Buttonhole Blues…

I said ‘buttonhole’, not this:

So after 2 weeks or more when I haven’t managed to find any sewing time at all, I slooged away for about 12 hours yesterday to get ahead of the game on my exam marking…and claimed a couple of hours sewing time today hurrah!

Parrot Donna Karan shirt?  Don’t mind if I do!

So on went the audiobook, and I sat peacefully handbasting silk organza into collars, cuffs and front facings.  Nice.  Attached the beautifully shaped under collar band to the under collar [this is a gorgeous shirt, with a lot of lovely style details- the collar is LUSH!]

All good, and a beautiful 3-D curve happened, as if by magic.  I wavered.  I went against all common sense, and decided to MAKE BUTTONHOLES.

Now I gave up on machine buttonholes years ago- I don’t have a funky state of the art modern machine, or an amazing vintage Singer buttonhole attachment, and every atempt is a damn mess, leaving me disgruntled.  I just avoid them.  All recent shirts have had snap fasteners, and very nice too.

But this shirt, which I made previously for the wife, has all its lovely buttonholes completely hidden- the front edge folds to cover them, the buttondown collar is contrived so that the buttons vanish INSIDE the collar when fastened, and the same for the large french cuffs.  Not a button in view when done up. And although I wasn’t happy with the buttonholes, not one bit, the missus has never complained.

So I thought I’d just go for it.  Most of the problem comes on the backwards-sewn bit of the buttonhole, so I’ll just flip it round I thought, and do both bits using the forward stitch.  Easy.  Shimples…Why Fairy, why?

Above you can see the lovely curved and edge stitched under collar.  And here are the 2 horrible scratty buttonholes I’ve made so far.  Vile.  Unforgivable.

Even tucked on the underside of a collar, I can’t have this.  They’ll have to be unpicked.  And I suppose I need to make the commitment to doing handsewn buttonholes.  Sigh.  I quite like handstitched details, but I’d hoped for a quick fix with this.  It’s not to be.

I’ve consoled myself with some garden pics, taken after very heavy rain.  Pretty!  Oscar and Simba decided to join in, Miss Vita refused to participate.

Back to the exam marking, but here’s a parting shot of one of the gazillion cakes I made for students.  This was the joyfully received lactose-free fatless sponge which I gave to the exchange students before they left for all points European.  Apparently they carried round all day showing it off before finally eating it…it’s the glitter that does it!