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Monday, March 21, 2011

The One-Row Buttonhole

If you've been making your knitted buttonholes with a bind-off on one row, a cast-on on the next, there's a better way:  the one-row buttonhole.  With a wave and a nod to the wonderful Barbara G. Walker, and with my usual proclivity to chart for clarity, I'm going to walk you through making a sample of this marvelous self-reinforcing buttonhole.  Save it for your scrapbook.  (You are keeping a scrapbook of swatches, aren't you?)

I'm presuming you're working with a firm yarn such as a worsted.  If you need a buttonhole on a soft, fluffy yarn, knit in a single sewing thread of the same color for the row before the buttonhole, the row of the buttonhole itself, and the row following the buttonhole.  Later, you can unravel the two ends of the thread that are not worked into the buttonhole. Knot these ends and hide any loose tails.

Cast on 15 stitches and work in stockinette for four rows.  (These figures are arbitrary, but they'll help with the instructions.)  Now we're going to make a 5-stitch buttonhole that will begin and end on this same row.  

Looking at the stitches on your left needle, mentally number them 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15.  Number One is the first stitch you're looking at on your left needle, counting from right to left.

Knit stitches 1–5.

Bring your yarn to the front of the work.  Slip stitch #6 onto the right needle.  Pass the yarn to the back of the work and let it just hang.  We're not going to use it again for a while.

Slip stitch #7 onto the right needle, pass #6 over it.  (1 st bound off)
Slip stitch #8 onto right needle, pass #7 over it.  (2 sts bound off)
Slip stitch #9 onto right needle, pass #8 over it.  (3 sts bound off)
Slip stitch #10 onto right needle, pass #9 over it.  (4 sts bound off)
Slip stitch #11 onto right needle, pass #10 over it.  (5 sts bound off)

Slip stitch #11 back onto left needle.  Turn work.
Pick up the yarn we left dangling; pass yarn to the back.  There are 5 stitches on your left needle.  They are purls.  They’re numbers 1–5 as seen from the back.

Now we do a cable cast-on.
Insert needle between stitch #4 and stitch #3.  Draw a loop through the gap.  Slip this loop onto the left needle, ahead of stitch #5.  (One stitch cast on.  This is our new #6.)

Insert needle between stitch #5 and stitch #4.  Draw a loop through the gap.  Slip this loop onto left needle, ahead of the new stitch #6.  (This is our new #7. Two stitches now cast on.)

Insert needle between stitch #6 and #5.  Draw loop through; slip loop onto left needle.  (This is a new #8:  three stitches now cast on.)

Insert needle between stitch #7 and #6.  Draw loop through; slip onto left needle.  (New #9; four stitches cast on.)

Needle goes between stitch #8 and #7, draw loop through, slip onto left needle.  (New #10; five stitches cast on.)

Needle goes between #9 and #8, draw loop through, BRING YARN FORWARD, then slip loop onto left needle.  (New #11, six stitches cast on.  Note that yarn exits space between stitch #11 and stitch #10.)

Turn work. Slip first stitch on left needle (the old #11) onto right needle, and pass the extra cast-on stitch over it.  You are now back to the original stitch count of 15 on the swatch. 

Your buttonhole is finished.  Knit to the end of the row.  (The illustration shows the purl side of this one-row buttonhole.)



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