Oh buttonholes! It’s amazing how something so small can cause so much stress. When i first started sewing, it was on a vintage Elna Lotus that had a very basic buttonhole method outlined in the manual that I used for many years before I upgraded to a machine with an automatic function. So today I am going to show you how you can sew buttonholes on your machine without an automatic function, using only the zig zag stitch. Yes you can!
This method is really handy if you have a sewing machine without a buttonhole function, or one that has a buttonhole function that results in really bad buttonholes (i’ve been there!). It’s also really handy to know how to do this incase you are in a situation where your automatic function can’t cope. My Bernina has an excellent automatic buttonhole function, but it simply can’t sew a good buttonhole using topstitch thread. Nope, not going to happen. Disaster. So times I have really wanted to sew buttonholes with topstitch thread i still use this method.
The key to sewing a buttonhole using on a zig zag stitch is tweaking until you figure out what settings work on your machine to acheive the buttonhole you would like. This is not a first time wins method, you will need to tweak and try different settings till you get what you like.
