Stabilization and Buttons on Sweater Knits

 Buttons by Moving Mud, fabric by O! Jolly!

I've got a few sweaters planned (as usual) and I thought it would be a good idea to practice my button and buttonhole skills on a sweater knit fabric. Back when all my sweaters were fully fashioned, I knitted in buttonholes as I was going along. I didn't always add stabilization. I should have. Stabilization for buttons and buttonholes is a very good thing. Stabilization adds support to this stretchy fabric, which will get lots of pull from buttoning, unbuttoning, and the weight of the button.

Using the cut and sew method there is no excuse for not stabilizing. If I were planning a structured jacket like the Zipper Ripple Jacket, I'd probably just use interfacing and facing as for a jacket of woven fabric. To keep the "sweatery" look, I'm using what hand knitters often use -- grosgrain ribbon.

The preparation is the same for buttons or buttonholes. I'm using a relatively thick and squishy half cardigan fabric in this example. (Hand knitter's will recognize it as a half fisherman rib or shaker rib.) I wanted to eliminate some of the bulk that might happen at the edge from the seam allowance had I sewn the ribbon on like a regular facing. Instead, since the ribbon already has a finished edge, I made a lapped seam. I placed the ribbon edge 1/4 inch over the raw edge of the sweater knit and then glue basted them together.

I used fabric glue stick this time, but washable school glue would have worked just fine.

Since one side of my presser foot was going to be on sweater knit and the other on grosgrain ribbon , I decided to use the walking foot. I used an inside edge of my walking foot as a guide and I sewed the lapped seam.

The last step was folding and pressing the ribbon to the wrong side and sewing on the button. (Yes, I pressed, not just steamed this time, but I only pressed the edge.)  The pic at the top of this page shows the result. Next I'll need to practice my machine sewn buttonholes on sweater knit! (Edit: Buttonhole post is here!)

O!