
I have a buttonholer from the 40s that was my grandmother’s. That buttonholer makes perfect buttonholes every. single. time. They are perfect. Read the manual, don’t forget to put on the plate that covers the feed dogs, keep them maintained (use the same stuff you use if your machine has the grease caps) and have fun. Magic, I tell you.
Instead of sewing around a zipper pull, buy a longer zipper and when you are ready to put the facing or binding on the top, pull down the pull, sew over the teeth and then cut off the excess zipper tape.
I use the ‘sew-half-the-zipper-pull-it-&-sew-the-other-half’ method, and heard a great tip to help pull the bulky zipper head under the feed dogs: tie a piece of ribbon to the zip-pull, it saves a lot of scrabbling about!