Button holes can be done super easy with the automatic button hole foot.
That's the one with the red wheel on it and the foot C is our manual button hole foot
so you actually have 2 feet that look identical.
One's going to allow you to program in the exact length of button hole you need and one
will help you for some other techniques that we'll show you as well, like corded button
holes.
So, for this one here I am going to show you before I put it on that on this side which
will be on the left side, when you look at the top there is a white mark and when you
roll the wheel there will be a white crown and if you don't have that lined up or if
it has moved before you start, the machine will indicate, please line up those two.
You'll actually have to kind of, when it's on you're going to be leaning this way to
look at that white crown.
As you can see that one I put the foot on, sometimes that will move or when I slip my
fabric underneath sometimes that will move that wheel so just plan to get that set prior
to sewing and then with plugging it in there's a place right here.
You just have to follow your finger up, you can feel kind of where it is.
If you need to peak underneath to really see it, go ahead and do that but once you get
used to it you should be able to just kind of guide it up there with your fingers and
give it a good push.
When you give it a good push and it stays firmly in that will be correct but for any
reason when you start sewing these button holes it just keeps going and going and going
we call those, at our store, run away button holes, that just means that you didn't plug
it in all the way.
Just unplug it and then put it back in and you'll get it all set.
You can come over to the side of the machine and pick your stitch here.
You can use the sewing advisor.
So, if you want to tell it what fabric you're working on and tell it that you're doing a
button hole, it will pick the right button hole for the fabric you have selected.
I'm going to go ahead and do woven medium and it's going to go ahead and select the
most basic style of button hole.
It also has a black dot right here, kind of looks like at the bottom of the button hole
and that's where it's going to start.
So, just keep in mind that when you put your fabric in don't put it up here because you're
going to run off the edge of your fabric immediately.
And, of course, you're going to do some test button holes.
Test it with the same fabric and interfacing that you have with the actual project.
If you just test it on a regular fabric and then switch to a heavier one, you might not
get the exact results.
So, I'm going to first just move that really, that red wheel, now my crown and white mark
are matching.
The other thing that we can do is, how do we tell the machine what size button hole
we need?
Take your button and then right down here where the measuring tool is on the front of
your machine, there's a zero with a dotted circle, we're just going to put our button
right there and then we're going to look and see that that is 18 millimeters and you can
come right over to the screen you have a new part here that showing when you pick a button
hole and it shows right now a default length of 14.
So, if I want it to be 18 I can just go ahead an touch the arrow up to increase or down
to make it a smaller size.
Once, that's set we don't even have to do anything.
You just need to know where you need to start your button and there's marks on the front
of this foot so you can set them to always start at the same place, if you are working
from the edge inside to say, 5/8's of a millimeter, go ahead and measure that, I believe that's
in, might be the first mark here, I'll have to measure it myself.
I don't have that one memorized.
But once you have this set so you can lower that down and see are you right where you
need to be.
Now, you can go ahead and put the start/stop button on you can use your foot control.
I'll just lower the speed down just a little bit and just use the start/stop button.
It's going to sew straight back here and then it will tack with the zigzag over the straight
stitch and that will be the left leg of the button hole and once it gets all the way down
then it will go ahead and stitch all the way back straight and this red wheel, that's what's
counting how long it has traveled for making that 18 millimeter button hole just perfect.
Now, once it gets down to where we started it will tack it, lock it and cut it and lift
the presser foot up so it's all done at once.
I love these button holes.
All right.
We'll just pull that out.
Does it get any more perfect that that one?
It doesn't.
So if this was the right size you would go ahead and use scissors or button hole cutter
to open that up.
A lot of time I'll put a little fray check on there but let it dry for about 5 minutes
then cut it open and then you're set to go.
You also notice that you have other type of button holes.
As we go through each of those they will often change feet, if need be, like 29 you're going
to use the regular button hole foot.
Letter C you're just going to switch over, that is a stretch button hole done on knit
fabrics often.
Now, with this because we don't have a length free set once we go ahead and start it we
kind of need to know where we're going to turn it around.
You also notice there's a new symbol on the screen it indicates your reverse button.
That's the same one.
As we go ahead and start stitching, I love that it kind of does a little crisscross or
like a cross stitch type button hole that has a little give to it, it's beautiful.
Go ahead and stitch as far as you need to be, press the reverse button one time.
That's going to go ahead and tell the machine that's as far as you need to be and then it
will start coming back down the right side.
Again, this does not know where we started so we will need to tell it, so I'm going to
get almost there, maybe one more stitch, then touch that reverse button.
It's going to switch the picture right here indicating that it's going to do the tack
at the bottom and secure that for me.
There's the lock and then now it will do the cut.
So, we only have to touch that reverse button two times.
Once, once when we get to the length we want and once when we get back to where we started
and see how pretty that is.
If that was on knit fabric it would have a little bit of give to it.
So, that's how you actually use the manual button hole foot.
Another thing that you can do is when you use the sewing advisor for say a, stretchy
fabric the new symbol that's going to come up, it looks like a little cord going through
this exact foot.
There's a little peg or nub on the back here that you can see.
We're going to put the cord over that.
Because there's two channels to help keep your button holes running evenly the cords
going to sit right inside there.
Watch how this is going to work.
We're just going to take some pearl crown rayon that I got in my stash here.
Gimp cord is often used too.
Pretty much what we're going to do is just divide it in half.
Put the half way point or the loop over the back part of the manual button hole foot then
it's just going to sit right inside there.
Sometimes, I can get this, well actually, it might be quite, I might be there today.
Okay.
So let's just go ahead and well just stitch this normal.
It's a normal button hole.
Once it takes a few stitches it will guide the cord for me so I really don't have to
hold on to it.
It always looks like it should but I don't have to.
Touch the reverse button to set the length and then it's going to come back down the
right side of it.
It's really kind of neat how it goes here.
You will need to also stop it once those two legs are level and then go ahead and let it
do the tack and lock at the end and then we'll show you how you finish this.
There's the cut.
Okay, this is what you have.
A quarter button hole is great, also for stretchy fabrics that need some stability but even
on a coat where it's really thick, you want to have something, it's like adding extra
stabilizer underneath your stitching.
For this loop here all you need to do is take a hold of one of the threads and pull.
There we go.
Maybe I'll pull the other one.
There, that's much easier.
Pull until the loop disappears and take your scissors and trim out the remaining part of
that and then when you give it a little stretch those will kind of tuck underneath and push
themselves up into the stitching and that is how you do a corded button hole.