BUTTONS COME TO TOWN

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 87, 4 July 1927, Page 5

BUTTONS COME TO TOWN

AIDING THE DRESSMAKER

(By DOROTHY DEE.) Buttons, themselves, are amiable and rather fascinating little ornaments, but when they cease to be merely trimming and need buttonholes it’s a very different tale! Of all the awkward items in dressmaking, I think buttonholing strikes the beginner as being the most difficult. There are plenty of people who would rather trust to the very incertain pin than attempt the making of a buttonhole. Yet, when you know how, as in most other things, practice soon makes perfect, and they are easy enough to handle provided you tackle them in a businesslike manner. We will say you wish to make four buttonholes, two inches apart, down the front of a coat, then this is the way to set about it. EXTRA MATERIAL Cut a strip of material eight inches loflg, and two and a-half inches wide, for a medium-sized buttonhole. Turn in each side of the strip a quarter of an inch, and stitch the turnings by machine. Mark he position for each buttonhole on your coat front with pins, and measure the space between each to be sure it is exactly two inches. Place your strip wrong side up, over the right side of the marked coat front, with one inch turnings above the first pin, and one inch below the last pin, then mark on to your strip the position for each buttonhole with a line of chalk. You can feel your pins through the strip. Draw they must be dead straight, and take your chalk lines with a ruler, for

them up to the turned-in edges each side of the strip. Then draw out your pins. Machine each side of each line of chalk, taking your stitching as close as possible to the chalk line, and up to the hemmed edge each side of the strip. CUTTING THE HOLES Cut through the strip and the coat material beneath it at each ehalk line, between the double row of stitching, then cut through the strip alone midway between each buttonhole. Pull the turnings through the inside of the slits you have cut. The hemmed edges of the strip give a neatly-finished end to each buttonhole, when the strips are pulled through. Press the buttonholes flat, on the under side, and fell the edges of the turnings of the strips to the under side of the coat material. Now you have four neat and perfectly straight buttonholes, practically made in one, and when you face your coat fronts you will cut a slit in the facing over each buttonhole, and turn in and fell the edges of the slits to the under side of the buttonholes. Single buttonholes you make in the same way, with your binding strips cut two and a-half inches long, and one and a-half inches wide. *or smaller buttonholes, of course, you will need a shorter binding strip.