Neat buttonholes

Hi Knitters,
What method do you use to do neat buttonholes? I’ve just done a garter stitch button hole band using the cast off 2 stitches on one row and then cast on 2 stitches on the following row. My buttonholes are never clean holes, they are always a funny shape!
I may be doing something wrong. Do I knit or slip the stitches that I’m casting off? On the cast on row what method should I use?
I’d be very interested in what other methods other knitters use. Thanks.

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Not so long ago I learned to do buttonholes this way and they should be the same size as the two row buttonhole you did.

K2tog, yo, k2tog (or ssk)
Next row: K1, p1 into yo.
There are other ways to work two stitches in a yo but this is easiest and worked well for me. The instructions were for using two k2tog’s but autopilot had me doing mirrored decreases and I liked that way better anyhow.

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Thank you. I’ll try this :blush:

There are other nice buttonhole techniques but they are little more time-consuming. Nice but more effort.
The one row buttonghole:


and the tulip buttonhole.

They both work for buttonholes of any size or stitch number.

This video has a neat firm button hole using cable cast on and a tip to wrap the last stitch.

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Thank you so much for this video. This has solved my problem of the loose thread and also the methods of casting off and casting on.
Can I just ask you one more question? If the pattern says for example K11 stitches between button holes do I count the stitch already on my right hand needle after doing the cast off?

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Great videos. I don’t mind the extra effort as long as the button holes look neat. I will definitely try these. Thanks for sending.
Great to have these videos all in one place to refer back to too. I’m loving this site site. : )

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I would say yes count the stutches in the right needle, ie include the stitch you had to knit in order to cast off, that’s 1 worked already.
I haven’t made lots of things with buttons but when I have I counted the stitches and marked the holes before starting the row, this way I make sure I have counted correctly and also I can see how they are spaced, if I want them closer or an extra button or the same number of buttons but with the top one closer to the top of the cardigan etc. In one cardigan I decided to have a button hole in the neckband and this wasn’t included in the pattern so I altered the spacing a little.

Thanks fo the tips. The child’s cardigan I’m knitting a bit longer than the pattern so need an extra button hole.

I always liked this method for buttons and buttonholes from Eunny Jang:

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Oh thank you for sending that. Takes all the guess work out of it :slight_smile:

The Party Lyons three row buttonhole works well for me!

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This one gives really neat edges !

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That’s great thanks, and really simple. I always do cable cast on anyway as I think it’s neat so this will suit me fine.

I tried lots of different buttonholes in garter stitch, but I was not really happy with any of them. They all seemed a little wonky to me. And then I found THIS technique! It makes perfectly straight, almost invisible buttonholes! I love it!
A Dandy (New) One-Row Buttonhole

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That looks great. Thank you it’s very helpful.