Buttonholes

#1

Hi -After spending too much time trying to work this pattern out I’m crying Uncle & asking for help. I am completing the right border on a child’s cardigan & I am making the buttonholes, 4 altogether. The patt. says Moss st. two rows (done that)

Next row. moss st. 3sts cast off 2 sts (buttonhole) (moss st. 14 cast off 2sts) 3 times, moss st 2. I have 59 stitches to start with, no matter how I try this I can’t figure it out. Looking at the pattern there is a buttonhole at the top & the last one is on the welt. I can usually figure patterns out because I know it wants me to repeat within the brackets but I end up with stitches over.

Any help is much appreciated.

#2

It looks like it’s a two row buttonhole. So you do that row casting off where it says and then when you turn and do the next row it should have you increasing stitches over each cast off area which will create the buttonhole.

Can you post a link to the pattern? That helps when asking questions so we can see what you are seeing.

#3

Work 3 sts in moss st, then work 2 more to cast off the first stitch, then another for the 2nd cast off st. Then ignore the loop on the R needle and work 14 more sts in moss, 2 more to cast off the 1st st and 1 more for the 2nd st. Repeat to the end. If you end up with 3 at the end instead of 2, that’s what I came up with also, but that’s okay because it’ll match the 3 at the beginning of the row.

#4

Sue has the key to why you are not getting the count right. Seed st 3, * k2, lift the second one from the end over the end st for the bind off, k1, lift the second st from the end over for the bind off. K14 repeat the bind off as given at the *. K14, BO2, K14, BO2, for the last buttonhole and there will be 2 stitches at the end, do them in pattern.

When I did it on paper I had it wrong, but worked over the 59 sts it came out perfect. If you have an extra st just work it in pattern as Sue said.

#5

I worked it out on the calculator - 17 sts times 3 = 51, plus 5 at the beg, plus 2 at the end comes out to 58. Dunno :shrug:

Okay, after thinking about it, you use 6 at the beg not 5. So that does add up to 59.

#6

This knitting math drives me crazy. :eyes: The pattern says,

(moss st. 14 cast off 2sts) 3 times

Regular adding and multiplying would tell you that was 14+2 or 16X3, but you said it is 17X3 and you are right. (I tired it over stitches). But then you said it looks like 5 for one end +2 on the other, but I tried it and just like the 16 is 17, the 5 is 6. So there is the other st. 17X3+6+2=59. Wow, solved again. They should have tackled this stuff in school math class.

I now see that you already solved this. Oh, well. Maybe someone else would like to read it. :lol:

#7

Yeah, I forgot to add the k1 more for the 2nd BO on the first set of sts though I added them to the others.

#8

Thank you ladies, after reading your replies I finally solved the buttonhole problem.
For future knitters I was counting the BO stitch as l then counting 13 - wrong! when I started counting 14 + 1sts BO(15) it worked out perfectly. After being a knitter for more years than I care to remember, they almost never make a mistake in the instructions, but it isn’t always easy to describe
how to achieve the end result.

Many thanks again to all of you for your prompt reply.

What a great forum.!!