Buttonholes
There are many ways to make buttonholes in knitted garments. We will cover some of them in this lesson. This part covers small eyelet buttonholes. Part 2 covers larger ones that are a little more complicated.
Small Eyelet Buttonhole
These are the simplest buttonholes. They are also ones commonly used by hand knitters.
Step1
At the point of the desired buttonhole, transfer 1 stitch to the needle on the right or left. Transfer direction does not matter, but be consistent; that is, for every hole in the band, transfer either to the adjacent needle on the right, or the adjacent needle on the left, but do not mix the transfer directions.
Step 2
Bring each emptied needle back to position B. When you knit the next row, it will lay a strand of yarn in the needle hook.
Step 3
On the next row, it will begin to knit normally. Check each buttonhole at this point. The stitches should have knitted off cleanly. If they did not, manually take each stitch through.
2-Stitch Eyelet Buttonhole
This 2-stitch eyelet will accommodate a large button. The hole is not as even and professional-looking as other styles, and will wear longer if it is finished by hand sewing around with matching yarn.
Step 1
At the point of the desired buttonhole, transfer 1 stitch to the needle on the right and one stitch to the needle on the left. Bring the emptied needles back to position B.
Step 2
Knit 1 row. The yarn will strand across both emptied needles. Remove the yarn from the right needle, and be sure the needle remains in position B.
Step 3
Knit 1 row. The left needle has knitted a stitch, and a strand of yarn is now in the right needle hook. Using a transfer tool, pick up the strand of yarn you dropped in Step 2 above; hang it in the hook of the needle just to the right of the buttonhole.
Small Eyelet In Ribbing
This is the simplest buttonhole for ribbing. It is shown in K1, P1 rib, but works equally well in 2×1 rib (knit 2, purl 1 on the outside of the garment, which looks like purl 2, knit 1 on the inside).
Step 1
On the row for the buttonholes, first drop and relatch the rib stitches. buttonholes are made by transferring a knit stitch to the adjacent needle. Return the emptied needles to position B so that they will knit on the next row.
Step 2
Knit the rest of the rows for the band, and convert to ribbing. Drop the stitch off the needle that was used for the buttonhole and run it down to the transfer row. Insert the latch tool into the hole, go under 2 bars, catch the 3rd bar and pull it under and out toward you, then latch up the remaining bars to form ribbing as usual.
This is the completed buttonhole.
This tutorial was copyrighted and uploaded to the original Clearwater Knits website in 1997. It was updated in 2017.