Buttonholes!

[JudyN]

@Elnnina I may end up doing that if all else fails. The person who recommended them said they couldn't fault their after-sales service. But they're about 40 mins drive away, so I'd at least want to try all the other features on the machine to make sure everything else works fine - I wouldn't want to go back a week later because the zipper attachment wasn't doing what it should! As a halfway house, I could video me going through the process and send them that - hopefully they'd be able to work out where I'm going wrong (or if it is a problem with the machine).

[HenriettaMaria]

Just realised that this may be a new machine to you.  Are you absolutely, 100% certain, that you have threaded it properly and engaged the tension?  Sometimes it's the forehead-slappingly daft things that trip us up!

[JudyN]

Just realised that this may be a new machine to you.  Are you absolutely, 100% certain, that you have threaded it properly and engaged the tension?  Sometimes it's the forehead-slappingly daft things that trip us up!

It's working fine on straight stitch, zig-zag, etc... But yes, it's not just a new machine, also I've never had one that's done more than straight stitch & one type of zig-zag before. So user error may well come into it!

[CCL]

Morgan's info above is spot on.  I did some photos a few years ago to share with folks on making buttonholes.  These are on a shirt.  I made what I called a shim (but later found that some call it a hump jumper).  It's just several pieces of cardboard taped together to be level with whatever bump, hump or lump the back part of the buttonholer has to slide over.  (Note: In these photos, I had previously made the buttonholes using the cardboard shim, but I took these to show placement.)

Placing the shim against the collar stand edge

stitching the button hole through the shim

I also have found that when doing the buttonhole on the collar stand, if I position the buttonhole attachment so that it is level on the stand itself (rather than having to negotiate the edge of the stand), my buttonholes are successful.


collar stand button hole
Hope these photos are useful.

ETA: I found another photo of the shim in case anyone finds this helpful.


Shim - home made for buttonholes

and here's an upside down photo of placement on my practice piece for the buttonhole under the back welt pocket on a man's pair of trousers.

Vogue 8890 -10 Shimming the buttonholer for back welt pocket buttonhole

[JudyN]

Thanks so much, @CCL  Good grief this is complicated! I might put my hubby on the job - I can do philosophy and pure maths but stuff that relates to the real world and involves spatial perception... then I get all confuzzled

[JudyN]

I have a buttonhole!!!

Not in the fabric I want it in, but in a different area on the sacrificial jacket, but at least now I know I'm turning the right knobs and pressing the right buttons.

Though I've realised there's a ruddy great seam right where I want to put the buttonhole which I refuse to unpick, and which will probably mean there's no chance of the stitch working. So I'm going to think up an alternative approach, and probably wait till I've got a humper jumper.

[toileandtrouble]

@JudyN  If you don't have a humper jumper, then make a sandwich of offcuts of  fabric, or cardboard, to the right thickness  to keep the foot level as it sews.  Fabric has the advantage of being adaptable to the thickness of 3 layers, or 5, or whatever is needed to match the thick piece.

[wrenkins]

Genius! Flippin' genius!

I have a lil plastic hump jumper which is fine for what I need it but it's fiddly and pings out the back. It's also sloped from front to back so although it works for seams, I'm not sure how it would handle 'areas' like the area required to do a buttonhole; having said that I've never tried it.

That slot idea is inspired!