For buttonholes this machine has an automatic one-step buttonhole. First reach for your
buttonhole foot and you’ll notice the bar is in the front and this extends out the back
side
First hold the front and then push this lever away from you. That’s going to open up this
area behind the foot. Then put your button in and close it up. The machine is going to
do a buttonhole this exact length, so you don’t have to measure or mark your fabric.
Just mark where you want it to start.
I’m going to go ahead and put the buttonhole foot on. If you have a little trouble getting
it underneath, you can always lift that little foot a little higher and then go ahead and
click it on. Before you stitch, while we’re down here behind your needle threader is another
little lever. Pull that straight down and push it. It says push, so push it.
So settings; buttonholes will look better with a little bit less tension on the top
so those threads will pull to the back side so I’ve turned it down to three. Set your
stitch width to five. Your settings for the stitch length are going to be in the buttonhole
range, between zero and one, so a halfway point, maybe a little on the zero side. That’s
the easiest way.
You want to make sure that you have proper stabilizer under your fabric. Remember the
buttonhole is going to start here and stitch away from you, so you’re first one, make
sure you don’t start here because it’s going to go up. If you’re unsure, do your
first buttonhole in the middle of the fabric.
What I’m going to do is just go ahead and stitch the first one right about here. When
you put the buttonhole foot on, there’s no place for this extra little thread from
your needle. Once you’ve sewed one, it will get dragged below. The first one, I always
just kind of hold on to this thread. I can take a few stitches and then trim it if I
don’t want to keep holding on to it. Maybe make that stitch length just a little closer
together.
What I’m going to do is I’m just going to go all the way … oh, I do have to pick
… sorry, back up. You do have to actually touch the buttonhole setting and select your
stitch number one. We’re going to reset that here over on this side, push again so
that actually is reengaged. Now it’s all set.
The part that you push is going to tack the back of the foot and that’s what will tell
the machine to turn around, do the tack at the top and be all set there. I think because
we started, and then we can tack; there we go. We have the little bar tack at the end
here. Okay, let’s see where we’re at here.
Once we have one buttonhole done, to do the next one just go ahead and push your lever
again. That will reset it. You’re going to go ahead and switch back, it’ll turn
it around at the end, come forward; now when it gets back down to where you start, that’s
when I pushed it again and it did the tack at the bottom and then kind of a few stitches
up the other side.
Just in case that wasn’t clear the first time, that looks a lot better. How fun is
that? Buttonholes can be used in so many places from home dec to places with drawstrings,
curtains, holders like within a bathroom shower curtain; you could put buttonholes up there.
There’s one other way you can do a buttonhole, and that’s a corded buttonhole. On this
foot there’s a little nub back here. I’m going to take some cord and I’m going to
divide it in half and I’m going to come underneath my foot. I almost need three hands
here, so if this is not easy the first time you do it go ahead and lay it where … it’s
two cords coming underneath the foot and then there’s a little kind of finger right here
in the front.
I have kind of a little slippery cord, so I’m going to kind of hold this all at once
and lower that down. Once those first couple stitches get started; there we go; I can kind
of let go of it. What it’s doing is it’s satin stitching over this cord for a corded
buttonhole. That’s going to give a nice raised look and it’s great for stretchy
fabrics too, or if you’re doing something like in a coat.
There we go. We’ll tack and locking stitches will finish it up. Let me show you how this
is going to look. When it was hooked on the back side here; this is our little loop on
the back; then you’re going to take one of the cords at the end pull, pull, pull,
pull; there we go, and it will slip into the top part. Then I’m just going to take and
trim these really close to my stitching like that.
We can trim this thread off because that’s nice and secure, and of course this is too.
So we can go ahead and trim and then we have a perfect buttonhole. It almost looks more
filled in than the other two that we did, so it’s a great way to have a more substantial
buttonhole.