One of my friends asked for some help with her coat. She's had it a number of years and the elastic that held the buttons in place was all stretched out.....See?
It didn't hold the coat closed well, and made this otherwise perfect coat look a bit "worn" and droopy.
Something like this is quite an easy fix. Simply replace the worn elastic with BUTTONHOLES!
Your machine probably came with one of these bad boys.... It's a buttonholer. It is your friend in a situation like this....
It actually serves two purposes.
1) It measures the button to give you the perfect size buttonhole. Simply place your button in the two clamps at the back of the foot. Typically you would leave the button in there to ensure it doesn't change sizes on you, but in this case I didn't want to remove the button from the coat so I did my best to gently remove it and not jostle the foot at all.
2) The buttonhole foot makes a perfectly shaped and sized buttonhole! Simply attach the foot to your machine, set your machine to the correct buttonhole setting and pull that little sensor lever that is on the underside of your machine down. It should gently touch the front "tab" of the button hole foot.
Before you attempt making buttonholes on coats, give it a whirl on some scrap fabric to get a feel for how it works. When the machine is doing it's magic, you need to be very careful not to touch, tap or breath (kidding) on that sensor - it can mess up your buttonhole!
Once you get the hang of it, just double check to make sure your buttonhole fits your button well.
Great! Now you are ready to work on the coat.
Start by laying your coat flat and pin if needed to hold layers in place. Measure in 1/2" from the edge of the coat and mark where your buttonhole will go. Remember, buttonholes should be placed horizontally. While your buttonhole will do the measuring, I like to mark the coat anyway so I can eye if something goes awry.
Go ahead and make your buttonhole. When finished, it should look like this:
Clip off any loose threads and use your seam ripper to open up the hole.
You may not need to do this, but I then was ready to clip off those worn and loose elastic loops! See ya later!
And now that coat looks as good as new!
Happy Buttonholing!
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