Hand sewn buttonholes without fusing?

[Chanterelle]

Hi all,

Wondering if there is a good guide to hand sewing buttonholes without stabilizing the fabric with fusing. With fusing, my buttonholes are decent


But without fusing I'm hopeless. Even with a floating interliner, say for shirt cuffs/plackets/collars, and overcasting the edge by hand, I'm still met with fraying, or the edge near the cut coming apart from the fabric midway through the stitch process. I genuinely enjoy hand finished details, especially buttonholes, and prefer soft construction (especially when using oxford cloth).

How should I approach soft or unfused construction with hand-sewn buttonholes? Or should I just fuse the area always?

[Schneiderfrei]

I love hand sewn buttonholes with what ever the cloth, especially oxford, poplin anything really.

Thinking mostly of shirts here, because silk is de'rigueur for coats.

I have occasionally used an embroidery ring, but mostly it is skillful use of fingers aquired through practice. And I never use interfacing.

Following peterle's advice, years ago I turned to cotton a'broder No. 25.  If you are going to do them make a feature of it.  Plus the slightly  thicker thread gives more body and firmer shape.

Plus I make a double knot around the ring. I think it just looks better, more lifted up.

G

[peterle]

I usually baste around the button hole Mark to prevent the layers from shifting. The mark should follow the grain line.
Dependig of the fabric I then do a line of running stitches very closely around the mark that will be overcasted.
Then I cut the hole(beteeen the lines) and overcast it with a few stitches using very fine thread and needle.
Finally I do the languette stitch or in very light fabrics just a tighter overcasting stitch like in the pic.

[Gerry]

With shirts, you can machine round the opening. Either two parallel lines, or a rectangular box. It helps to stabilise the opening.

If you can do buttonholes by machine, this is even better, resulting in a 'half-and-half' buttonhole (half machined, half hand-worked). Use slightly larger spacing than normal and don't go over the buttonhole multiple times (only once). This not only prevents fraying, but provides a template for your hand stitches.

[Schneiderfrei]

I forgot to mention basting.

[Greger]

Are you pulling your stitches to tight?

[peterle]

In this case I did. The fabric ist very very light, a bit see through quality. I pulled the ridges tighter to prevent any shifting to reduce the danger of ripping or fraying.
Because of the sheer fabric I didn t use  any interfacing.

[Greger]

That is interesting cloth you got, Peterle.

[peterle]

I also like it. It s a vintage border print, 80s obviousely😁

[Greger]

That's nice.

[Chanterelle]

Are you pulling your stitches to tight?

yes, most likely. Perhaps it's a matter of working out the proper tension through practice

[spookietoo]

I'd recommend working a few practice buttonholes in an embroidery hoop. The hoop holds the tension of the fabric properly and you should see a huge improvement. Perhaps by experiencing this (if you've not done embroidery work or its been awhile), you can work out the best way to manipulate the fabric with your non-sewing hand in order to maintain proper tension. I find this is an issue on most handworked shirt buttonholes - even in photos of well known shirtmakers.

Most shirting fabrics would allow for extraneous fabric to be basted to cuffs and collars for temporary use of a hoop. When sewing for myself, I'll take the extra time for a better result.

[Chanterelle]

Most shirting fabrics would allow for extraneous fabric to be basted to cuffs and collars for temporary use of a hoop

Do you have a pic example of this that you wouldn't mind sharing? trying to imagine how this would work under the tension of the hoop

[Gerry]

James MacAuslan has a video demonstrating the use of an embroidery hoop (though not as described by spookietoo). By his own admission, the results aren't great, but in all fairness he's a cutter at Budd, not one of their machinists/finishers.

https://youtu.be/WazsliKfDSE?si=o8gXIjVDIaLeDv2S&t=306

I'd be a little concerned about permanently stretching the cloth on the weft with his method. spookietoo's sounds like a better option.