Bound Button Holes: Friend or Foe ?

I have rather a Love hate relationship with Bound Button Holes, I love the look of them but I hate the execution of them.

Lets face it they are pretty, but does the amount of aggravation and extra time spent on them really justify putting them in over normal button holes, in the main they are going to be hidden by the button anyway.

I can understand putting them in when you are going to have to spend hours putting other types of button hole by hand but in the age of the machine button hole which takes seconds, meh.

I’m going to use a particular dress as an example, it has been sitting on my Dress Making Dummy for about two months (bad me) the skirt is together and the top is together the only thing standing between me and New Dress Heaven is bound button holes (that and the fact I’ve lost the two small facings for the skirt piece). On the dress top I have carefully stitched on both pieces of right hand facing the squares of fabric to create my button hole I’ve even cut the slot to push the pieces through to the back, but have I hand stitched them in place have I heck as like.

Saturday evening Simon was Gigging in Colchester, I thought lets sort these button holes out sitting in front of the TV watching Haven. It took me four hours to create five button holes, I did try and cut a couple of corners and do the first one in one go instead of making the ‘lips’ on the front first and then slip stitching the back facing piece to it. That didn’t go down too well so I abandoned this and did the last four properly. But Four Hours and I still have another three to do which are on the skirt piece, may be another two hours button hole work. Seven hours to make nine button holes when I could have them all done in less than twenty minutes.

I’m sure there are the purists out there who would say ‘hell yes, you must put in those Bound Button Holes and while you are about it make your other button holes by hand as well, that is why they give us the instructions for how to do it.’

At the end of the day a button hole is just something to stuff a button through to stop your clothes falling off.

The other thing you could say is that the more you do the quicker you become and next time it won’t take seven hours to create nine button holes. But do the button holes on this dress

look fours hours worth better than the button holes on this dress?

I don’t think so.