Step 1Cut a heart out

Cut a heart out of paper, and cut out a piece of stretch lace that is at least 1/2″ larger than the heart all around. Place the lace and paper heart on the undies wherever you like, but at least 3/4″ away from the edge.

Step 2Zigzag around the heart

Using a narrow and short zigzag stitch, sew all around the paper heart template being careful not to stretch or distort the fabric as you sew. Don’t stitch through the heart template—make sure the needle just barely touches the paper.

Step 3Cut the heart out of the fabric

On the wrong side of the undies, cut the heart out behind the lace right up to the edge of the zigzag stitching. Be careful not to cut through the lace or stitches.

Step 4Trim the Lace

On the right side trim the lace all around the heart, right up to the stitching. Be careful not to cut through the fabric or stitching.

Step 5Finish the Undies

Continue following the pattern instructions to complete sewing the undies, and you’re done!

Step 1Interface the Fabric

Interface the front and front facing pieces of your jacket or coat with a lightweight fusible interfacing. Do this to both the left and right sides, as both the buttonholes and buttons themselves will benefit from the support. If you’re following along with these instructions using scrap fabric, interface your scrap. Also apply interfacing to the small piece of fabric you will use to bind the buttonhole.

Step 2Cut a patch out of the binding fabric

Cut out a rectangle from your binding fabric that is 1″ wider than your button and 1 1/2″ high.

Step 3Draw guide lines

Mark 5 horizontal lines on the interfaced side of your main fabric, each 1/8″ apart. The middle line (#3 in the photo) will end up being the opening of the buttonhole, so keep that in mind. Mark the exact width of your button with vertical lines—these lines will determine the location of the left and right edges of the buttonhole.

Step 4Mark the Sides

Use pins to mark both of the vertical lines you drew in Step 3. Flip the fabric over, and use the pins visible from the right side to center your patch of binding fabric (interfaced side up, right sides together) on the right side of the main fabric. Pin the patch to the main fabric.

Step 5Baste the Fold Lines

Machine baste along the top and bottom lines (lines #1 and #5 in the Step 3 photo). Be careful to keep your stitching straight and accurate.

Step 6Press the binding fabric

On the right side, fold the sides of the binding along the basting stitches and press.

Step 7Sew the binding

On the marked/interfaced side, stitch using a regular machine stitch on the two lines next to the basting stitches (lines #2 and #4 in the Step 3 photo).

Carefully to stitch along the line, and use the hand wheel to start and stop exactly at the vertical lines. Carefully backstitch for one or two stitches at the beginning and end, and make sure not to fold back the other side of the binding as you sew.Accuracy is very important here—if you don’t stitch exactly on this line, or don’t start and stop exactly at the vertical lines, you will end up with a crooked buttonhole.

When you’re done, this is what it should look like on the right side:

Step 8Remove the Basting

Remove the basting stitches you made in Step 5. You may be able to simply pull the threads out. If not, use a stitch ripper and remove the thread bits as best as you can.

Step 9Cut the binding fabric

On the right side, cut the binding fabric between the stitching. Do not cut the main fabric at this point (or the sewing police will come after you!).

Step 10Cut the buttonhole

OK, now you can cut the main fabric. Cut a slit across the middle and a diagnoal snip into each corner as shown by the dotted line. Make sure that each “V” made by the corner snips is at least 3/8″ wide to make the next step easy. Be careful not to cut into the folded parts of the binding fabric on the other side, and make sure to cut right up to but not beyond the corners. If you don’t, your finished buttonhole may have a “pulled” look in the corners.

Step 11Turn the binding

Pull all the binding fabric to the wrong side, and press flat while keeping the buttonhole square (well, rectangular of course, but you know what I mean!).

Step 12Finish sewing the binding

Fold the main fabric back, and make sure the triangle (formed from snipping into the corners in Step 10) is visible. If it isn’t, it’s probably still on the other side and needs to be pulled through. Sew along the “base” of the triangle and both strips of binding fabric, as shown by the dotted line in the photo. Keep everything straight and square as you sew. Repeat for the other side.

Stop

Are you making a jacket or coat? If so, stop here. Complete sewing your jacket or coat, then follow the rest of the steps to finish the buttonhole on the facing side.

Are you following the tutorial with scrap fabric? If your scrap of fabric is large enough, fold it over to cover the back of the buttonhole to simulate a facing. If not, get another scrap of fabric to use as a facing. Apply fusible interfacing to your “facing”, and continue with the rest of the steps.

Step 13Baste the buttonhole

On the right side, hand or machine baste around the outer edges of the buttonhole as accurately as you can. If machine basting, use the hand wheel as you approach the corners in order to mark them precisely.

Step 15Clip the Facing

Using the basing lines as a guide, clip the facing as shown (the same way you clipped the buttonhole
in Step 10). Make sure you clip right up to the corners, and be careful not to cut the binding or front fabric. Remove the basting.

Step 16Fold and press the facing

Fold back the facing to match the perimeter of the buttonhole binding, and press with an iron.

Step 17Sew the Facing

Thread a hand sewing needle with thread that matches your main fabric as closely as possible. Slipstitch all around the buttonhole opening in the facing, to attach the facing to the binding. Catch only the top layer of the facing with the thread, so that no stitches are visible on the right side.

You’re done!

Now you never need to use boring automatic buttonholes on your jackets and coats every again. Woot!

Step 1Pin the Lace to the Hem

You should have at least a ½–1 inch hem allowance, and it’s easiest if your hem allowance exactly matches the width of your lace (that way you can just pin the lace all around with the bottom edge matching the bottom of your hem allowance). Otherwise just pin the lace keeping in mind that the bottom edge of the lace will be the bottom of your hem. When you get back to the beginning, overlap the lace by about 1 inch.

If you’re making this hem for a skirt or dress lining, it’s usually best to make the lining about ½ inch shorter than the dress hem, just to make it look neat and tidy from the outside.

Step 2Sew on the Lace

Using a short and narrow zigzag stitch, sew the lace to the hem along the top edge all the way around.

Step 3Trim the Hem

Fold the lace back along the zigzag stitching, and cut as close as possible along that line without cutting the stitching or lace. When you’re done, stitch over both ends of the overlap with the same narrow zigzag stitch.

Step 1Choose the Sweaters

You’ll want to find sweaters that are made with a similar fibre content and are of a similar thickness. Although it’s not necessary, you’ll make it easier on yourself if you choose sweaters with a similar texture, too. Personally I prefer using sweaters with a predominantly natural fiber content (especialy wool), but anything will do. If your sweaters are quite large and you’re not, you may be able to get away with using just two sweaters. Otherwise, you’ll need three. Don’t confine yourself to the Ladies Department, either. Men’s sweaters are great to use, too! The sweaters shown here are what I started out with.

Step 2Disassemble one Sweater

Decide which sweater you’d like to make up most of the front and all of the back. Separate the front from the back, and off with the sleeves! You don’t have to be extra-careful at this stage, as you’ll be doing a more precise cut in the next step. But do try to preserve as much usable fabric as possible. You may want to leave the ribbing intact for the front and back pieces as I have done—this will save you the step of finishing the bottom hem later.

Step 3Measure the Front

Decide whether to use the front or the back of the sweater you cut up in Step 2 as the front of your new sweater. I decided to use the front, because it had a neat argyle pattern on it. Measure all the way around your waist (the narrowest part of your torso, usually across your belly button), and divide the measurement by 4.

Decide how tight or fitted you want your final shirt to be. We’ll be working with a seam allowance of ½ inch, so keep that in mind. For a tight-fitted, stretchy shirt, subtract ½ inch from your measurement. For a looser-fitting shirt, add ½ inch to your measurement. I subtracted ½ from my measurement. As shown in the photo to the left, fold your piece of sweater lengthwise in half, and from the folded edge use a ruler or tape measure to find the measurement you ended up with. Mark with a pin. To be extra precise, take this measurement once or twice more along the same edge so you get a nice straight cut in the next step. Me, I like to live dangerously so I just measured once.

Step 4Cut the Front

Take a deep breath, we’re diving in! Using the pins you placed in Step 3 and keeping the piece of sweater folded, cut a straight line up the side. Decide how long you want the sweater to be, and cut the side accordingly.

At this point you’ll need to decide how open you want the v-neck to be, because you’ll be cutting the arrow-like angle at the top of the front piece. If you want a small v-neck opening, make the angle at the top shallow. If you want a wide v-neck opening, make the angle at the top pointier. You may have to experiment with this a bit to get it right.

Step 5Get the shape for a Top Piece

Decide which sweater you want to use for the pieces attached to the top of the front (the dark grey pieces in my example). Now mercilessly cut apart that sweater like you did the first one. Lay the front or back of the sweater under the front piece you just cut, under one of the sides of the angle at the top, as shown in the photo. It doesn’t matter how you line it up; I chose to angle it like this because I thought it would look nice with the striped design following the edge of the neckline. You can make yours go straight up and down if you want to, or choose any angle that works with your sweater.

Step 6Cut a Top Piece

As shown in the photo, use the angled edge of the front piece to cut the bottom edge of the top piece. Beginning at the point of the front piece, cut the neckline of the top piece. Cut at any angle you like—the angle you choose will help determine how open or closed the finished neckline is. Don’t worry about how tall to make the top piece yet; you’ll try the sweater on and adjust the length later.

Step 7Cut the Other Top Piece

Use the top piece you just cut out as a guide to cut out a second one. Lay down the top piece wrong side up on the same sweater (pin it down if you like) and cut around it like a template. You should now have two top pieces, a left and a right.

Step 8Pin a Top Piece to the Front

Step 9Sew the Top Piece to the Front

Sew along the pinned edge using a ½-inch seam, being careful to not stretch the edge as you sew, or you’ll end up with puckered seams. Remove the pins as you go. Press the seam down with an iron. Set the temperature of your iron to match the fiber content of your sweaters—when in doubt, use a lower temperature, or use a silk organza press cloth to protect the sweater.

Step 10Pin and Sew the Other Top

Repeat Steps 8 and 9 to pin and sew the other top piece to the front.

Step 11Try it On, and Adjust

The front is almost finished! Just hold it up to yourself to figure out how much to lop off of the top pieces. Hold up the front so that the neckline sits where you want it on your body. You’ll have to cut enough off of the top pieces so that they end about two inches below your shoulders. I ended up cutting off about four inches from mine.

Step 12Cut out the Back

Use another piece from the same sweater you cut the front out of to make the back. Place the finished front onto this piece as a template to cut out the back piece, but cut straight across the neckline instead of cutting a V shape. Use the photo to the left as a guide (I ended up cutting off the ribbing at the top).

Step 13Measure the Sleeve Width

Take the last sweater remaining and cut it apart like the other two, except leave the trim at the bottom hem intact (you’ll use it to finish the neckline later). Take the front piece of the sweater you just cut up and fold it lengthwise in half. Measure around your bicep, just under your armpit. Divide this measurement in half, and add ½ inch. Mark this measurement from the folded edge of the sweater with a pin as shown in the photo to the left.

Step 14Shape the Sleeve

Place the marked and folded sweater from Step 13 under the completed front. Angle it as shown in the photo so that the pin meets the bottom of the top piece, and the top of the sleeve-to-be is about 2–2½ inches away from the top of the top piece.

Step 15Cut out the Sleeves

Cut the sleeve out along the angle defined by Step 14. Cut the top of the sleeve perpendicular to the fold line and meeting the top of the finished front. Cut the bottom of the sleeve perpendicular to the fold line and about ½ inch longer than the bottom of the top piece. Use the finished sleeve as a template to cut out another. Unfolded, your sleeves should look similar to the photo.

Step 16Sew on the Sleeves, and the Front to the Back

Sew the sides of the sleeves right sides together to the angled parts of the front and back. Sew the front and back together at the sides. Fold up the bottom of each sleeve by about ½ inch to form a hem, and sew using a medium zigzag stitch. Your sweater is almost complete!

Step 17Finish the Neckline

On the right side of the sweater, pin the trim salvaged from the last sweater all the way around the neckline starting from the tip of the V, as shown in the photo. Sew all the way around using a ¼ inch seam allowance. Overlap the trim at the V as shown in the second photo. You may also want to sew the overlapped edge on the inside of the sweater to keep it from flapping out.